The neat stack of bricks beside the Florence sculpture yesterday doesn’t look like two full wheelbarrow loads, but, having wheeled them from behind the old oil tank last week, and having wheeled them back again today, I can assure you it was.
Afterwards, I photographed a few garden views, demonstrating the proliferating snowdrops.
There was still clutter behind Florence.
Afterwards, Dillon and Flo finished the job.
Later, I continued my reminiscences through my older posts and found a photograph I could usefully add to the text of
This evening we dined on Jackie’s tasty beef pie in shortcrust pastry with roast potatoes, crunchy carrots and tender runner beans, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I finished The Guv’nor.
Having reached 24th of June 2012 I came to the point where posts seem to have recovered spontaneously. However I will continue to peruse them to make sure. This is where the enjoyment comes in. My early posts, before https://derrickjknight.com/2012/06/24/choosing-a-camera/ have even provided me with entertainment.
This evening we all dined on succulent roast lamb; sage and onion stuffing; roasted normal and sweet potatoes; crunchy carrots; firm Brussels, broccoli and cauliflower, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of The Guv’nor.
Late yesterday afternoon, we tried to print some lovely photographs Flo has taken of Ellie. This proved impossible, because the colours were very wrong. This is not a problem I have encountered before. I tried cleaning various settings and even changing inks, to no avail. All this takes a long time when you don’t know what you are doing.
A skip was delivered just after Martin arrived this morning, for four hours of which he raised a considerable sweat on this, the coldest day of the month so far – indeed prompting me to don socks for the first time since May. He works steadily and without a break, except to take the drinks we ply him with.
He prised, bashed, and dug out the solid lumps and loose hard core material;
loaded them into a barrow which he wheeled repeatedly along the Kitchen Path, up the Brick Path, to the skip placed half way along the Back Drive.
The filling of the skip was not the easiest of the stages.
By the end of the morning much of the levelling had been completed.
When I had begun to photograph the work I realised that I had probably left my 35 mm. lens in the car. I discovered it in its saturated case under the passenger seat of the Modus, clearly not waterproofed from the recent storms. I could barely see anything in the viewfinder and the pictures produced were decidedly murky. Very soon everything was fogged up, and I left it alone for the day in the hope that the condensation would evaporate. These pictures were all produced with a 55 mm. lens. By the end of the day all seemed fine.
We then visited Wessex Photographic in Lymington where we sought Luke’s advice on the murky photographs. He made some suggestions and offered to have a look at my set-up if we were unsuccessful.
We dined this evening on another of Jackie’s wholesome chicken stewp meals with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank Gran Selone Premium, Italian red wine.
Now I am going to watch the Football World Cup match between England and Wales.
CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE. THOSE IN GROUPS ACCESS GALLERIES THAT CAN BE VIEWED FULL SIZE.
Sometimes serendipitous synchronicity surprises. Scanning colour slides from summer 1986 this morning, I found this to be so.
I have mentioned before that we house-sat The Dumb Flea for the Drapers for a couple of weeks that year. We were joined one day by our friends Carole and
Brian Littlechild..
Sam had managed to acquire an army hat. I have no idea whether it belonged with the rifle Brian is posing with. Could it have belonged to Jessica’s father? I don’t have enough knowledge of militaria to recognise the badge. Interestingly Sam, who here acts out his own campaign with the aid of a cricket bat, has inherited a black and white photograph of his maternal grandfather receiving the Military Cross from Field Marshall Montgomery.
Sam and his sister loved to race around the lawn.
It looks as if Louisa was up to mischief of some kind.
She had her own uses for the cricket bat.
Back at home in Gracedale road, the two children investigated a skip in the street,
All my children have enjoyed pet rats. This one was called Ratty. Although Sam stuck to one at a time, I believe Matthew’s tally once reached 70 or more. Wasn’t it therefore serendipitous that I came to these pictures the day after featuring Rasputin?
This evening we will be dining at Tyrell’s Ford with Helen, Bill, Shelly, and Ron. I will report on that tomorrow.
28th November 2014
This is the fifth and final day of the black and white flower photo challenge. On the second I posted a close-up of cow parsley that is having a second flowering this year. I finished my response to the challenge with a shot of what this plant usually looks like in winter. Apart from the soggy newspaper atop a skip in which butterflies perched on pearls in Shorefield Road, it was a sunless morning when I took my Hordle Cliff top walk in reverse.
Openreach vans are regular visitors to this area. I stopped and chatted to a gentleman working on a cab, as we now know the engineers call the cabinet. When, during the first of my recent calls to BT, the Indian adviser told me that the problem was in the cabinet, I would have been even more confused had he said ‘cab’.
This evening Jackie drove us to Wickham where we met Elizabeth and her friend Cathy at the Chesapeake Antiques Centre open evening. Mulled wine and mince pies were served and a beautiful singer performed. I found it difficult to negotiate the crowds in the confined spaces of the corridors between the packed rooms and display cases, so I soon repaired to the Veranda Indian restaurant where I waited for the others, and Cathy’s husband Paul to join me. There we enjoyed our usual splendid meal and Indian lagers.
On our return home I was once more unable to access the internet, and had to post this the next day.
