This morning, before the rain set in later, we bought a replacement Dyson vacuum cleaner at New Milton Electrical Centre, then set off for a forest drive.
It seems hard to believe that the worst of the potholes in Beckley Common Road have been filled in, but many, like these have been left.
Fallen and damaged trees proliferate along Bolderwood Ornamental Drive.
A number of shaggy ponies adorned the landscape at Appleslade,
where Jackie photographed deer on a hillside.
On our way home we diverted to Hockey’s Farmyard Café for lunch,
and afterwards passed the Elm Tree pub with its completed thatching, which Jackie also photographed..
This evening we all dined on Ashley fish, chips, onion rings, mushy peas, and curry sauce augmented by Garner’s pickled onions and Freshona pickled gherkins, with which I finished the Malbec.
This morning I shared https://www.thefeatheredsleep.com/grief-in-faces/ which is a sensitive and insightful tribute to Queen Elizabeth II and to all who have their own reasons to mourn. Such sharing is not my normal practice, but this most definitely warranted it.
Afterwards Jackie drove me to The Bridges, an historic area of Ringwood, where we met Helen, Bill, Shelly, Ron, and their friends Maggie and Pete, for lunch in what should be the picturesque Fish Inn.
the pub, in the process of thatching, is surrounded by protective scaffolding,
and oppressed by the road widening works on the A31.
It is possible for pedestrians to cross the bridge featured by Trip Advisor above
and look down on the rippling River Avon and its surroundings but as the 21st Century encroaches I fear for the future of this attractive area and its environs.
Everyone enjoyed our lunches. I restricted myself to one course in order to keep fit for tonight’s dinner. My battered haddock and chips was excellent, but I didn’t like the minted peas that came with it, so swapped them for some of Jackie’s onion rings. She likes these definitely non-mushy pulses. The other meals and desserts looked very good. I drank Butcombe best bitter, since it was good enough for Ron.
This evening we dined on racks of pork ribs with Jackie’s savoury rice with which she drank Diet Coke and I drank Patrick Chodot Fleurie 2021. The young couple ate later.
Then Jackie and I visited Jools, Sean, and Pumpkin at
where we engaged in enjoyable conversation, Jackie bought a plant, and I
wandered freely with my camera.
Afterwards we went on a foal hunt.
Donkeys on Bull Hill were the first to oblige.
It was only two days ago that we mentioned that we had never seen any
Shetland foals. Today we spied a few through trees at Norley Wood.
A satisfied crow had more success in catching the thatched hare at East End than the chasing fox ever would.
Before dinner I watched the highlights of the fourth day’s play in the Test match between England and New Zealand.
Afterwards the three of us dined on second helpings of yesterday’s Red Chilli takeaway with the addition of Jackie’ s paneer dish with which she drank Hoegaarden, I finished the Fleurie, and Flo abstained.
At midday Jackie drove us to Hockey’s Farm shop for an excellent brunch and to reintroduce Flo to the north of the forest.
Ponies at Ibsley and mossy rooted trees were reflected in the pool that covers waterlogged terrain.
Before eating we introduced our granddaughter to Hockey’s humorous alpacas lining up for their passport photographs and to
their colourful penned chickens.
Afterwards the two women wandered over to the exotic aviary while I waited in the car.
The thatched fox opposite the farm shop has come no nearer to catching the ducks he has in his sights.
Ponies on the road towards Gorley Common ensured our slow progress,
giving us the opportunity to track a small herd of deer from different viewpoints. At least three young males were present, and one pure white one was occasionally glimpsed.
The thatcher of a house in North Gorley celebrated his last year’s refurbishment with champagne while donkeys lolled or scratched further along the road.
This evening we enjoyed dining on alcohol free Red Chilli takeaway fare.
At least our winter flowering cherry was happy with another dreary, yet wet, day.
Last night Louisa asked me to send pictures of her lifelong friend Gemma, who will be 40 tomorrow. I sent her three,
of which this is one from my daughter’s birthday party of May 1993.
Three days ago ‘we began with a trip to the Lymington Post Office collection office to claim a parcel undelivered because of a shortage of £2 in postage. The good news was that there was no queue. The bad news was that the office was closed. I took an alternative option which was to stick the extra postage on the back of their card and post it back to them.’
This is what we received in the post this afternoon:
The first of these images is of the front of the card addressed to the office with my 3 first class stamps attached. At the current rate of postage that is £2.45. The With postage section on the reverse side addressed to us is the direction I followed. Grammar enthusiasts might like to note the superfluous apostrophe in our name. A postman told me that ‘Today’s date’ is the date the post office received the parcel, not the date on which the card was delivered. That was in fact several days later.
I tried very hard to resolve this on line where I couldn’t even access the revised opening times. Of all the options from which to choose to request help there wasn’t one which would cover having received the returned card, clearly addressed to the Delivery Office itself, with no indication of the parcel. And, as usual, there was no way I could find a telephone number.
We decided to go in person. The office was closed. And only open from 8 to 10 a.m. in the morning.
This called for a rainy forest trip.
The anonymous decorator of the Pilley Hill Post Collection Box seems to be celebrating 2022. Maybe it will improve.
Behind Jordan’s Lane alongside which lies Pilley Lake, I enjoyed a friendly conversation with two master thatchers. This cheered me up.
On the lane itself one donkey was guarding her foal while another couple were silently arguing about the bay tree they were pruning. The larger animal kept butting the smaller out of the way.
The Culinary Queen produced another delicious beef pie for tonight’s dinner – and for a couple more besides. Firm boiled potatoes, Brussels sprouts and carrots were the tasty vegetables; onion gravy completed the platefuls which were accompanied by Hoegaarden in Jackie’s case, and Castillo Catadau Gran Reserva 2014 – a delightfully smooth rounded Spanish Tempranillo given by Ian for Christmas, in mine.
Today I scanned Charles Keeping’s next seven illustrations to ‘The Old Curiosity Shop’ by Charles Dickens.
‘ ‘Go, sir,’ returned Dick, leaning against a post and waving his hand’. He is quite clearly drunk.
‘The boy threw his wasted arms around the schoolmaster’s neck’ is a typically tender scene.
‘They drew up there for the night, near to another caravan’
‘The game commenced’ leaves us in no doubt that these are three rogues and the un-pictured gentleman facing them will lose his money.
‘One young lady sprung forward and put the handkerchief in her hand’ pictures a rare act of kindness.
‘Miss Brass went scratching on, working like a steam engine’
‘ ‘Hallo there! Hallo, hallo!’ ‘ faithfully depicts the author’s description of a scene in which two characters are now clearly recognisable.
This afternoon we drove to Everton Garden Centre the where we purchased a garden water feature which we hope to set up tomorrow, and continued with a short trip to the east of Lymington.
We stopped at Saint John the Baptist Boldre Parish Church, in order to photograph
the clusters of daffodils on the bank and around the grounds. The first two of these images are mine; the rest Jackie’s.
While I was wandering around the side my Assistant Photographer featured in her third picture,
a horse, protected against our currently cold nights by a rug, trotted over to the fence between the field and the church. I thought perhaps it was interested in me.
No such luck. I had noticed a gentleman take up a seat in the churchyard. His equine friend had found a way to get to the church fence where her gentleman friend was waiting to continue the conversation that ensued. It was clearly a regular occurrence.
I comforted myself over the rejection by communing with a bay pony on the verge further along the road.
My next conversation was with a family of donkeys;
then alpacas at East End where stands
one of the three mimosa trees was saw blooming today, and numerous gnarled oaks awaiting their own plumage;
a lone thatcher exercised his craft.
Variously coloured crocuses are bursting through the soil before the war memorial on South Baddersley Road.
Jackie’s final offering is a rook she photographed from Hightown Lane yesterday.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s savoury egg fried rice; tempura prawns; and a rack of pork ribs in barbecue sauce with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon 2020. This was followed by Bakewell tart and New Forest Rhubarb and Ginger ice cream.
These are some of the views from the patio that we enjoyed this morning whilst drinking our morning coffee.
I was in and out of New Milton today. This morning Jackie drove me to Barclays bank to attend to some executor business, and this afternoon to Birchfield Dental Practice for an appointment with the hygienist. After the second trip we travelled on to East End to see how the thatching was coming along.
It is now a beautiful job nearing completion, demonstrating painstaking skill and artistry.
Dave had finished for the day when we arrived,
and had left his tools firmly in place for continuing tomorrow.
Back home one of the clematises in the front garden now curls over the ceramic house sign;
the paler pink ramblers romp over the trellis;
and the darker ones beribbon the porch roof.
One of our sparrow families, carefully disconnecting it first, has made use of a rather obsolete rusted burglar alarm. They had more success than I did dismantling one back in Soho. That adventure is recounted in my post ‘A Little White Lie’.
The evening light on the patio gave us different views including Marie Boisselot,
and the red Japanese maple.
We were also treated to an avian orgy involving four wood pigeons. One by one these birds alighted on the cypress branch, formed a disorderly melee, and engaged in frantic flapping. There was no billing and cooing and It was all over rather too quickly for comfort.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s piquant cauliflower cheese, fish pie, runner beans, carrots, and asparagus. The Culinary Queen drank Hoegaarden and I consumed more of the cabernet sauvignon.
This very dull morning Jackie and I took turns on weeding the garden.
This afternoon we visited New Milton for banking, paying car tax, and taking a jacket and waistcoat to the cleaners.
We then drove on to East End for a progress report on the thatching project. There the ridging is being cut into shape.
Dave, the very skilled and friendly craftsman with whom I have conversed on several occasions has 27 years experience in his trade. Today he explained why the recent rain has in fact aided the work at this stage. This is because the straw needs to be malleable when creating the ridging. A different straw is also used for this creativity. Wheat straw is more flexible than the reed straw with which the rest of the work is undertaken. We also spoke about the fact that layers of thatch on the same roof can span 500 years or more. Dave was fascinating when speaking with such enthusiasm of the different straw and flowers that can be discovered through the time bands in a roof. It struck me rather like the pleasure of a geologist excavating layers of rock.
My experience doesn’t quite cover 500 years, but it will soon have reached 75. Three of my favourite bloggers have suggested that it would be a good idea to convert my experience of an era into a book. Once I got over my panic, I thought that perhaps I could do this by extracting from and expanding upon my five years of daily posts.
This evening I made a start. I edited some of the text from my post ‘A Sneaky Weekend’,
Today Jackie made much progress on weeding, planting, and watering. I did some tidying up and composting.
Later this afternoon we drove over to East End to see how the thatching was coming along.
The craftsmen have started the ridging. Readers will have noticed reeds left sticking up on top of the roofs. These have now been strapped in place in readiness for the sculptured topping.
In a far corner of the back garden a summer house is also receiving a new roof.
The scaffolding shadows converse with the leaded diamonds of the traditional windows.
We moved on to Beaulieu where a gentle white pony mare suckled her little black foal.
The mother decided I was paying too much attention and took her offspring across the newly surfaced road to join a group of grazing cattle.
The cattle weren’t too keen on the idea and repaired to the other side. All this movement, of course, gave the car drivers something to think about.
Further on, lining Lodge Lane and the roadside at Sowley, lay fenced off bluebell woods.
Our next stop was Tanners Lane where a motor boat buffeted along the Solent against the backdrop of the Isle of Wight.
In the field alongside the shingle beach, a pair of donkeys basked.
One nudged his partner as if to say “Get up and come and look at this”. Throwing back her head and propping up her pregnant bulk with her forelegs, the mare awkwardly found her feet,
and staggered across to have a look.
This evening we dined on succulent chicken thighs marinaded in barbecue sauce, served with Jackie’s very special egg fried rice. She drank Peroni and I drank Louis de Camponac Cabernet Sauvignon 2015.
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This morning I printed yesterday’s random header picture for our friend Mary. We posted it this afternoon.
After lunch Jackie and I took two orange bags of garden pruning and clippings, along with some metal and plastic rubbish, to the Efford Recycling Centre, and drove on to see how the thatching at East End was coming along.
Here is a rear view which shows the L-shaped structure of the large building. The extensive scaffolding is an indication of the size of the project.
Much of the work has been completed to a very high standard. I was informed by the thatcher with whom I spoke, that the ridging that is to feature where tufts currently stand proud, will take longer than the four weeks currently expended.
We drove home via East Boldre, where, as usual, a heron was disturbed by the sight of my camera. I panned it as it took to the air, rising from a lingering, although drier, pool, past the gorse blending with its sharp beak, and up into the cloudy skies.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s toothsome cottage pie, piquant cauliflower cheese, spring greens, and crisp carrots and cauliflower. with divine gravy. Ian drank Peroni, and I drank Corbieres 2015.
Scooby, not wishing to be left out, would like readers to know that his evening repast was Tesco Tender Paté with chicken, mixed lovingly with James Wellbeloved Chicken & Turkey Kibble Complete. His dessert was the bone from our previous roast lamb dinner with generous bits of meat attached. His beverage was Adam’s ale. This information was provided by his Mummy, Becky. 15 in September, he’s quite elderly now, and needs to collapse in his bed after a meal.
