Tag: weather vane

Oar Point Memorial

The weather has changed again. Today was hot and sunny. This morning Jackie drove me to Sears Barbers in Milford on Sea where I had my hair cut; after lunch we took a trip out to the forest.

Ponies in traffic along Sowley Lane gave me the opportunity to focus

on the verge’s prolific ragwort swarming with bees.

Convolvulus now covers all the hedgerows, like this along St Leonard’s Road,

where bees also plunder the bramble blossom which has simultaneously produced early fruit.

Oar Point Memorial faces the Solent beyond which lies the Isle of Wight, seen through haze this afternoon.

Forest Fields by Michael Renyard

was today adorned with red carnations nodding to red poppies on the little wooden crosses.

Looking down towards Bucklers Hard we noticed a new sign to the museum featured in https://derrickjknight.com/2013/01/12/the-olden-days/

With the heat comes desperate ponies trying their best to protect themselves and each other from flies. These at East End also disrupted the traffic.

One driver vainly clapped in an effort to shift them, until a cyclist dismounted and persuaded them with more success.

A yacht weather vane in Rowes Lane is possibly pea green.

The stand of kniphofia at the front of the Walhampton Arms is extended more each year.

This evening we dined on cheese-centred fishcakes; boiled new potatoes; crunchy carrots; and tender spinach and green beans, with which I finished the Appassimento

Just A Week Old

Given that we understood that this morning’s chill wind and cold bright sunshine was likely to cede to strong showers for the rest of the day, we set off for a forest drive just after 8 a.m. and turned on the windscreen wipers in a darkened air two hours later as we were driving home.

Groups of ponies gathered around Smuggler’s Road Car Park basking and reflecting in the sunlight,

which brightened the sand pit in the Rockford Common landscape. The stream at Ibsley ford rippled past a recently broken tree on its banks, where blossom bejewelled a shadow-striated wall.

Further along the road donkeys wandered freely along the tarmac.

The sharp wind swivelled a weather vane seen between two houses.

At the bottom of Frogham Hill we encountered our first donkey mother and foal,

somewhat older than its cousins seen at the top, which according to a resident I engaged in conversation, were just a week old..

Someone had categorised potholes at a road junction in Crow,

This afternoon I watched the Women’s Six Nations rugby matches between France and Ireland and between Scotland and Wales.

This evening we all dined on Jackie’s flavoursome savoury rice and spare ribs in hoisin sauce, with which I drank more of the Shiraz.

Bisterne Scarecrow Festival Trail 2023

We followed this trail on a sultry morning.

This young woman photographing her children at Lower Bisterne Farm’s Happy Birthday Nemo!, the first exhibit, was happy, as were the youngsters, to point out the subject for me.

You Are A Hero Danger Mouse sat on the driveway to Stable Family Home Trust.

The nearby Cottage Garden was guarded by Indiana Jones.

Humpty Dumpty, by the residents of Three Elms, Kingston Common,

introduced us to a delightful, though bumpy, made up road through beautiful woodland, with ponies on its verges outside; the grey hugging the garage door and the bay already plagued with flies indicating the humidity of the day.

Out of this World at High Corner, and Bluey from Ashbourne Cottage,

with its fascinating weather vane were two more Kingston entries;

Gruffalo’s Child from Cobbs Cottage was another from Kingston Common.

Wot the Duck! was produced by the residents of Iona, Christchurch Road, BH24 3AX.

There were two exhibits from Gardens Close Farm on deeply undulating Charles’s Lane along which we needed to follow an equestrienne riding lesson; these were

Bob the Bisterne Boa, giving followers the opportunity to paint a pebble and add to the constrictor’s length, if not its girth;

and The Fairy Forest whose denizens required a bit of searching. The first of the portrait framed images seems to have once borne a balloon head, now burst.

Fairies have possibly munched mushrooms on the forest floor.

A couple of years ago I had an agreeable conversation with the woman who lived at 51 Bagnum Lane. We both thought she should have won a prize, which she didn’t. I was happy to note that this year

she won both Class 2 – Pair of Scarecrows, and Champion’s rosette, with Grow Your Own.

The last two exhibits, from 39 Sandford, were Groot’s Forest Game,

and Cool Runnings, celebrating Jamaica’s successful bobsleigh team.

Whenever we are in Ringwood at a suitable time we brunch at Aroma Café, which we visited regularly when we lived at Minstead. This is a very reasonably priced unfussy eating house with a license for alcohol. There is an outside covered seating area.

In the intervening 10 years the establishment has flourished tremendously, and rightly so.

The friendly, welcoming, and efficient young staff enjoy warm and amusing relationships with each other and with customers alike. There are clearly many visitors who are as well known as we once were. Wheelchairs and buggies are equally happily accommodated.

One bonus, not always found in cafés, is that the robust cutlery cannot be bent and actually cuts the meat.

At this peak time on a very popular day we did not have to wait long for food, and our full tea and coffee cups were carried with concentrated care by our waiter who spilled not a drop while slaloming, one in each hand, around ambulant customers and servers from the counter to our table.

Jackie, in particular, had forgotten just how plentiful our platefuls would be. Not realising that it came with chips as standard,

she enjoyed an allegedly only 9″ soft crust Margarita pizza with added mushrooms; while I happily chose

Gammon delight with a large, lean, added rasher of bacon. The tomato was tinned, but I expected that, and the egg a little firm. Everything else was perfect. At a total cost of £28 we certainly had our money’s worth.

Despite her acknowledged desire and help from me Mrs Knight was unable to eat either all her crusts nor her chips. I couldn’t work the sea salt grinder, but she could.

No-one will be surprised to learn that we needed no further nourishment this evening.

Heathers And Asphodel

Early this morning we filled up with petrol and shopped at Tesco before going for a forest drive.

The recently re-thatched Pine Tree Cottage at the corner of Ringwood Road, Bransgore now has a squirrel on its roof.

off to the right a short distance down the road lies Betsy Lane with its

Post Office and postbox now bearing a somewhat wonky yarn roundabout.

A hundred metres or so beyond the post office the lane bears left with a sharp right angled bend lined with

verges sporting an array of hollyhocks, poppies, moon daisies, thistles, and other now rather spent wild flowers.

A rider in training was helped to negotiate oncoming traffic.

This thatched cottage is of quite ancient construction; its adjacent shed face with attractive wood;

alongside this is a further building bearing a weather vane fashioned into skeins of geese.

On the outskirts of Burley I tramped among the moorland varieties of heather and asphodel.

Ponies and foals were beginning to flop and to shelter from the high temperatures and humidity we were expecting.

We are now into the season when food and drink containers add their own brands of contributions to the forest ecology,

and around every bend in the road you are likely to encounter bunches of cycling club members. This group was less than half the size of the one which went before, and their leader did acknowledge that we had stopped – actually in deference to the oncoming car.

Along Beechwood Lane the first pair of cyclists dismounted rather than attempt to weave among a pair of ponies and a foal.

The foal and its Dam made for the sheltered corner of Burley Lawn;

a loud neighing emanated from a field horse decked out with full PPE against flies.

The knitted crown atop the postbox outside the cottage in Wootton Road has been replaced by a peacock and a little card inviting smiles.

This evening we dined on tender roast lamb; crisp Yorkshire pudding; boiled new potatoes; crunchy carrots; firm Brussels sprouts, cauliflower and broccoli, with really tasty gravy. Jackie drank Hoegaarden; Flo drank raspberry, rhubarb, and orange blossom cordial; and I finished the Chianti.

Spring Verges

Rain yesterday had prevented me from photographing Martin’s garden work.

First he completed the tidying of the Back Drive. When our neighbours put up a new section of the fence between us the hook retaining our five barred gate disappeared. Martin fitted a new one, straightened the last of the line of bricks, removed refuse from beyond the gate, and transplanted some geraniums to brighten the bank opposite the raised bed.

Next, he cut the grass, then

weeded the Phantom Path and the southern half of the Brick Path.

Early this morning Jackie and I took a brief drive along the lanes to the east of the forest,

where wild flowers pack the verges, like these on the lane approaching Portmore;

and on the narrow section of Jordans Lane,

featuring a hole for a gate cut into a conifer hedge, and a horse and hound weather vane.

After lunch Jackie finished planting violas to complete the aforementioned Raised Bed, which she photographed herself.

We still have many camellias, a Vulcan magnolia, and burgeoning rhododendrons.

This evening we dined on fillet steaks, oven chips, and peas, with which Jackie finished the Cabernet Sauvignon and I drank Bordeaux Supérieur 2019.

After Storm Eunice

By lunchtime the storm winds had dropped considerably, cotton clouds drifted across a bright, clear sky, and the sun maintained a presence.

There is still no sign of power returning to Pilley. We accompanied Elizabeth to her home in order for her to gather up and leave out her rubbish for tomorrow’s collection, and the three of us continued further into the forest.

A pair of ponies occupied a field beside Undershore. As always I needed to be quick to picture the animals in their environment, because as soon as they see me they trot over to ask for treats.

While Elizabeth set about her rubbish we photographed her house and garden. This first gallery is by Jackie;

I focussed on her felled fence, the sheepfold opposite and raucous rooks against the sky.

We each pictured picotee-edged camellias. Jackie’s is the first image.

Our next stop was at Ran’s Wood where Elizabeth and I photographed ponies. The final image in this gallery is one of my sister’s showing the chestnut pony returning from the stream where it had slaked its thirst.

We both photographed the woodland. The last four of these images are Elizabeth’s, the final one being in the form of an owl as a tribute to Jackie,

who added her own group to the mix. The second picture is “Where’s Derrick (7)”.

Elizabeth also photographed the stream,

and, as we left Furzey Lane, a cockerel weather vane.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s sausages in red wine; creamy mashed potatoes; and crunchy carrots and cauliflower with tender leaves of the latter, with which the Culinary Queen drank Hoegaarden while Elizabeth and I drank Stefano di Blasi Toscana 2019.

Misty Morning Mizzle

Late yesterday afternoon Jackie had photographed the porcine weather vane on Bull Hill. Gloomy as it was there was no mist.

We began the day by visiting the Royal Mail Delivery Office very early. Jackie parked outside on Lymington High Street while I entered the office to do battle about the non-delivery card featured yesterday. This related to a package which had not born sufficient postage. I plonked the card on the counter, simply stating that I had followed directions and posted the card to them only to receive it back in our own letter box the next day. Saying nothing, the gentleman I had spoken to walked away and returned with the ‘package’ which bore no postage at all.

When I expressed surprise at what this was I did receive an apology and was not asked to prove my identity. Returning to the car I handed Jackie the item and made my sister Jacqueline’s morning by, through gritted teeth, thanking her kindly for her Christmas card which undoubtedly cost us more to collect than it had cost her to buy.

While waiting for me Jackie had photographed a foggy High Street.

She pulled over at Undershore Road while I continued my conversation with my sister and

photographed some boats on Lymington River.

A pack of cyclists emerged from the mist on South Baddersley Road.

We diverted to Tanner’s Lane

where I stepped out to photograph the beach and its environs, including a flotilla of geese and solitary silent gulls. The honking of the larger birds drew my attention to how quiet the morning was. The only other sounds we heard on the whole trip were the mournful notes of foghorns and the plops of mizzle moisture dripping onto soggy leaves.

Jackie photographed a corner of the beach, and me on the silently sliding shingle.

The drips rippling the eponymous Lake made no sound as we made our way along Sowley Lane.

We drove along St Leonard’s Road to the relics of the Grange. Cattle peered through the gloom, and pigeons perched on the roof of the barn.

Our familiar group of ponies with their Shetland acolyte trotted briskly past, close enough to become more visible.

Those at East Boldre remained obscured.

At East End the thatcher’s fox still kept its quarry in sight.

It was not yet 11 a.m. as we returned home along Southampton Road.

For dinner this evening we enjoyed another helping of Jackie’s delicious beef pie served with similar, fresh, vegetables to yesterday, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Tempranillo.

Burnt Out

This morning I scanned three more of Charles Keeping’s excellent illustrations to ‘Our Mutual Friend’.

‘Conveniently elevated above the level of the living, were the dead’

‘Tippins the divine’

The artist’s inspired evocation of Dickens’s ‘The whole metropolis was a heap of vapour charged with muffled sound of wheels’ prompted me to post https://derrickjknight.com/2021/09/11/a-knights-tale-32-the-great-smog/

On a still sultry afternoon we took a drive around the forest.

Dumped beside the entrance to the paddock on Braggers Lane was a burnt out Daihatsu Fourtrak.

Whoever left it there did not destroy the number plate.

Looking over the landscape at Rockford End. we could see a sunlit distant marina.

Jackie parked beside the very narrow lane while I wandered about with my camera and photographed

a grassy verge; tumbling farm buildings in an overgrown field; a dappled bank; and a gate into a similar field

From the lane up to Gorley Common and Hyde we observed a basking herd of deer.

At the top of the hill ponies shared the pasturage with cattle. One pony found its tail in a tangle; one cow stopped the traffic.

At North Gorley three donkeys were employed clipping a hedge, and

a huntsman and hound took note of the wind direction.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s wholesome cottage pie; crunchy carrots; tender cabbage and runner beans, with meaty gravy. The Culinary Queen drank Hoegaarden and I drank Cepa Lebrel Gran Reserva Rioja 2011.

She Brought A Friend

This afternoon we visited Milford Pharmacy.

Scaffolding was being erected in Island View Close; while

bowls matches were under way at Milford Bowls Club, where an appropriate weather vane stands atop their flagpole.

Perhaps a Southampton F. C. supporter lost his hat outside the club.

We then drove to Pilley for the purpose of continuing the seasonal changes project begun on 5th May.

The first picture in this gallery repeats the representative image which began the plan, without the pony drinking.

For the pony to be included would have been an amazing coincidence, wouldn’t it?

Or so I thought.

As I turned away my equine model approached from the distant grassland. I waited. She took up the position. I clicked.

And she brought a friend.

I was able to walk across the dry receding bank to photograph the second choice scene from the other side of the lake. Note the fresh green leaves on the reflected trees, and the water crowfoots still in bloom on the surface.

An assiduous group of donkeys were keeping the verges of the East End Arms car park trimmed for the reopening.

On our return home Jackie finished her work on redesigning the Pond Bed; together we replaced the red iron railing; and she added a new Brick Path sign.

In the meantime I made a little more progress on weeding the Shady Path.

The white metal Ace Reclaim bench shows that the Shady Path runs alongside the Palm Bed, now sporting two flowering rhododendrons and its own share of wild garlic alliums.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s flavoursome savoury rice topped with a thick omelette and served with a melange of hot and spicy and tempura prawns with sweet chilli sauce. She drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Malbec.

It Did Not Stay For Its Close-up

After lunch today I scanned the next five of Charles Keeping’s idiosyncratic illustrations to Charles Dickens’s ‘Martin Chuzzlewit’, displaying the artist’s liquid line in expressive portraiture.

‘Martin and his friend followed them to the door below’

‘On his livid face was one word – Death’

‘Whole troops of married ladies came flocking round the steps’

‘ ‘Pinch him for me, Cherry, pray,’ said Mercy’

‘The agent was swinging backwards and forwards in a rocking-chair’

Soon afterwards we set out on a short forest drive.

Pearly blackthorn still drapes the hedgerows. We noticed a meringue version at East End; a cascade behind a cock pheasant on Sowley Lane; and scoops of cream alongside St. Leonard’s Road.

Also at East End the pale blue lightly-clouded sky provided a backdrop for bare birches, skeletal oaks, and a yachting weather vane.

Oaks along Sowley Lane have bowed to years of prevailing winds from the Solent, beyond which is the Isle of Wight, creating the third layer in the rape field image. Screeching gulls, excited by the soil-churning of a distant tractor, advanced inland – silhouetted dark against the sky, and light against a line of birches.

While I photographed bright purple aubretia and gold and cream lichen decorating the old stone wall of St Leonard’s Grange,

a passing car flattened a hen pheasant, roughly in the centre of the picture, upon which a ravenous crow immediately alighted. Disturbed by the cyclist, it did not stay for its close-up.

This evening we reprised Jackie’s lemon chicken and egg fried rice meal, with which she drank more of the Sauvignon Blanc and I drank Recital Languedoc Montpeyroux 2018.