Ramblings
The blends of red-gold-pink-indigo presaging
Shepherd’s warning early this morning were gone after twenty minutes of glory. Thereafter we were overhung with leaden pewter.
We shopped at Tesco later, and the rest of the day I settled down to “Roderick Random” by Tobias Smollet.
This evening we all dined on Jackie’s spicy chicken jalfrezi, or milder korma, according to choice; boiled rice; meat samosas hot or not; and plain parathas, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Malbec
In order to provide detail of the ending of this short story, following requests from several readers, this morning I posted https://derrickjknight.com/2023/05/01/droll-tales-29-complete-text/
Today’s sunrise was bright – for a while.
The day progressed in a changeable manner – overcast until rain put a stop to my sporadic weeding and dead-heading; heavy rain;
sunny spells, enabling me to inspect the views with my camera – then more of the same varieties.
All these pictures bear titles in the gallery. The first is Flo’s Fairy Garden in progress; others include wallflowers, bluebells, Welsh poppies, magnolia Vulcan, Jackie’s recent planting of the iron urn, budding rhododendrons, Japanese Maple, tellima grandiflora, cammasia, and various beds.
This evening we all dined on baked gammon; roasted potatoes, including kumara, carrots, and runner beans, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank Cumulus Climbing Shiraz 2018.
I was lucky to have seen a fleeting sunrise over Christchurch Road this morning, for within seconds it had disappeared and apart from a brief glimpse later at Mudeford we were not to see its effects again.
Just a little later we drove to Milford on Sea where I collected dry cleaning from Whites, and on to Stewart’s Garden Centre outside Christchurch where Jackie bought Easter treats suitable for Jack’s dietary requirements for the forthcoming egg hunt.
Knitted and crocheted letter boxes were in evidence at Stanpit, where two women and children stopped to admire them as I boarded the car;
and at Mudeford, where I enjoyed an enthusiastic conversation with Alison and her friend whose name I didn’t catch. I last photographed this box on 9th September 2021, when I detailed its history, and when its metal collection dates notice had been in situ. We speculated as to why this should have been removed just a few days ago.
Crabbing was underway on the Mudeford quayside, and buoys bobbed on the sparkling choppy Solent.
Later this morning Ben Renouf visited to look at various electric lighting improvements that we need. He will prepare a quotation.
The children attending the Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday are too young to read clues, so they will be presented in photographs. At lunchtime I e-mailed Jackie’s pictures to Elizabeth who will print them because I am having problems with mine. They will not be posted today because parents might cheat.
This afternoon I converted from Classic Edit to Blocks:
The third of these is now categorised as Garden
This evening we all dined on cheese centred fish cakes, Jackie’s savoury rice, and her piquant cauliflower cheese, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Nero di Troija.
This afternoon I posted https://derrickjknight.com/2021/10/24/a-knights-tale-56-how-i-became-a-team-leader/
Early this morning I had raced around the garden at dawn in my dressing gown and slippers in order to keep pace with the fast moving clouds enhanced by a splendid sunrise which turned out to have been the brightest part of an otherwise largely overcast day.
Smoky indigo and old gold hues didn’t quite manage to obscure the glimpses of bright blue or the peeping moon not yet ready for bed. Copper beech, weeping birch and New Zealand flax were all nicely silhouetted and the house at the corner of Hordle Lane and Christchurch Road bore burnished bricks.
After I posted the aforementioned Knight’s Tale episode we took a trip into the forest.
The only pannage pigs that seem to be loose at the moment are those at Pilley, where the little ones are becoming bigger.
Donkeys queued for a go at this scratching post.
Ponies grazing at East Boldre were passed by a friendly cyclist taking his dog for a walk.
Nearer East End a cow with three calves, one looking older than the others, occupied the moorland. I am still battling with the uploading of photographs. The last, most difficult, attempt was of this younger twin attempting to take a drink.
This evening Elizabeth came to dinner and brought with her various papers, including Mum’s will, which I need for my executorship; and this mirror that Vivien and I brought back for her from our Cornish honeymoon in March 1963.
Our meal consisted of succulent roast lamb; sage and onion stuffing; mint sauce; crisp roast potatoes and Yorkshire pudding; piquant cauliflower cheese; tender green beans; and crunchy carrots, with tasty gravy. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and my sister and I drank more of the Fleurie.
Another splendid pastel sunrise heralded a cold, bright, morning, which sent us into the forest early.
We pulled into the entrance to The Joinery Barn, a short distance along our Christchurch Road,
so that I could photograph the sun-misted landscape alongside.
Since there is no real verge I needed to perch on a little bank at the entrance to the field gate.
Gaps in traffic along this road are in short supply, so I had to employ considerable concentration to nip across. The Assistant Photographer was on hand to catch me.
In search of Christmas gifts, we visited Setley Ridge garden centre. It should not be difficult to discern that we did not come away empty handed.
From there we continued along Sandy Down where trees shadows striated sunbeams.
Jackie parked alongside the nibbled tarmac of Church Lane while I wandered back to photograph
cattle in a still misty field,
and fallen trees with reflections in the old mill stream.
Jackie, meanwhile photographed the garden beside her, including its bench and its stream, complete with ducks.
Further up the lane a pair of pampered ponied chomped on heaps of hay.
One took great interest in us as we focussed on
the garden next door, with its dying bonfire
and boxing hares exchanging fisticuffs on the sloping lawn.
A grazing pony could be glimpsed beyond a bend in Undershore on our way home.
Our wood pigeons mate for life and grieve for days when, as a day or so ago, their mate is slain by a predatory raptor scattering feathers.
Nugget, however, is still going strong. He had just left his feeder when Jackie produced “Where’s Nugget?” (50)
This evening we dined on Jackie’s wholesome cottage pie; crunchy carrots and broccoli; and tender cabbage with tasty gravy. The Culinary Queen drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Minervois.
CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE. REPEAT IF REQUIRED
At first light this morning Jackie drove us down to the clifftop at Milford on Sea to watch the sunrise.
The forest behind the Isle of Wight and The Needles was a bank of clouds. The lighthouse blinked.
Soon
a pink lining
came into view
over
to the east.
Just two lone walkers
braved the two degrees centigrade temperature at 7 a.m.
This afternoon we visited the New Milton toy shop to investigate Christmas presents, and decided that we needed parental advice.
Afterwards we drove into the forest.
On the way down Holmsley Passage Jackie spotted
a string of ponies
crossing a ridge. Watch the wavy lines in the bracken to the right.
She parked
beside the stream on the lowest part of the lane, while I watched
as the ponies
dropped onto
what was a trail
they had regularly trodden.
It was fortunate
for me that there were a couple of greys to help me pick them out against the bracken
or, as they reached level ground, among the trees.
The black leader came into view and investigated the road;
when it was pronounced clear, the others followed
and were led
past
a delighted Jackie
in the car.
Having crossed to the other side
they reappeared on higher ground.
Further on, up the road to Clay Hill reflections in the calm pool
were clear and bright.
On our return the sun was setting over Holmsley;
blazing clouds shrouded Wootton Common,
where the moon was in the ascendancy.
Trellises of tree branches
screened the pink and indigo backcloth.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s wonderful savoury rice forming a bed for tempura prawns. We both drank Maison Castel Touraine sauvignon blanc 2015.
Kimber’s carpet fitters made an excellent job this morning of installing our new stairs and landing carpet.
Much of the day was spent exchanging e-mails with partners in two different joint projects. One thread was with Paul, who is finalising the flyer for the exhibition at The First Gallery.
Here are a few further suggestions of prints on to be on show. Just for fun I have chosen an orange theme.
This was the gentle overture to 6th April 2015.
This bee burrowed into a crumpled poppy on 23rd September the same year,
and the following day Mamma Mia became bejewelled.
Could this be the same bee on the kniphofia on 28th?
The second exchange of e-mails must remain secret at the moment. It concerns my draft of a post brought about by collaboration with a man I have never met. I await his approval of the text.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s perky paprika pork and exquisite egg fried rice. She drank water and I finished the merlot.
Despite temperatures in double centigrade figures, apart from the enticing dawn skies, today was very dull with gale force winds. This meant that our afternoon drive around the forest was not conducive to photography. We finished up Christmas shopping in Brockenhurst.
Before that, I scanned another batch of negatives from the 1983 North Wales holiday.
It is perhaps appropriate to begin with mist rising at sunrise across a valley in Corwen.
Later views across the land were much clearer.
Here, Matthew, Sam, and Becky explore the fields around the farmhouse at which we were staying;
and Louisa is enthralled by something Matthew has pointed out.
Blending so well with the rugged hillsides were the rusting metal of a car scrap yard,
and the abandoned artefacts of a disused slate mine, itself adding heaps to the mountain terrain.
In the foreground of this picture, Becky carries Louisa, and Jessica leads Sam towards another visitor in the doorway of a mine building.
It was only in revisiting these images of terraced and semi-detached houses, perhaps once the homes of quarry workers, that I thought of Aberfan.
‘The Aberfan disaster was a catastrophic collapse of a colliery spoil tip in the Welsh village of Aberfan, near Merthyr Tydfil, on 21 October 1966, killing 116 children and 28 adults. It was caused by a build-up of water in the accumulated rock and shale, which suddenly started to slide downhill in the form of slurry.
Over 40,000 cubic metres of debris covered the village in minutes, and the classrooms at Pantglas Junior School were immediately inundated, with young children and teachers dying from impact or suffocation. Many noted the poignancy of the situation: if the disaster had struck a few minutes earlier, the children would not have been in their classrooms, and if it had struck a few hours later, the school would have broken up for half-term.
Great rescue efforts were made, but the large numbers who crowded into the village tended to hamper the work of the trained rescue teams, and delayed the arrival of mineworkers from the Merthyr Vale Colliery. Only a few lives could be saved in any case.
The official inquiry blamed the National Coal Board for extreme negligence, and its Chairman, Lord Robens, for making misleading statements. Parliament soon passed new legislation about public safety in relation to mines and quarries.’ (Wikipedia, on which there is much more information.)
This is one of the abiding memories of my young adulthood, and, indeed, parenthood. The whole of the UK, and possibly much of the world, was in shock, especially because the school had borne the brunt.
Succulent pork loins baked with a mustard and almond topping; piquant cauliflower cheese; mashed potato; and crisp carrots, Brussels sprouts, and green beans were the items on our dinner plates this evening. We enjoyed eating them. Jackie finished the chardonnay, and I started on a bottle of Mendoza Parra Alta malbec 2015.
As I put out the bin bags at dawn this morning, the smoking fire further East down Christchurch Road revealed itself to be a blazing sun emerging to presage the splendid day we were to enjoy.
A little later, a crouching figure was seen to dart across to my desk and scamper back again. This was Flo, having risen surprisingly early to commandeer my camera for the next hour or so. 
She must have got the bug yesterday for she was to produce some even more successful pictures of our garden birds.
Here is a selection of her work:
A thrush on the rooftop projected its shadow into the ether. How this shot was achieved will be revealed tomorrow, for the benefit of those who haven’t worked it out.
She captured house sparrows, both female
and male.
The collared dove had found a new perch.
Flo interrupted a jay’s breakfast, but it carried on regardless.
A female greenfinch continued with hers
while her consort launched himself from the feeder.
A blackbird ignored the spider’s web beneath it.
Starlings are notoriously greedy beasts. Alone they must wait their turn at the trough.
An inquisitive robin removed its head from the feeder, straightened up, and engaged in a game of peep-bo.
Finally a jackdaw snaffled two peanuts
and, of course, flew off at the sight of the camera.
When the Canon SX700 HS was returned to me I took a hobble down the garden and a few yards into Downton Lane.
Our honesty is now in flower,
as is the epimedium
and the skimmia at the entrance to the back drive.
The lane itself has a profusion of
primroses,
celandines,
cowslips,
daisies,
and grape hyacinths.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s superb chicken jalfrezi (recipe), boiled egg curry, egg fried rice (recipe), and paratas. Jackie, Ian, and I drank Kingfisher; Becky drank rose; and Flo, J2O.
28.8.2014
Michael, driving me through the night, was probably skirting Paris when the digits of the clock turned to 00.01 today. We were aware of the metropolis as the dark midnight sky brightened with the multicoloured lights generated by urban living. A surprising number of other vehicles were on the road, most, as we continued further south, heading north towards the capital.
My son had not enjoyed dubious sandwiches he had bought at Calais, so we made a number of stops in search of more sustenance. These were unfruitful, as every outlet was closed. Fortunately there were a number of all-night public conveniences, albeit of variable cleanliness.
The indigo sky was largely cloudless and sprinkled with numerous stars. It was not until about six in the morning that light, then eventually a strong sun, began to emerge behind my left shoulder. Parts of the landscape seemed to be scattered with creamy white pools amid the undulating hills. Nearer to hand, swirling mists, which is what these were, rose from moist fields and drifted upwards to dissolve into the air. The low sun cast long shadows across the pink-tinted countryside.
I regretted that we had ‘no time to stand and stare’ nor, more importantly perhaps, to photograph such evocative scenes.
What happened on arrival must await my next post.
Having borrowed yesterday’s title from one American writer, I turned to another, Jack Kerouac, for today’s.