Tag: waterlogged fields

Playing Chicken

Following the same pattern as yesterday, overnight winds gusted all day until early evening, which meant I made much more headway on reading The Old Wives’ Tale before we took a brief forest drive, mainly along St Leonard’s Road where

valerian still thrives on the Old Barn ancient stone walls;

dog roses decorate the verges;

plants we can’t identify accompany foxgloves (see Sandra’s comment below, identifying this as navelwort) ;

and waterlogged fields are drying out in various layers of colour.

A pheasant played the breed’s favourite game of chicken among the traffic on the road to Beaulieu.

This evening we dined at Rokali’s where I enjoyed duck jalfrezi and Kingfisher; Jackie paneer shashlik and Diet Coke; and we shared mushroom rice and a parata. The food was excellent and the service as friendly and efficient as we have come to expect.

Reflections On Floodwater

Our forest drive this morning was taken through very heavy fusillades of rain alternating with bright bouts of sunshine.

Surfaces of roads, lanes, fields, waterways, all glistened with the excess liquid dropped continuously by heavy clouds throughout the night.

The No BBQs sign on waterlogged Balmer Lawn beside the swollen Highland Water seemed a little unnecessary at the moment.

It was difficult for the naked eye to discern the difference between lawn and water,

or to distinguish between the yellow lines of the road markings at the verges beneath the surface reflections from above and the grassy islets bearing autumn leaves.

Beneath a bridge crossing Balmer Lawn Road, we sat weighing up whether to follow the warning posted beside the dicey looking road. So did another vehicle behind us, until this oncoming larger vehicle snowploughed its way over. We and our followers did the sensible thing, as did a number of others while we were amusing ourselves

with the Water Recycling Centre sign,

beside which I photographed wet leaves and Jackie photographed a tree trunk regularly bitten by a wire fence.

Tilery Road is a stretch of deeply potholed gravel along which the only smooth journey could be made by joggers and dog walkers who could simply slalom round the water-filled cavities the depth of which could not be gauged by car drivers. The waterlogged woodland flanking this should give readers an idea of how joint-ricking was this trip.

Many roads, like this one at North Weirs on the outskirts of Brockenhurst, had become shallow lakes, along which we all followed each other somewhat gingerly.

It was not surprising that Jackie was able to photograph a briefly lasting rainbow along Meerut Road.

This evening we all dined on more of Jackie’s penne Bolognese with which which she drank Zesty and I drank more of the Italian red wine.

Daffodils and Galloways; Deer and Gulls

Today I spent much time on post-French-house sale administration. The only detail you can probably be bothered with is that I had to pay all the costs resulting from the electricity failure and its consequences. The insurance company was not interested. I am advised that the suppliers should be responsible but the process of recovering this would be so lengthy as to risk losing the sale. Not a chance worth taking.

Today’s weather was heavy but dry. New Milton’s Molly’s Den had moved to Christchurch. Today we drove out there. It was closed, seemingly permanently. We drove on into the forest.

We took a diversion across Avon Causeway to Hurn village. At the entrance to a muddy field brambles danced a duet with barbed wire beside a sump of daffodils such as now line all the forest hedgerows. On slightly higher ground a herd of cattle, mostly Belted Galloways, slosh about in the mud. Lower down the River Avon spilled over onto the fields.

A variety of deer grazed in an enclosure at Ibsley. Gulls seemed to be benefiting from their cast offs. For an explanation of the white deer see my comments exchange with Jodie Richelle below

This evening we dined on Jackie’s splendid roast pork, sage and onion stuffing, crunchy crackling, cabbage, cauliflower, new potatoes, and sautéed peppers, mushrooms, and onions. I drank Concha y Toro Cassilero del Diablo 2016.