We lunched and caught up with each other at Tyrell’s Ford with Helen, Shelly, Bill, and Ron. My choice was steak, chips, onion rings, mushrooms, tomatoes, and peas. I had no room for dessert. I drank Flack’s Double Drop bitter. Jackie’s main course was turkey escalope, salad, and chips, followed by syrup madeira cake and ice cream; accompanied by Diet Coke. I won’t speak for the others, save to say that all the meals were enjoyed.
Jackie and I had to leave the sisters and their spouses to their coffees while we dashed back to Milford on Sea for our flu vaccinations.
Afterwards we drove to Keyhaven where I walked along the sea wall and we both took photographs as sunset approached.
I produced the first two images of a couple of sailboarders; the other two were Jackie’s.
I photographed a swan trying to discern its reflection in rippling water; Jackie focussed on me at the far end of the wall with the bird fishing in the foreground.
A couple walked on ahead of me while I concentrated on grasses in the landscape, a louring skyscape, and a skein of geese honking overhead.
Jackie photographed boats in the harbour and Hurst lighthouse in the distance; and, of course,
me in action
We both caught the sunset. Jackie’s are the last two with the rows of masts.
We returned via Saltgrass Lane where I pictured a further sunset to which Jackie turned her back to photograph the moon beyond a grass curtain.
As the sun lowered its sights another photographer and watchers were silhouetted on Hurst Spit.
This morning, with minimal help from me, Jackie assembled the solar powered water feature bought yesterday. This is not its intended resting place but it has been left on the patio for the sun to charge it up.
On this hazy afternoon we drove to Mudeford and back.
I wandered around the harbour with my camera.
First I focussed upon people taking in the main view, before making my way to the north-eastern side for what I thought would be the best almost monochrome shots.
Take particular note of the elegant swan.
Allowing a glimpse of yellow a sailboarder walked in the water to the shore, where, unbeknown to either of us,
Jackie completed the story as he carried the sail across the sward;
she also photographed the masts laid up for winter, the street lamp, and gulls in flight, one of which perched atop a post.
Now back to my swan and the irresponsible chase. Even when fleeing for their lives swans take a long time to achieve lift-off. Like a bouncing bomb, our Cygnus managed to escape, and the dog returned empty mouthed. The photographer in me saw this as an opportunity; the human being, as a totally irresponsible act by the owner/s who had loosed two such animals in what should be a safe haven.
This evening we reprised yesterday’s fusion dinner with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Cabernet Sauvignon.
Rain beating a clamorous tattoo on the Modus roof; repetitive rapping from a thumping car radio; abrupt slamming of doors; crashing gears of handbrake ratchets; muffled muttering of masked voices; clicking stilettos clopping through puddles – all combined to distract me from the last chapters of ‘Little Dorrit’ as I waited in the car while Jackie shopped in Tesco this morning. Fortunately the rain had stopped when she brought her trolley load for me to unload into the boot.
Heavy rain soon set in again, and I finished reading my Folio Society edition of Charles Dickens’s ‘Little Dorrit’.
For fear of spoiling the story I will not add my own detailed review of this tale which has been printed in many editions and filmed for a BBC series in 2008 to the many that may be found on the internet.
I will simply quote the first paragraph of www.brittanica.com’s article:
‘Little Dorrit, novel by Charles Dickens, published serially from 1855 to 1857 and in book form in 1857. The novel attacks the injustices of the contemporary English legal system, particularly the institution of debtors’ prison.’ and add that it is a love story with added mystery.
The writer’s flowing prose with sometimes poetic descriptive passages and witty humour mostly captivates, although some of the more boring characters had my interest flagging occasionally.
Christopher Hibbert’s introduction is as helpful as always.
Charles Keeping’s inimitable illustrations are a perfect accompaniment to this novelist’s masterpiece. Regular readers will know that I have posted these as I have worked my way through the book. Although some narrative may be gleaned from these pages I have done by best not to reveal too much.
Here are the last three:
‘A big-headed lumbering personage stood staring at him’ as the brim of his hat had been tossed over the body of text.
In ‘Tattycoram fell on her knees and beat her hands upon the box’ the artist has captured the beating motion.
In ‘Changeless and Barren’, his final illustration, Keeping has managed to symbolise that the work is drawing to a close.
The rain returned before we arrived home and continued pelting for the next few hours. Rather like yesterday, it ceased by late afternoon. Unlike yesterday the sun remained lurking behind the thick cloud cover. We took a drive anyway.
As we approached Keyhaven the sails of a trio of enticing kite-surfers could be seen.
By the time we arrived they were packing up.
Saltgrass Lane runs alongside the tidal flats. At high tide it is often closed.
As we arrived, waves were lapping over the rocks and rapidly covering the tarmac. I was splashed by passing vehicles as I photographed the scene.
Figures were silhouetted on the spit; birds made their own contribution.
We continued along the lane back to Milford on Sea. Had we returned via Keyhaven we would probably have been locked out.
Other lanes, like Undershore, were washed by rainwater from overflowing fields and ditches. Jackie parked on this thoroughfare and I wandered along it for a while.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s stupendous chicken and vegetable stewp and fresh bread with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Garnacha, which involved opening another bottle.
On another wet afternoon we drove to Lymington for printer inks and to Milford on Sea pharmacy and Co-op, diverting to Keyhaven on our way home.
Saltgrass Lane was well waterlogged, even though the tide was not yet high enough for its closure.
Walkers, dogs, and vehicles were silhouetted on the spit against dramatic skies.
Sedate swans, occasionally dipping their benthic burrowing beaks, sailed along the water’s surface.
Skeins of geese honked overhead;
turnstones rested on rocks while
Jackie photographed me photographing them, as the rising tide lapped around them
Nearby she also spotted a thrush (identified by quercuscommunity’s comment below as more likely a rock pipit), curlews, geese, and an oystercatcher.
A hardy human pair spent some considerable time immersed up to their necks in the water, arousing the interest of a pair of swans when they changed into their dry clothes. The last picture is Jackie’s.
This evening we dined on tasty Welsh rarebit, Jackie’s choice chicken and vegetable stewp, and fresh crusty bread, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Macon.
After another wet morning I made a set of A4 prints of his last session on our roof for Barry, then scanned the next five of Charles Keeping’s illustrations to ‘Little Dorrit’.
In ‘The cloudy line of mules hastily tied to rings in the wall’, our vision is certainly clouded.
With ‘He found a lady of a quality superior to his highest expectations’, both author and artist have the tongues firmly in their cheeks.
‘As they wound down the rugged way, she more than once looked round’, depicts the slender limbs of these beasts of burden. The circle of the sun balances the picture nicely.
There is a wealth of period detail in ‘I write to you from my own room at Venice’.
‘To the winds with the family credit!’, cried the old man’, displaying far more animation than we have seen before.
Later this afternoon the weather brightened and we took a drive to Longslade Bottom, a favourite venue for
walkers and frolicking dogs.
The stream at the bottom of the slope is a Winterbourne – only flowing in winter.
Keep an eye on the young woman with two children beginning to make her way back up the slope.
Ponies quietly crop grass and crows noisily gather in the treetops.
As I ambled down the slope, who should I pass but the woman, now struggling with the two children, who still managed to find the energy to respond to my greeting.
Can anyone spot the changes in the writhing burdens?
Having reached their vehicle the battle to install the children inside it continued against a threatening sky to the shrieks of “I don’t want to”.
Particularly having watched so many children and dogs on these slopes, I must mention that the piles of canine excrement which I needed to avoid rivalled those of the ponies. Do the dog owners have any idea of the danger that what they leave to fester among the grass presents to children? (Anyone who doubts this should read John Knifton’s comment below).
This evening we dined on Jackie’s tasty chicken and vegetable stewp, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank Macon vin de Bourgogne 2019.
Today we took an early lunch and drove to Tesco for our big shop. As usual I sat in the car, Jackie did the business, and I intended to read my book. After one page my sister, Jacqueline, phoned me and that was the end of the reading.
In fact Tesco wasn’t too difficult, so the Caterer in Chief wouldn’t let me unload the shopping into the car for Covid safety’s sake.
We took a diversion round Holmsley Passage and its misty, frosty, landscape on our way home.
As I wandered, fingers and toes tingling, I discerned just one group of grazing ponies.
Others, on Holmsley Road
and Wootton Common were nearer at hand. One, as soon as I paid it any attention, huddled against its companion seeking security.
A weak sun, putting in an appearance over Hordle Lane, silhouetted a number of oaks.
Undeterred by the fact that we are still consuming provisions bought in for Covid-cancelled Christmas, Jackie had made her first Easter egg purchases.
This evening we dined on more of Jackie’s perfect spicy pork paprika; boiled potatoes; firm carrots and cauliflower; and tender runner beans, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Malbec.
This afternoon we followed a rather circuitous route to Ferndene Farm Shop where Jackie made some timely purchases without having to queue.
At Neacroft a weak sun silhouetted trees and houses and lightly illuminated the lane
beside which ducks scavenged before crossing to the other side.
Did you spot the decoy?
Moving on after waiting for the waddling ducks we were somewhat delayed by a pair of cyclists.
A tanker lorry on Bockhampton Road was a more serious blockage than either of the first two. There was no way round this one. Jackie was about to turn round when this action was aborted by a driver having arrived behind us who apparently knew better.
The cycle-laden motor passed us and, attempting to do the same with the tanker, came unstuck.
The cycle-carrier reversed enough to allow a passenger to emerge and remonstrate with a gentleman in the garden. The seemingly ineffective gesticulations had subsided somewhat before I photographed the exchange. Jackie wound down her window as the lady approached and informed her that “He’s not going to move his lorry any time soon”.
We allowed the other driver to make the first turn round, then did the same.
The weather vane on Owls barn sports both an unconcerned owl and an unafraid mouse.
As usual the River Avon at Avon had burst its banks and numerous swans had taken up winter residence in the water meadows. Jackie photographed me in action, and
a couple of shots of her own.
A pair of inquisitive donkeys basking in the remaining sunlight that pierced the arboreal backdrop of Priest Lane, Sopley, rose to their feet on my appearance.
Now we are back in full lockdown I took a walk along Christchurch Road to the
field leading to Honeylake Wood.
So far so good. I was not quite the only walker leaving footprints on the muddy track leading to
the leaf-laden undulating path down to the bridge
over the fast running stream. Reaching the bridge was the trickiest bit. As I slithered down the muddy slopes I grasped at branches rather too flexible in order to keep my balance, hoping they would hold and not dump me in the morass.
On the way down I was able to take in the surrounding woodland.
Soon I was on the upward, firmer, track,
bordered by undergrowth containing mossy logs, a discarded welly,
and bracken-covered woodland.
At the top of this slope I turned for home – just carrying myself and the camera was all I could manage, let alone use it, as, head down and gasping, I retraced my steps and staggered home, aware that I had seriously overdone it. I collapsed into a chair and rested for quite a while.
Last night I finished reading ‘Neroism is in the Air’ – Germany: 1890-1914, being chapter 6 of ‘The Proud Tower’, Barbara W. Tuchman’s excellent analysis of the build up to WWI.
Writing of music, philosophy, theatre and literature, the author focusses on the country’s competitive culture. She begins with the strident strains of Richard Strauss reflecting Nietzsche’s concept of ‘rule by the best’ and the Kaiser’s arrogant military ambitions, continuing to Wilde’s Salome and other bloodthirsty tragedies which captured the soul of much of the nation, uncannily presaging the current conflicts in her own country. Gentler voices are drowned by the violence of others. Tuchman does not neglect the considerable contribution of Jewish people to all aspects of life, despite the rising anti-Semitism.
Today was one to stay inside and keep dry. I therefore scanned another batch of colour slides made in May 2008 and February 2009.
All black and white images in this post have been converted.
The body of Emmeline Pankhurst lies here. Her memorial has been bound with the suffragette colours.
‘Emmeline Goulden was born on 14 July 1858 in Manchester into a family with a tradition of radical politics. In 1879, she married Richard Pankhurst, a lawyer and supporter of the women’s suffrage movement. He was the author of the Married Women’s Property Acts of 1870 and 1882, which allowed women to keep earnings or property acquired before and after marriage. His death in 1898 was a great shock to Emmeline.
In 1889, Emmeline founded the Women’s Franchise League, which fought to allow married women to vote in local elections. In October 1903, she helped found the more militant Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) – an organisation that gained much notoriety for its activities and whose members were the first to be christened ‘suffragettes’. Emmeline’s daughters Christabel and Sylvia were both active in the cause. British politicians, press and public were astonished by the demonstrations, window smashing, arson and hunger strikes of the suffragettes. In 1913, WSPU member Emily Davison was killed when she threw herself under the king’s horse at the Derby as a protest at the government’s continued failure to grant women the right to vote.
Like many suffragettes, Emmeline was arrested on numerous occasions over the next few years and went on hunger strike herself, resulting in violent force-feeding. In 1913, in response to the wave of hunger strikes, the government passed what became known as the ‘Cat and Mouse’ Act. Hunger striking prisoners were released until they grew strong again, and then re-arrested.
This period of militancy was ended abruptly on the outbreak of war in 1914, when Emmeline turned her energies to supporting the war effort. In 1918, the Representation of the People Act gave voting rights to women over 30. Emmeline died on 14 June 1928, shortly after women were granted equal voting rights with men (at 21).’ (BBC.co.uk)
‘Little is known about Albert Emile Schloss (1847-1905), except that he was from Mayance, the French name for the city of Mainz on the Rhine in Germany. According to the cemetery’s burial register, Albert died at the Hyde Park Hotel in London.’ (royal parks.org.uk). These two cherubs adorn his plinth.
Metropolitan Anthony Bloom is commemorated with his mother, Xenia.
He was born in Lausanne, Switzerland. He spent his early childhood in Russia and Persia, his father being a member of the Russian Imperial Diplomatic Corps. His mother was the sister of Alexander Scriabin, the composer. During the Bolshevik Revolution the family had to leave Persia, and in 1923 they settled in Paris where the future metropolitan was educated, graduating in physics, chemistry and biology, and taking his doctorate in medicine, at the University of Paris.
In 1939, before leaving for the front as a surgeon in the French army, he secretly professed monastic vows in the Russian Orthodox Church. He was tonsured and received the name of Anthony in 1943. During the occupation of France by the Germans he worked as a doctor and took part in the French Resistance After the war he continued practising as a physician until 1948, when he was ordained to the priesthood and sent to England to serve as Orthodox Chaplain of the Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius. He was appointed vicar of the Russian patriarchal parish in London in 1950, consecrated as Bishop in 1957 and Archbishop in 1962, in charge of the Russian Orthodox Church in Great Britain and Ireland (the Diocese of Sourozh). In 1963 he was appointed Exarch of the Moscow Patriarchate in Western Europe, and in 1966 was raised to the rank of Metropolitan. At his own request he was released in 1974 from the function of Exarch, in order to devote himself more fully to the pastoral needs of the growing flock of his diocese and all who come to him seeking advice and help.
Metropolitan Anthony received honorary doctorates from Aberdeen University (“for preaching the Word of God and renewing the spiritual life of this country”); from the Moscow Theological Academy and Seminary for his theological, pastoral, and preaching work; from Cambridge University; and from the Kiev Theological Academy. His first books on prayer and the spiritual life (Living Prayer, Meditations on a Theme, and God and Man) were published in England, and his texts are now widely published in Russia, both as books and in periodicals.
Many Orthodox Christians in Great Britain and throughout the world consider Metropolitan Anthony to be a saint.’ (https://orthodoxwiki.org/Anthony_(Bloom)_of_Sourozh)
‘Allan and Iris Burnside were the grandchildren of the founder of Eaton’s, once Canada’s largest chain of department stores until financial difficulties in the 1970s led to their eventual takeover by Sears Canada in 1997, and closure in 2002. Iris Burnside died aboard the Lusitania when the ship was torpedoed by a German U-boat on 7 May 1915. Her mother, Josephine, was also aboard but survived. Allan died in Paris in 1937. The memorial is believed to have been erected on Josephine’s death in 1943.’ (https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1403346)
This evening we dined on Jackie’s cottage pie with carrots al dente, tender runner beans and thick, meaty, gravy with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank Mendoza Malbec 2019.
Wild wind howled and piercing precipitation rattled the roof throughout the night and well into the morning.
Jackie photographed and I e-mailed this image of crooked hand from our 200 year old long case clock to Martin Fairhurst of Dials in Lymington who will repair it. Even with the bend the clock keeps perfect time and chimes seven minutes late according to the point of the digit, as if there were no crook in it.
After lunch I made a start on a month’s ironing. When the sun sneaked out I unplugged the iron and we sped after it. Since it had made the effort we would have been rude not to.
The field alongside South Sway Lane, once home to pony Gimlet and her foal,
was now occupied by a nomadic Mallard family.
A drain was overflowing, suggesting that the lane itself will be flooded soon. Last year it became impassable.
The rain had definitely not conceded the skies. Rainbows followed us around
The fast-flowing, rippling and bubbling Balmer Lawn stretch of Highland Water had overflowed its banks. Within seconds of my striding out to photograph it the clouds rolled in, rain hammered down, and my woollen jacket soon took on the scent of damp sheep.
On the signal of the click of my camera a reflective crow was instantly on the wing.
Just around the corner the sun emerged once more, cast long shadows, and burnished trees against a dark slate sky.
Lulled into a false sense of security I walked across a muddy field to photograph ponies sheltering among the trees. They knew that I would soon be walking through torrential bead curtains.
Houses and trees were silhouetted against the clouds’ bonfire smoke. The skies were changing by the second.
I heard gleeful laughter emanating from a parked people carrier whose occupants were impressed by the ponies. As I raised my camera in polite request
the mother of the boys cheerfully wound her window down and, with a smile, said “put your tongue back in”. This was, of course, the signal to stick it out further. Although rain still rolled down the vehicle it had stopped falling from the skies.
As I drafted this post the heavy rain clattered throughout against my window.
This evening we dined on oven fish and chips, green peas, cornichons, and pickled onions with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Coonawarra.
