snow – Page 2 – derrickjknight

Sherwood Forest Snowballs

I understand there have been smatterings of snow in Nottingham. We, on the other hand, have experienced nothing more chilling than the slight, short-lived, frost early this morning.

It seemed appropriate, therefore, to scan another batch of those recently discovered negatives from December 2003. These record a trip to Sherwood Forest with Jessica, Michael, Heidi, Louisa, Emily, Alice, Oliver, and Paddy the dog. This National Park is somewhat further north than ours.

That winter was also colder than the current one. The naturally cool tones of these images sets the scene.

Here, between Michael and Heidi, stands Louisa;

who then becomes the sole subject.

There was just enough snow to make fairly decent snowballs. After lobbing a few, one of which, from Louisa, seems to be coming my way;

with Alice bringing up the rear, it was time to move on.

This evening’s dinner was Jackie’s poky pork paprika, dancing onto the plate possibly because of the salsa dip, surplus to Christmas requirements, that the ingenious Cook added to the mix. Perhaps that is also why the rice was wild. There were runner beans as well. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Costieres de Nimes.

West Kennet Long Barrow

Drawn by the extravagant breakdance being performed outside our sitting room window by the unidentified peach rose, clearly far more resilient than plastic greenhouses, I ventured outside into the wild, weirdly warming, winds with my camera.

The rose surged backwards and forwards, defying my efforts at focussing;

those in their dedicated garden, where Summertime still has a presence, were more sheltered.

Margaret Merrill, lives up to her top autumn rose billing,

and carpet rose Kent rivals the fallen beech leaves for ground cover.

With a warning of frost and maybe snow in a week’s time, it was probably apt that the batch of colour slides from December 1976 should contain snow scenes. That was a very cold winter following an extremely hot summer.

Jessica, Michael and I were staying with her parents in their beamed and thatched house in Wootton Rivers, Wiltshire.

Mark Pearson, who, had he lived, would have been my father-in-law stands here in front of his home.

The snow was not deep at this time, but there was enough to turn simple ironwork into bejewelled necklaces;

to transform branches of trees into festive yule logs;

and ploughed fields, along which Jessica and Michel walk, into scenic Christmas cake icing.

Piper joins them in this picture. The boy to the left could be Jessica’s nephew, Tim Draper.

Here, Michael trudges on after the others.

We had, then unbeknown to me, found ourselves atop West Kennet Long Barrow.

The West Kennet Long Barrow is a prehistoric burial mound near Avebury. It is one of the largest and best-preserved monuments of its kind in Britain. Only the East Kennet Barrow is longer than this one’s 100 meters. Although we did not do so, visitors,can enter the barrow and explore five empty stone chambers in which humans were buried from 3700 to 2000 BC.

In all, the bones of about 46 individuals have been found in the chambers of the barrow. It appears that bodies were buried in social groups: the west chamber was mainly for adult males; the northeast and northwest chambers for mixed adults; the southeast for the old and the southwest chamber for children.

The tombs contained numerous grave goods, including pottery of various kinds (fragments of 250 different vessels were discovered); beads made of bone, stone and shells; flint tools; and animal bones. The pottery spans a long range of time, from the Earlier to Late Neolithic periods.

I didn’t know the amount of history that lay beneath us.

This evening we dined on the last of the shepherd’s pie; extra mashed potato, a steamed cauliflower and Brussel’s sprouts, all flavour retained. Apple and raisin cake with cream was to follow.

A Dusting Of Snow

Hampshire, this morning, enjoyed its first what the BBC News called ‘a dusting of snow’. Unfortunately, although Jackie and I are both feeling a little better today, I am still not well enough to get dressed and go outside. I aimed my camera through the glass of the kitchen window. Small birds can be seen picking their way along the white coating.

The various avian visitors to the bird feeders normally disappear rapidly at the first sign of anyone inside, but this morning, either out of the goodness of their hearts, or from a desperate need to find food among the falling snowflakes, great and long-tailed tits swung on the peanut container, apparently oblivious of my presence.

Jackie and I both had a late breakfast of toast and croissants and mid-afternoon boiled eggs and soldiers. These soldiers, for anyone who does not know this practice, are strips of buttered bread that can be dipped into the egg. Jackie prepared something for herself later, but I, sated, had gone back to bed by then.

Rosemary Verey

Yesterday Louisa posted on Facebook some delightful pictures of family fun in the snow. I imagine the magnificent one I have selected for its sense of movement was taken by Errol with his mobile phone. The nearest we got to the white precipitation was the gulls flying over the nature reserve on my way back from Milford on Sea, where Becky had driven me in order for me to catch the post. They didn’t settle.

Beneath them, a pink-velvet-breasted jay flitted from tree to tree, and another of the unidentified shrubs I had first photographed on 2nd was in full bloom on New Valley Road. No-one has yet named it. Becky likened the berries to Ninja Turtles. Perhaps that thought will jog someone’s memory.
Clifford Charles’s bench at the entrance to the Nature Reserve has received its own Christmas decoration; and halfway down the clifftop near Paddy’s Gap, named after the evergreen shrub Hedera colchica, or Paddy’s Pride, that once clung to the crumbling cliff; a bouquet has been laid in memory of Babs Geany.
A kaleidoscopic sunburst greeted me as I emerged onto the clifftop, which, together with the shingle beneath, was as populated as Paddington Station at rush hour.
Walkers with their eager, tongue-flapping dogs; and excited children grappling with windbreaks, on clifftop or shingle beneath, basked in splendid light.
The boys and girls seen with their red banner in the picture below trailed along the windswept shore until their leader, a little blonde child, like an injured royal standard bearer, fell over. Her companions turned tail and left her clutching the cloth in an effort to retain it. A passing woman helped her to her feet, and still clutching it, she signalled that battle could recommence.
I have mentioned before, the boxes of books on sale for Save the Children stacked outside Hillbrow. The weather is still clement enough for this noble effort to continue. I bought a fine copy of Rosemary Verey’s ‘The Scented Garden’. Twenty or thirty years ago I was privileged to visit this world famous gardener at her home, Barnsley House, near Cirencester in Gloucestershire. Her daughter Davina was a school friend of Jessica’s. This young woman, as she was then, owned an antique printing press with which she produced fascinating greetings cards reproducing illustrations from her mother’s historic herbals. I don’t believe she ever used a particular 16th century woodcut featured in her mother’s 1981 publication, which appears to reveal that ‘builder’s bum’ is not solely a modern phenomenon.
This evening we dined on tender roast lamb, crisp roast potatoes and parsnips, perfect pigs in blankets (sausages wrapped in bacon), green brussels sprouts, and orange carrots and swede mash, followed by Harrod’s Christmas pudding by courtesy of Norman. I finished the Parra Alta malbec, Flo drank J2O, and the others imbibed Provincia di Pavia pinot grigio blush 2013.

Post On A Till Roll

When she learned through on-line Scrabble chat that I walk every day regardless of the weather, my friend June suggested that I must be mad. This would be a view shared by the head of Bromley’s Probation service during the 1980s. One of my freelance contracts was to facilitate a support group for senior probation officers. During one particularly bad winter, possibly 1986/7, I was due to take a session one morning when the snow lay thick upon the ground. Traffic was in chaos. Trains were suffering from ‘the wrong kind of snow’. But I had my running shoes. Provided I was careful, and sometimes ran off piste, I could cross London quite quickly. On this occasion I arrived in Bromley, on time, having run from Gracedale Road in Furzedown, SW17. I was the only group member in attendance. The manager didn’t want to pay me, because she thought it a bit out of order to have turned up on a day like that. However, I had a contract which I had wished to honour. After some negotiation I received half my fee, which seemed a compromise I would have to accept.

This morning we had been promised heavy rain making its way from Southampton. A cock crew as I set off early down Running Hill in an effort to beat the blast. The Met Office must have been in touch with the sheep on the road up to Furzey Gardens because they had sought shelter from the open field. Further on, our neighbour Bill was walking his two Old English sheepdogs which he said were shorn when the sheep were shorn.

A solitary equestrian rider passed me on the heath beside the waterlogged cycle track. And the end of this I took the road towards Fritham and turned off left to a sign marked Linwood which I made my goal.

Before the turn-off I noticed, strewn at irregular intervals, oranges on the right side of the road. My puzzlement increased as I continued along the road, until, on the left hand side I discovered a further crop that had been ditched. The teeth marks on one of the discarded ones suggested this was a variation of the popular Halloween pastime involving apples and a tub of water.

The clopping of coconut shells by a cinematographic sound effects man on the road behind me signalled the extremely rare sight of galloping ponies. They had possibly been attracted by the arrival of a mini coachload of ramblers, whose lack of proffered goodies probably disappointed them and brought them to a standstill. Their more cynical companions who hadn’t bothered to cross the road, merely glanced up and continued cropping the heath.

It was my nostrils on the Linwood road, that alerted me to the controlled burning that culls the bracken.

I turned right at a road junction to which a gang of Hampshire council workmen were working their way replenishing the grit on the verges, in an attempt to stem the tide, thus reducing the numerous rock pools. Having walked past and through some deep enough to harbour crabs, I was able to tell them what they were in for. They were going need a few more lorry loads.

The storm struck just as I reached the Red Shoot pub at Linwood. I got pretty wet seeking a phone signal in order to ring Jackie, tell her where I was, and, since I was expecting her to drive me home, invite her to lunch. She also had to bring my wallet. The hospitality of the staff at this excellent establishment extended to offering to start me a tab so I could have a drink whilst I was waiting. They also lent me a couple of lengths of till roll and a biro with which to amuse myself writing notes for this post.

Roast chicken was our evening accompaniment to the last of the burgundy for me and the Latitude 35 degrees S for Jackie.

Resistance

Last night I watched a beautifully and sensitively filmed and acted DVD. This was ‘Resistance’, directed by Amit Gupta who collaborated in the scriptwriting with Owen Sheers, author of the acclaimed novel.

The theme is based on the fantasy that the Second World War D-Day Landings failed, and Britain was overrun by the Germans. Set in a bleak Welsh valley during the winter of 1944 and spring of 1945, it was a dream for the cameramen. Struggling as I was to get warm in my stone house which lacks central heating, and mindful of the snowbound forest I had just left, the freezing bucolic setting in which the film opened was most appropriate. Their snow, however, was fake.

This was a different kind of resistance than that to which we are accustomed in similarly themed films set in occupied Europe. It is not largely about fighting and espionage, but rather the developing relationships between the besieged women left at home by their menfolk and the struggles of a proud people to resist the genuine help of sensitive soldiers determined to keep the SS out of the valley.

Mainly gently paced, it was nonetheless enthralling. Andrea Riseborogh and Tom Wlaschiha were compelling in the lead roles, and it was fascinating to see the brilliant Michael Sheen in an, albeit minor, straight part in which he was not playing a famous person. I thought the film was stolen by the beautifully ageing actress Sharron Morgan whose expressive face perfectly portrayed her conflicts.

Unusually for me, I watched the whole of the credits and extras, gripped by the haunting music of Lyndon Holland.

More by luck than Judgement, I timed today’s walk to perfection. Turning right at the cemetery, I took the La Briaude loop back into Sigoules. After early rain we were treated to scintillating sparkle by the strong sun.

Swollen streams and ditches; rainwater and melted snow from overflowing fields ran down the rough roads whose pitholes were filled with the ochre liquid.

The roar of one stream which had been almost dry last summer could be heard long before I reached it. A new one flowed past a tree and down its sloping field.

As I approached the village square a car driven by a man using a mobile phone happily mounted the pavement before veering off it, reversing across the road, and vanishing into a driveway.

Rain returned as I inserted my key into the front door. Sunshine and showers was the order of the day.

Lunch at Le Code Bar consisted of two bowls of onion soup such as I have never tasted before; a most unusual ham salad; succulent pork cheeks; then a moist coffee eclair. I’m not sure what cheese the soup contained, but it was one of the type Jackie likes to cook with. The generous thin slice of ham was filled with a creamy pulse salad. The pork was served in a delicious tomato-based sauce with pasta. This was accompanied by a quarter carafe of red wine. Anyone wishing to read about my evening meal will be disappointed. I couldn’t eat one.

The television news was full of items about the problems caused by snow.

Pinched Buttocks

Discussing Tens machines this morning Jackie mentioned that she can’t find hers, and assumed it has got lost in one of our several moves. A short while later, we spoke about the potential for photographing, in the snow that has fallen overnight, a subject for next year’s Christmas card. I said that one card I’d always wanted to produce was from a photo of a manger scene Becky had painted years ago in Newark. She had designed the float for the Caribbean Club’s contribution to a parade. I had a print of it, but didn’t know about the negative. When I left Lindum House a box of negatives went missing. ‘There’s a storeroom somewhere full of all the stuff that gets lost in moves’, said Jackie.

Snow fell steadily today, coating Minstead to provide romantic images. As I set off down Running Hill, a four by four vehicle, its brake lights piercing the falling snow, travelled downhill, without mishap, very very slowly. Sky and distant landscape merged into a backcloth of sludge. The snow on the ground was, however, virginal white. My goal was the churchyard. I hadn’t gone far before Berry called me from behind. She was walking up to the field to tend her horses. We accompanied each other as far as The Splash, at which point she turned right and I took the footpath from the ford to All Saints church.

At the ford there is a rather sheltered parking area. Car tracks in the relatively shallow precipitation layer made a pattern which required the addition of two sets of initials separated by L to complete the picture. The footpath was very muddy under the snow, but I was wearing wellies so I retained my footwear and kept my trousers clean.

Two horses grazing in the blizzard looked up when their owner called them, then carried on powdering their noses.

I felt a bit of a vandal ruining the thick white carpet covering the churchyard as I left my footprints all over it. No-one else had yet disturbed the view.

The trees bordering our garden continued to gather snow, occasionally letting fall flurries echoing those blown off houses earlier at Seamans Corner. At first sight these billows had looked like the woodsmoke I often smell there.

As the roads became more difficult we wondered whether we would have another night of pinched buttocks. This is because our lavatory seat has riven in two. We’ve tried to close the gap by taping it , but the tape seems to split too. Consequently, unless you are very careful you are nipped when enthroned. A man was due to bring and fit a new one at nine o’clock this morning. The poor chap was stuck in traffic. He insisted on perservering and eventually, to our relief, turned up soon after two. The fitting was too small, but, for our convenience, he left it and will return with a bigger one next week.

Rather rashly, we set off to drive to The Firs. We didn’t get very far. About a car’s length. Backwards. With wheel spin. We weren’t going anywhere. So we decided to return the car to the parking spot. No way. Spinning wheels going nowhere. Jackie went inside to get some dishwasher salt. She spread it about a bit. It didn’t help. I set about kicking snow out of the way. Adam, who lives upstairs, said there was some grit in a box. We didn’t have anything to carry it in. Jackie went back to the flat and emerged with a grill pan and a broom. Meanwhile Adam had found another broom. I gathered some panfuls of grit which we dispersed on the swept snow. Jackie had another go at driving back to where she’d come from. All ten yards. Eventually, with a push from Adam and me, she made it, and we returned home to thaw out.

We had planned a visit to Eastern Nights at Thornhill. Jackie’s smoked haddock and a shared bottle of Cimarosa Chardonnay 2012 was a very satisfactory substitute.