The Solent – Page 2 – derrickjknight

Stranded On Bramble Bank

Jackie has been collecting little mice from a gallery in Milford on Sea. Each morning these charming little creatures, noses in the air, have been found in different locations. One of Flo’s Christmas Dragonology books contained a model which could be removed, assembled, and hung somewhere. Put these two facts together and you might be able to work out where the mice had moved to in their nocturnal flit.

This morning Jackie and I drove to Hythe on Southampton Water, and took a trip along the pier:

This antique structure, served by an ancient train, stretches across the sea where a ferry takes over the transport of passengers to Southampton. We took the train on our outward journey, and walked back to the High Street, seen from the pier, and back to our car.

Renovation work on Hythe Pier is a continuing process. Much of the planking has been replaced, although some is still in need of replacement. The waiting room exterior could do with a lick of paint, although the interior has a charm of its own. Older, rusting pier supports are visible from the modern stainless steel railings. One method of raising funds lies in the planking engraving which contains many messages, such as memorials to dead people, marking of visits, and at least one proposal of marriage.

The train from a bygone era, with views across Southampton Water, still carries travellers the length of the structure on its rust-coloured rails, and, of course planes that were not invented when it began its service, cross the skies to and from the airport.

When I overhead a comment in a conversation between two gentlemen walking along the footway, I realised they must be talking about the car transporter ship, Hoegh Osaka, which had run aground on Bramble Bank at 21.30 yesterday evening. The snippet was ‘all the press photographers are on Calshot Spit’. Naturally, we sped off to Calshot where the ship still lay stranded. The vessel had been on its way to Germany, when the grounding occurred and twenty five crew members were rescued.

The small beach at Calshot was swarming with sightseers. Anyone who has followed my ramblings across Westminster Bridge will know that I tend to be more interested in what is going on with the viewing crowds than in the attractions themselves. When, indicating the watchers assembled on the shingle, I offered my observation that ‘there’s the picture’, to one of the photographers, he simply smiled and kept his lens firmly aimed at the stricken vessel and its attending tugboats. This little village was packed with cars lining the roadside and the grassy banks alongside the beach huts, one of which, after Dylan Thomas’s ‘Llareggub’ from ‘Under Milk Wood’, was named ‘LLamedos’. (Read them backwards).

On our return journey, Jackie dropped me at Milford on Sea and I walked home by way of the Nature Reserve, Sharvells Road, Blackbush Road and the back of Shorefield.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s exquisite penne bolognese followed by a choice of syrup or raspberry jam sponges with custard or cream. Jackie’s beverage was Hoegaarden, Ian’s Peroni, and mine the last of the Margaux.

Painting The Solent

This morning we drove into Milford on Sea for some Christmas shopping. I walked back via Park Lane, the cliff top, and Shorefield.
An unsheathed sun slashed The Solent in front of the Isle of Wight. A new shelter had been moved from an older site, at a safer distance from the crumbling cliffs. Crows, of course can fly, so they are perfectly comfortable on the precarious edge.
I wondered what had provided the green streak transforming The Solent into a Mark Rothko canvas.
Dog owners have a number of amusing methods of calling off their canines sniffing at, or attempting to mount, my trouser legs. Today’s ‘You can’t eat that’ rivalled the cry of ‘Leave it’, with which I had been greeted in Colliers Wood two years ago.
On my way back through Shorefield I enjoyed a long conversation with a family of Indian origin who sought directions to the beach. They had just moved here from Romford in Essex. The father had arrived there forty years ago from India. He had been born in Tanzania. He was still a child when he moved to England where all his children were obviously born. Such is our cosmopolitan world.
Tanzania was formed from a merger between Tanganyika and Zanzibar in 1964. When I was a child I collected postage stamps, and prized those circulated from 1935 to 1963, by the joint postal services of the then British colonies of Kenya, Uganda, and Tanganyika. So much has the global map changed in my lifetime. King George VI, whose image appears on this illustration, ruled between the abdication of his brother King Edward VIII in 1936 and his death in 1952, when his daughter, our present Queen, crowned in 1953, took over the mantle.
Winter irises are now blooming in our garden. The evening’s striated sunset skies seemed to have mixed their colours.
Tonight we dined at The newly reopened Royal Oak pub. My choice was the mixed grill, apple tart and custard, and Hobgoblin beer. Jackie’s was gammon steak, death by chocolate, and Becks beer. We were happy with it.

A Re-opening

This was a warm sunlit day. Not only were the last of the summer blackberries ripening in Downton Lane, but fresh blossom was turning to fruit, and a Japanese kaiga painter had reproduced a pattern of pink cherry against the clear blue sky over Shorefield.
Long shadows were cast, and the Isle of Wight, The Needles, and their lighthouse stood sharply alongside The silver Solent.

I am optimistic about the re-opening of our neighbouring pub, The Royal Oak. The new tenants, Debbie and Carl Millward, are experienced publicans who should be able to resuscitate the necessary atmosphere of a country hostelry. This evening they opened for drinks. Food should be available in a day or two, but this evening what was available was generous bar nibbles, so we all had an enjoyable couple of drinks and convivial conversation with the publicans and Debbie’s parents Jill and Ken. There was a good attendance of local people. .After this Jackie collected takeaway fish and chips from Old Milton and we enjoyed them at home with mushy peas and pickled onions.

Touches Of Gothic

Ripped by a fierce cold wind pines creaked against fencing as, taking the Shorefield section first, I reversed my Hordle Cliff top walk. With howling gusts forcing me backwards, turbulent waves crashing against the shingle, and swirling clouds looming overhead, there was a truly Gothic feel over The Solent. One only had to imagine the light came from a midnight moon to fancy one had stumbled into a Hammer film set.
Soon after midday we arrived at Shelley and Ron’s for the annual laying of a wreath on the ashes plot of the mother of Jackie, Helen, and Shelley featured in yesterday’s post. After the trip to the Walkford Woodland Burial Ground, we all, together with the two brothers in law, enjoyed a delicious meal cooked by Shelley, with various red and white wines. Leak and potato soup was followed by a wonderful chicken casserole, potatoes, and vegetables. Then came a suitably tangy lemon meringue pie, coffee and mints.
A game of Trivial Pursuit took us into the evening, and further enjoyable conversation.
Beautiful as are many of the unusual trees in the garden, a number have been misplaced, causing a certain amount of overcrowding. An example is an interesting fir plonked in the front garden perhaps two metres from the house. At this time of the year there is only one use for it. Jackie has festooned it with white lights, which, when viewed through a piece of Giles’s stained glass present glowing colours. This treasured artwork is based upon my initials, DJK, in Gothic script.

Shades Of A Late Autumn

Over both the still fields and the calm sea, pastel shades dominated the skies on a crisp morning as I took my Hordle Cliff top walk in reverse. Although the sun was largely clouded over, shooting directly towards it across The Solent produced a lighter image.
These muted colours were repeated in the fallen leaves blending with the planks of the footbridge over the Shorefield stream, but, there being no sunshine, I allowed myself to use the vivid colours setting for the autumn leaves on the drive to Oldrode House on Downton Lane.
No-one was at home in

the rookery.

A gentleman greeted me as I approached the steps leading to the footpath to the sea. For obvious reasons, I held back until he reached the top, and repeated this self-interested politeness when a friendly couple joined me on the cliff path to Barton, along which I walked a little way before turning back to the coast road.

Judging by the evidence of their frenzied activity on the grassed terrain at the cliff top, the moles are becoming frantic in their urge to reproduce.

The weather is becoming colder now, but remains most clement for the time of year. Cattle have been let back into the field alongside Hordle Closed Cemetery, and marigolds still bloom in Bridge Cottage Garden.

The wind picked up again this afternoon with, I am convinced, the sole purpose of harassing me in my efforts at continuing to clear our fallen foliage. I did, however persevere, consoled by the thought that I did not have to tackle Oldrode’s drive.

The sun also emerged late in the day and emblazoned an oak tree on the opposite side of Christchurch Road.

Happy Times is the name of the Pennington Chinese takeaway. We ate more of their excellent food this evening. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank a reserve Languedoc red wine from 2012.

Find The Crop

The rain was back in Downton today, but uninterrupted internet access wasn’t. Which would you like to read about first?
Ok, I’ll be gentle and start with the weather. The fog warning from the invisible Needles lighthouse sounded above the pattering of raindrops as I took my Hordle Cliff top walk just after midday. Cattle, having been brought inside for the winter, have left the sodden fields. Rainwater left its film on the camera lens.

A pair of barely discernible yachts were out on The Solent.

I will now attempt not to rant about BT. The facts should speak for themselves. Not counting the man who connected Infinity Broadband on 10th of this month, we have now been visited by three Openreach engineers. It was number three, this morning, who confirmed that we had been mis-sold our package, which I hadn’t asked for in the first place. After he left I spent the best part of two hours on the phone, mostly pacing up and down the sitting room listening to music. In fact this could easily have constituted my day’s walk. But it the mood I was in at the end of it all I needed to go out and get wet.

The answer is that our house is 2km from the cabinet in the street, and problems develop if you are 1km away. BT have the equipment to check this at the time of installation without having to enter the property.

I began the day’s call to the sales department in England. I was transferred to the technical help team in India, and back to a woman in England whose task it was now to start the process of getting us back to our previous contract. It was when the technical man, putting me on hold for the third time advised me to wait, sit back and relax, that I very politely stated that I had no option but to wait, yet relax was what I would not be doing.

The upshot is that we must wait ten working days for a complaint to be processed and five for us to be put back on our old broadband. That is a fortnight and a week.

After a salad lunch, served with Jackie’s usual artistry, and four failed attempts, I managed to cling to the web just long enough to post my second day’s photograph for the black and white challenge. I chose a tiny crop from a picture of an unseasonal cow parsley head that still blooms this November.

Can you find this little jewel in the full frame?

Had there been any sun today, it would have been setting by the time I was able to work on this post. We are dining on Jackie’s chicken jalfrezi (recipe) tonight, but I may not be able to access The Net then, so I am sending it off now.

Yesterday’s Bread

This morning I took my usual walk to Milford on Sea and back. Above The Solent, a weak sun peeked through gaps in the clouds, while on the cliff top the ever-present hooded crows trotted about.
In the nature reserve squirrels avoided the muddy footpaths by leaping across them from tree to tree. Bracket fungus on a tree by the stream supplied a convenient stepladder for wild life, while orange mushrooms brightened the leafy carpet beneath.
As, at lunchtime, I tucked into lovely fresh bread, crusty on the outside, and soft on the inside, I marvelled at Jackie’s technique for keeping it in the condition in which it came off the supermarket shelf several days ago. She freezes it after each meal and defrosts it in readiness for the next. This is a method she learned as a carer of elderly women living alone in the 1970s. Most of her clients did have fridges and freezers, but they preferred their bread bins. The contents of these were invariably green with mould which was transferred to any new loaves that were added. Gradually, she managed to persuade some to use their modern technology.
Yesterday I wrote of the 1940s without washing machines. Life was hard for everyone in those post war days. Please do not imagine you can hear violins playing, that’s just how it was. Other white goods unavailable to the ordinary family at that time were fridges and freezers. My mother, however, had no need to preserve loaves that, with her growing family, stood no chance of surviving a day. In fact, she would send us to the baker’s to buy yesterday’s bread which was cheaper and, being less scrumptious, lasted longer. I seem to remember a figure of 4d. that we handed over for each purchase. That is four old pence, roughly equivalent, if my arithmetic is correct, to 2p. today.
The hot summer of 1947 was particularly problematic in keeping milk and butter from going off. Bottles of milk were kept in cold water in the kitchen sink. Butter simply became runny. I couldn’t bear that, so I would only eat Echo margarine, the single oily spread that was at all impervious to the heat. This, of course, is really only fit for cooking, and no way would I consider it today.
This evening Jackie drove us to The Red Lion at Milford on Sea where we dined with Giles and Jean. My meal was steak and ale pie followed by plum tart and custard. Jackie chose hunter’s chicken followed by treacle sponge and custard. She drank Peroni and I drank Spitfire. The food was good and the company easy and enjoyable.
It is still hit and miss whether or not we have internet access. Fortunately WordPress backs up and saves my work when the connection drops, otherwise I would be tearing my hair out when trying to produce and send my posts.

I Watched The Needles Disappear

Since, except when there is no visibility, I always look across at the Isle of Wight when I walk along the cliff top to Milford or Barton on Sea, it is quite fortuitous that the next two of my interchangeable large format photographic prints that I substituted this morning should be of a trip to Shanklin taken by Jackie, Michael, and me in September 1968. This holiday is described in my post entitled ‘Mumbai’. The unframed picture of Michael, happily buried in the sand, also illustrates that article.

The water spout drained onto the beach.

It was late in the afternoon before today’s rain stopped. Except that, attracted by the ever-changing light over The Solent, and deterred by the muddy footpaths, I returned by the clifftop and the coast road, I took my usual route to Milford on Sea and back. Crows perched on the edge of the cliff before taking off and soaring up above. It was a much cooler day and the wind brought a chill from the sea, so walkers were well wrapped up.

The rainfall I had seen earlier falling on the headland to the West, eventually made its way across to the Isle of Wight, and I watched the Needles disappear before making my way home.

A cow momentarily left off its grazing in order to have a good scratch.

For this evening’s dinner Jackie produced her most edible chilli con carne (recipe) with savoury rice that was a meal in itself, followed by blackberry and apple crumble and clotted cream. She drank Hoegaarden whilst my choice was Castillo san Lorenzo rioja reserva 2009.

Plastic Water Bottles

A tumultuous thunderstorm during the night had left pearls pendant on autumn fruits and sprinkled on roses and other flowers.
I took yesterday’s walk in reverse. There were no shafts of sunlight piercing the clouds this morning, but cliffs towards the West were picked out, and a lone boat sailed the sparkling Solent.
On the coast road, a bright green plastic drinks bottle seemed to be protecting the metal link gripping a hawser grasping a cable post. This put me in mind of our head gardener’s recycling of our mineral water containers. Jackie cuts the bottoms off these and embeds them into the earth to ensure that the roots of her plants, like this fuchsia Army Nurse, receive an adequate supply of the life-giving fluid.
A sweet young lady waited for a bus at the bottom of Downton Lane. She was pleased with the photograph, and said it was ‘fine’ for it to appear on my blog. Zooming on the portrait, which is already a crop, gives an idea of the quality of my Canon SX700 HS camera.
This evening Jackie drove us to The Firs where we joined up with Mum, Elizabeth, and Jacqueline and went on to Durley to dine at The Farmer’s Home. The meals were all very much enjoyed. Mine was a mixed grill followed by Durley Eton mess. I shared a carafe of Chilean merlot with Elizabeth. At 10.55 p.m. it is too late for me to bother about detailing other people’s refreshment, except to say that Mum, who is not supposed to eat very much, put away a steak and kidney pudding, new potatoes, and vegetables, followed by creme brûlée.

Sunshine And Showers

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE. REPEAT IF REQUIRED.

Knowing that we were to expect heavy rain all weekend, and that the first hour or two this morning would offer sunshine and showers, we drove out to Mudeford seeking what light there was.

This proved to be interesting. The sun came and went, offering dramatic cloudscapes over the sea;

over the beach huts;

over the harbour;

and over the small town.

Recent downpours had left pools for cars to drive though.

Moored boats bobbed on the choppy wavelets in the sheltered waters,

over which sped a powered vessel.

A number of little rowing boats had filled with water

or capsized.

One, overturned, provided a resting place for juvenile gulls.

We felt sympathy for holidaymakers wrapped in waterproofs, and even more for the intrepid stallholders setting up for the weekend’s Art and Craft Fair.

Almost oblivious of the industry going on around them, a jogger,

a pair of dog walkers,

and a loving couple, continued about their business.

A heap of bright red paddle boards awaited rental customers.

The usual fishing paraphernalia lined the quayside. This couple examined

crab pots;

ropes and lines;

fluttering flags;

and buoys reflecting sunlight

or themselves mirrored in pools,

as were visitors following the first young lady forming a queue for the ferry.

Around the side of the quay the couple I had just passed gazed out to sea.

The most dramatic light of the visit fell on a group beside the car park.

As we left Mudeford for a late breakfast at Friar’s Cliff’s Beach Hut Café, three sail boats set out to sea.

They had made it safely to Friar’s Cliff by the time we reached there.

On the cliff top at Steamer Point lie three very large circular concrete bases.

Their story is now explained on an engraved metal plate fixed to a rock.

This evening we dined on chicken tikka and boiled egg salad. Well, we had had a large, late, fried breakfast. Jackie drank Hoegaarden, and I drank more of the malbec.