tulips – Page 7 – derrickjknight

Early Morning Lovemaking

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Now, please don’t get too excited. It’s birds I’m referring to. Pigeons, to be precise.

I am no good at sexing birds, so I’m not sure which was which in this couple, although I suspect that it was the female who remained aloof whilst her suitor performed on the trapeze.

Not greatly impressed, she turned and flew away. He swivelled on the high wire and set off in pursuit.

Jackie continued her mammoth weeding and planting in the garden.

My contribution was digging out bamboo roots that had strayed into the gravel of the Oval Path. This also involved lifting border rocks and replacing them after removing the interlopers. Afterwards I ambled around with watering cans, and, of course, a camera.

We are daily enjoying new tulips,

including these parrots.

We inherited some prolific yellow wallflowers along the back drive.

Encouraged by them Jackie added these beautifully red-veined ones last year,

and these varicoloured erysimum Red Jeps quite recently.

Another recent planting is mesembryanthemums,

seen here in situ beyond the russet heuchera.

It was so hot this afternoon that we took cold drinks on the Castle Bench because it was in the shade. There is a little table each side of the seat for drinks. Jackie sat on the right. I sat on the left. She is left-handed. I am right-handed. Work it out. Until she twigged what was going on, we both rested our glasses in the middle of the bench. Then we swapped positions, and there was nothing between us.

This evening we dine on Jackie’s delicious sausage casserole, carrots, cauliflower, and new potatoes. She drank Hoegaarden and I finished the fleurie.

A Lost Shadow

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Ronan the Boilerman fitted a new thermostat to our hot water cylinder tank this morning. That means we no longer scald our hands and have to turn on the cold tap every time we want to wash them.

Jackie spent much of the day weeding and planting.

Once The Head Gardener had prepared it, I covered Elizabeth’s bed with compost. It took eight bags.

The gradual burgeoning throughout the garden can be seen, for example, along the Brick Path – and, yes, Jackie has smuggled in another owl since this was las displayed –

and along Margery’s Bed, in the foreground of which a geranium palmatum has pushed its way into the light.

We have varieties of tulip,

including tulipa saxatilis lilac wonder;

daffodil;

and aquilegia.

elegant leaves stretch their fingers out from this Japanese maple.

Pulmonaria crops up everywhere,

attracting equally hirsute bees clutching petals as they suck the nectar.

Butterflies, like this Small White flitting from honesty to honesty, are also back,

as are poppies, one of which, like Peter Pan, has lost its shadow.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s choice Ferndene Farm Shop chilli pork sausage casserole, mashed potato, carrots and Brussels sprouts, followed by chocolate eclairs. The Cook drank Hoegaarden, whilst I consumed more of the madiran.

Veritable Carpets Of Offspring

Aaron this morning cleared more brick paths of weeds and began painting the Ace Reclaim bench with white Hammerite in order to combat rust; Jackie continued planting, weeding, and general maintenance work;

and I finished off spreading the Landscape Bark around the rose garden beds, thus offering The Head Gardener, who had begun the job yesterday, a certain minimal assistance. We need a few more bags to complete the task.

Each day now, we have more emerging varieties of

tulip,

daffodil,

pansy,

and primula.

Speckled fritillaria Jackie planted in the autumn thrive in the cryptomeria bed.

For ground cover we have such as

buttercup-yellow celandines

and deep-blue vincas.

Many self-seeders need to be kept under control. Cropping up everywhere we have, for example,

purple honesty,

and multi-hued hellebores which drop veritable carpets of offspring. Unmanaged, this dense brood would choke the rusty heuchera to death and cover the brick path onto which it is already encroaching.

We are still marginally ahead of the game in the race to have the garden ready for spring, but nature is catching up by the day.

This evening we dined at Lymington’s Lal Quilla. My choice was king prawn Ceylon, and Jackie’s, prawn bhuna. We shared egg fried rice, an egg paratha, and an onion bhaji; and both drank Kingfisher.

Tulip Time

This was a bit of a relapse day. Nevertheless we took one of the bags of cuttings that Aaron had filled yesterday to the dump, and returned home with a lawn rake. There was such a long queue that we didn’t go back with the second load. Clearly the entire local population had spent the weekend spring-cleaning.

A wander round the garden in glorious sunshine revealed

tulips, like this one, given to us by Danni and Andy for Christmas;

including the dwarf variety now spread out like a discarded paper handkerchief;

a range of colourful primulas;

and many new daffodils.

The sunlight that set the flowers glowing glinted on the numerous flies basking on euphorbias;

and enhanced the view across the beds, such as those named for Cryptomeria Japonica and Weeping Birch.

This evening we dined on a Hordle Chinese Take Away meal. Jackie drank neat sparkling water and I added lemon squash to mine

Destruction Of Tulips

When I was ill earlier in the year, our friends Margery and Paul gave me a copy of ‘Winespeak’, Ronald Searle’s illustrated ‘Wicked World of Winetasting’. The author, a highly original artist, claims that ‘All the phrases in this little book have been plucked from unacknowledged but absolutely authentic sources’. Souvenir Press’s 1983 edition presents Searle’s ( until I insisted, WordPress changed this to Seattle) grotesque caricatures alongside his chosen phrases.

Here is one example: This is an excellent coffee table book. I dipped into it again last night. This morning Jackie drove me to our G.P.’s surgery in Milford on Sea, where the practice nurse removed my stitches. As, razor sharp unpicker poised, she approached my hand, she said, ‘I think I’ll get my glasses’. ‘Please do’, I laughingly replied. She explained that she didn’t really need them, but found that the off-the-counter pair beautifully magnified the knotted spiky strands of stiff line sticking out of my hand as if it were a pin-cushion. The wavy course of the blue material looked like a design for my Mum’s cross-stitching. This filled me with confidence, and she carried out a perfect operation, slipping the tiny knife under the tight knots, slicing through the thread, and drawing out any hidden residue with her gentle fingers. As my palm is rather scenic, and thinking that a description of the procedure presents the picture, I will spare my readers a photograph. Today’s gale force winds were running at about 40 m.p.h. when we made this trip. On the way back we stopped and parked by the cliff top.

In order to photograph the violent seas below, I braced myself, attempting to remain upright against the gusts tearing across The Solent. The thrift clung to the ground far more securely than I did. I wasn’t about to stand too close to the edge. Actually, I couldn’t really see what I was doing. By mid afternoon the gusts reached more than 50 m.p.h.,

setting the Japanese maples aflame, foliage flickering in the sunlight.

Some flowers, such as aquilegias partnering bluebells in enforced fandango, survived the gales.

Sheltered mimulus and libertia simply basked in warmth.

The clematis Natcha, gyrating wildly, nevertheless kept its head.

Not so those tulips that, yesterday, had stood proud atop their chimney pot.

When we left at 9.30 this morning, they had begun to shed petals,

by lunchtime revealing their stamens,

becoming even more exposed as the afternoon progressed.

By 6.30 p.m., when we left with Elizabeth, Danni, and Andy to dine at Spice of India, this is what was left of them:

On the left of this picture stands a crinodendron hookerianum, otherwise known as the Chilean lantern tree. It will soon be in bloom. (Last year I erroneously termed this the Chinese lantern tree.)

The food and service at the restaurant, owned by Andy’s friend Sid, was excellent. My starter was succulent prawn puri, and my main course Naga chicken with special rice. I drank Cobra. I didn’t really take in what the others had.

Then There Was One

I don’t always remember to take my painkillers. All they do anyway is reduce the acute pain in my knee. It doesn’t take long, however for me to realise my omission. So it was this afternoon when Jackie drove us to New Milton to catch up on some banking. On the way back we stopped off at Redcliffe Nurseries to buy a hoe and various other items. I very soon had to give up and return to the car, leaving the head gardener loose in the store. Afterwards she dropped me off at home to take my pills and continued alone to raid Otter Nurseries.

We are in for a spell of dull weather, which began today. It failed to dim the colours of the garden, especially as the red and yellow Japanese maples are now in leaf. Against a post on the far left of the broader picture the splash of orange is our first poppy. Very soon, in different sizes, and of varying hues, the plot will be peppered with them until late in the autumn. These pictures will repay maximum enlargement. Fennel, tulips, daffodils, and pansies are among the plants on display.

On 22nd February, an ailing baby bird we had thought to be a pigeon, perished after a frosty night. We then realised that a pair of young collared doves, seeming to be searching where the chick had succumbed, were probably its parents. They have seldom since been seen apart. Overnight a predator has struck, leaving the feathers of one of these birds beneath our largest bay tree. Now its mate waits its turn beneath the bird feeder alone. Nature can sometimes be so cruel.

Yesterday’s nicely matured chilli con carne and savoury rice with a side of haloumi, followed by syrup sponge pudding and custard provided our evening sustenance. Jackie drank sparkling water whilst I quaffed a little more of the chianti.

I Guess I Will Never Know

Becky has pointed out that Jackie’s hand is reflected in the eye of the donkey in ‘Close Encounters Of The Asinine Kind’. I have added a postscript to this effect.

We are doing our best to learn the myriad of bird calls we hear in the garden. When they are all sounding at once it is difficult to separate them. So, when setting out this morning to walk to Roger’s field and back, and hearing a single note ‘chuff’ from a large black bird perched on North Breeze roof, I used my camera as an aid to identification. Zooming in on this distant creature revealed it to be a jackdaw. I have often noticed that this device has a keener eye than we do.

In our garden we now have:

wallflowers,

spirea,

fritillaria,

and more tulips,

yellow versions of which brighten the front garden.

The small front garden did not receive much attention last year, as we concentrated on the larger back one. Jackie did, however, train a rambling rose along the fence. This is now covered in new shoots.

And greenfly. When I showed the head gardener this crop, she vowed immediate vengeance.

Jackie has also positioned for planting a jasmine, obviously forced into early blooming by the supplier.

Because Christchurch Road, once a gentle country thoroughfare, is now a busy link between Lymington and Christchurch, our refuse bags are collected from the front of the house early in the morning before the traffic builds up. Should we forget to put them out on Wednesday evening, we have the option of placing them on Downton Lane where they are picked up later in the morning.

Today, wildlife had got to them before the refuse collectors.

Ragged robin is beginning to festoon the lane,

where dandelions converse with primroses.

The preponderance of yellow in the hedgerows is now being challenged by the white of:

blackthorn,

cow parsley,

and daisies.

This afternoon, from the end of the back drive, I noticed a woman, a mobile device in each hand, wandering, perplexed, around the pub car park. I asked if she needed any help. She said she was playing a game. Thanks to Louisa, I realised that this was geocaching, described by Wikipedia as:

‘an outdoor recreational activity, in which participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or mobile device and other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers, called “geocaches” or “caches”, anywhere in the world.

A typical cache is a small waterproof container containing a logbook (with a pen or pencil). The geocacher enters the date they found it and signs it with their established code name. After signing the log, the cache must be placed back exactly where the person found it. Larger containers such as plastic storage containers (Tupperware or similar) or ammunition boxes can also contain items for trading, usually toys or trinkets of little financial value, although sometimes they are sentimental. Geocaching shares many aspects with benchmarking, trigpointing, orienteering, treasure-hunting, letterboxing, and waymarking.’

I told the woman I couldn’t be much help with the technicality, but I was sure my granddaughters Jessica and Imogen would have been useful, because they love the pastime.

The Royal Oak telephone number provided one clue which led to the next, being a box marked 5. Now, the bin bags I had photographed earlier belonged to number 5 Downton Lane, almost opposite the car park, but my acquaintance saw no box. She had the option of turning left down the lane, or right in the direction of Hordle Lane. She chose the latter. Later, pondering, as you do, I remembered that my neighbours had twin drives and another set of gates.

Had I missed the opportunity of being a brilliant hero? I had to go and check, and, sure enough, the other, more concealed gates bore a letter box numbered 5. There was, however, no waterproof container to be seen. I guess I will never know.

When Jackie returned this evening from Mr Pink’s with his perfect fish and chips, to which we added pickled onions and mushy peas, she announced that she had pushed the boat out. This did not mean that she had made her own fishing trip, but that, by buying three pieces of cod and one portion of chips, she had spent slightly more than usual. She did this because we have never managed to consume two complete bags of the shop’s plentiful fried potatoes. Jackie drank Hoegaarden whilst I abstained.

A Day In The Life Of A Tulip

Our own cowslips are now rivalling those in Downton Lane, and in parts are tall enough to force their way through the not yet flowering geraniums.

The long-pile erigeron welcome mat outside the patio doors is beginning to reveal its woven floral motif.

We also have more tulips opened out. In the daytime that is.

Like many sun-loving plants, tulips close up at night. None were awake early this morning, although it was likely that the pink striped yellow ones, not yet open yesterday, would reveal their inner secrets to the sun when it warmed them later.

By mid-day their peeled back protective petals presented their shy stamens to the light.

As the sun departed their corner of the garden during the afternoon, the plants gradually closed, their centres snugly enshrouded for the night.

Flo continued her avian photography.

She caught a long-tailed tit contemplating the suet balls;

her friend, the collared dove, quizzically tilted his head to her;

and an airborne robin imitated a humming bird.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s luscious chicken and egg jalfrezi, egg fried rice, vegetable samosas and naans. The same beverages as yesterday were imbibed, except that Jackie drank sparkling water.

Isle Of Wight Tomatoes

Early this morning the crow, having adopted the back of the bench as its new taking off strip, flew directly onto the top of the bird feeder, but didn’t stay. It can only scavenge from a tray in the construction, not the closed containers. Jackie is wise to that, so isn’t filling it at the moment. The blackbird, with her partner perching guard on the snake bark tree, continues to sit on her eggs.

It is now possible to see through the entrance to the kitchen garden from some distance away. Pictured here are two sides of a path surrounding an oval flower bed at the far end of the garden, as they appeared at the beginning of the day. They are in there somewhere. It was my task to begin restoring them to their former glory, whilst Jackie continued transforming the central gravelled walkway. Here, the brambles were rampant and well established. A certain amount of eradication of them from the beds was required.

This revealed more hidden plants, like the day lilies, the colour of one of which seems to have confused a bloodsucking insect into thinking it was clamped on to my forearm. With some painstaking sifting of

earth and gravel Jackie completed the central path today. I, on the other hand, although making a good impact on the left hand side and far end of the ovoid ring, came to an abrupt halt when I encountered the bamboo. A number of strong stems had penetrated the path and defied my fork.

That was a battle I was prepared to fight another day. It had taken three months completely to eradicate a clump of the insidious roots of this grass at The Firs, so I wanted to be fresh for the job. Mañana.
On a sunny day such as this, the light streaming through the kitchen windows at lunchtime is stunning.

Placed at random at the end of the table when preparing it for the food were a vase of tulips Shelly had given Jackie, an accident pot containing alliums and a petunia, and a bowl of tomatoes. These tomatoes were a variety of shapes, sizes, and colours. And they were delicious. Jackie had purchased them at Setley Ridge Farm Shop, to which a couple from the Isle of Wight travel weekly to supply them. Apparently supermarkets cannot sell them because they are not uniform in size, redness, and rotundity.
We received a very warm welcome from the family at The Family House Chinese restaurant in Totton where we dined this evening on the usual good food and Tsing Tao beer.

The streaks in the sky on our way home were of the equally warmest hues.

Nearly There

The only bathroom cabinet in the house capable of containing anything useful to ablutions was in the downstairs loo, where it was probably superfluous to requirements. It was so positioned that, I have it on good authority, when rising from the lavatory seat one was likely to hit one’s head on the bottom corner. We took it off the wall this morning and replaced it with a mirror.
The rest of the morning was spent on progressing the installation of the garage library. Whilst Jackie built three IKEA Billy bookcases, I carried most of a lifetime’s collection of large Smith’s photograph albums upstairs to a very useful wardrobe cupboard that could have been tailor made for them. There will be more under the piles of Safestore storage boxes. I considered myself fortunate to have discovered as many as I did. This had the benefit of clearing more space to work in the library, but my system is such that I can’t start the process of filling shelves until I find the box marked ‘Novels A’ which has so far proved elusive. This will be the one that contains my copy of Daisy Ashford’s ‘The Young Visiters’.

During my preprandial tour round the garden, I photographed two different tulips, one very delicate in colouring, the other of the deepest red.

A heavily pruned wisteria lies, at present, beneath the pergola. It will, no doubt, once more festoon the wooden structure.

Furry orange bees are lapping up the ajugas.

Whilst I was wandering about, Jackie made a delicious vegetable soup for lunch.

Afterwards, with minimal help from me, she continued building the bookcases. Today’s tally was seven, leaving two more for completion tomorrow. The library is nearly there.

The Plough Inn at Tiptoe still serves the best pub food in the area. We reminded ourselves of that by dining there this evening. My choice was the fish combo with which I drank Doom Bar. Jackie opted for a half rack of ribs and Peroni to drink.