Winchester Cathedral – Page 3

Dicing With Death

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE. REPEAT IF REQUIRED

What does Aaron have in common with a bee? You might be forgiven for imagining that it is that they both have very high work rates. That would be a good answer, but incorrect.

Watching our friend, unlit ciggy between lips, firing one-handed from the hip with his petrol-operated chain saw as he tackles the reshaping of our cypress tree, may provide a clue,

especially when you see the height of his tripodal ladder.

Aaron always clears up along the way. Today he dragged branches to the Back Drive where he cut up a few logs for his client, Susan, leaving the rest for the ‘burn site’ of the dump.

This branch demonstrates his clean cuts,

while this view from the patio displays the finished shape.

The persicaria red dragon baring its bloody fangs in the Dragon Bed,

and the crocosmia solfaterre are among the plants that will now receive more light and air.

In the Rose Garden, an intrepid fly scales the walls of Winchester Cathedral,

and geraniums in the stone urn beside the potting shed enjoy a glimpse of Summer Wine.

Japanese anemones appear to grow a foot each day.

The bee skirting a hopeful spider’s web, in order to work on a verbena bonarensis, provides the answer to my opening conundrum. Each in his own way is successfully dicing with death.

Later this afternoon we pulled up some brambles. As I walked along the Back Drive to deposit them in a bag for the dump, I almost stepped on twin juvenile collared doves sunning themselves on the gravel. Naturally I hurried indoors for my camera. When I returned they seemed to have disappeared. They were, however, simply playing hide and seek, foraging among the pebbles.

Not yet old enough for timidity, almost in tandem, they carried on about their business and left me to mine.

Here is a sweet pea for Bruce.

This evening we dined on Mr Chan’s Hordle Chinese Take Away fare. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I finished the cabernet sauvignon.

Fishy Business

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE. REPEAT IF REQUIRED.

This morning, Jackie went hunting for pond liner to mend a leak in the Waterboy fountain

whilst Aaron cleared wind-battered plants and cut back others encroaching on the paths,

and I dead-headed in the rose garden and beyond. In the first of the above two pictures, the paler Alan Titchmarsh stands beside Love Knot; in the second, Little Rambler’s label stands out.

The bright pink Rosa Gallica is beautifully striated;

Winchester Cathedral bears new buds ready to take over from the mature bloom;

and a bee lingered on Absolutely Fabulous long enough for me to get two shots in.

In fact bees busy themselves everywhere. This one takes itself into a pink foxglove;

another boards an aquilegia;

another a heuchera;

and, is that a shield bug sharing a berth with one in a Bottle Brush plant?

Elsewhere we have suspended petunias;

ascending clematises like this Star of India;

soaring Rosa Glauca;

white campanulas;

delicate rose campion;

tiny sisyrinchium striatum;

luscious lilies;

hardy fuchsias;

two different philadelphuses;

another pink rose Dearest;

and Wedding Day

joining the clematis on the Agriframes Arch.

After lunch we motored to Stewart’s Garden Centre just outside Christchurch where, at Maidenhead Aquatics, we found the liner.

Outside this outlet there is a large pool around which koi carp, some looking prehistoric, glide, fins flapping, or swoop, tails flipping, fins tucked into their sides, whirling interminably.

We also noticed that Broomhill Garden Buildings had a Spring Sale, where a rather good greenhouse was available at half price. Back home we sped to take measurements of the place where it would go. It fitted. Back we sped and ordered it.

This evening we dined on haddock fishcakes topped with Cheddar cheese; spinach (for the forearms); boiled potatoes, carrots, and green beans.with which I drank Louis Chamandiet Cairanne 2015.

Playing With Dad’s Toys

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE. THOSE IN GROUPS ACCESS GALLERIES THAT CAN BE VIEWED FULL SIZE.

Today may have been exceedingly dull, but it was also incredibly mild for mid-December.

The orange poppy bud in this cluster is from our patio. Normally we expect these to flourish in Spring and Summer. This year they have never stopped. The pink rose, For Your Eyes Only, has clusters of buds and small shoots that are more evident in the deep red Love Knot. Winchester Cathedral is having a further flush, and this white clematis, although somewhat bedraggled, still performs.

This afternoon Jackie drove us to Margery and Paul’s home in Bitterne for their annual Christmas sing-song. Here the friendly little group sang a mixture of traditional carols like ‘Silent Night’, folk songs such as ‘Waltzing Matilda’, and fun numbers like ‘I’m ‘Enery The Eighth, I Am’. Lynne ably led the singing, Mary played piano beautifully, and the rest of us did our enthusiastic best. Margery had been the pianist for the first number.

Afterwards Jackie and I went on to Elizabeth’s where she fed us on authentic spaghetti Bolognese followed by tasty apricot tart and cream. Jackie drank Peroni and I can’t remember which Australian red wine Elizabeth and I enjoyed.

Elizabeth was on grandparent duties, so we had the added bonus of a short time with Adam and Thea, before Jackie drove them to a party and returned to join my sister and me and my delightful great-nephew Jasper.

Adam’s childhood toys have remained at his mother’s home, so Jasper, three in January, was happy to wave his parents goodbye, wishing them “a lovely time” and remain with his GeeMa to play with them.

Jasper is a dab hand at spearing chips and sausage with a fork and dipping them into ‘red sauce’, which Elizabeth had to keep topped up.

Our next stop was a short visit to Mum during which we made her comfortable for the night.

The Never Ending Summer

CLICK ON SMALLER CLUSTERS TO ACCESS LARGER GALLERIES WHICH CAN BE EVEN MORE ENLARGED.

This morning, Aaron and Sean finished their tree work. Our friend, of AP Maintenance, demonstrated that he has entered into the spirit of photography when he suggested I might make an action image of him felling a branch. I took two pictures which I cannot yet produce here. The reason for this inability is that six of the exposures I made today have been uploaded in CR2 format, which is not one of those accepted by WordPress. This is a mystery, because they were taken with the same camera in the same session as all the rest I here publish.

I had imagined that I would simply focus on clematises,

but there were so many other blooms, like roses pink Compassion, white Winchester Cathedral, golden Crown Princess Margareta, and another pink unidentified one.

Views like these across the Phantom Path and of the Dragon Bed still contain blooms. High up, left off centre in the first can be seen the Compassion rose; petunias and geraniums are included in both images.

Other flowers, such as white solanums, red snapdragons, yellow and red nasturtiums, pink geraniums, purple fuchsias, and pink phlox, are surprisingly long-lived occupants.

Some of the earlier dahlias have bloomed for months.

It really seems a never ending summer.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s delicious pork paprika and wild rice, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank Reserve des Tuguets madiran 2012.

Gardening With A Camera

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE. REPEAT IF REQUIRED.

Photographing while gardening is a hazardous business. I blame the camera’s unforgiving eye. My entertainment this morning was tidying up the Rose Garden with dead-heading and sweeping back into the beds the mulch bark that our avian friends daily toss onto the paving; and clearing up the Head Gardener’s clipping piles.

I was at risk of exposing bits I’d missed, like these few scraps of bark in this shot of crocosmia torches burning alongside the Rose Garden path;

revealing tasks I hadn’t yet carried out, like the clippings in this view through the gazebo;

or incurring the displeasure of the Head Gardener for leaving a blue bucket in this view from the circular concrete of what we think is the site of an old well.

This afternoon we continued with our usual garden maintenance activities, mine, of course, including the new camera, with which I am beginning to capture elusive insects in flight.

Small White butterflies are never still;

and bees, like this one aiming for a crocosmia, are apt to dart from one plant to another.

Included among the many varieties of fuchsia we have

Chequerboard,

Hawkshead,

and Army Nurse, this one sharing an urn with trailing lobelia.

There is also variety in the Rose Garden, provided by different types of flower, such as lilies, geraniums, petunias, penstemons, heucheras and honeysuckle, in addition to the crocosmias mentioned earlier.

Crême de la crême,

and Winchester Cathedral are among the white scented varieties of rose;

Mamma Mia is here reflected in one of the mirrors placed for that purpose.

This evening we dined at Lymington’s Lal Qilla, where, despite their being very crowded, we received our usual warm welcome, friendly, efficient service, and excellent food. My choice was king prawn Ceylon; Jackie’s was chicken sag; and we shared mushroom rice, egg paratha, and Tarka dal. We both drank Kingfisher.

With the promise of an interesting sunset on our return, we diverted to Milford on Sea. In the second shot the sky is reflected in the Modus’s roof.

Roses And Christmas Lights

Watched by, among others, roses

Summertime,

and Winchester Cathedral,

this morning I completed the composting of the rose garden, whilst Jackie planted bulbs such as various fritillaries.

This afternoon we began our Christmas shopping in New Milton’s Lidl and Marks and Spencer in Hedge End. Between these emporia we visited Mum, who has been struggling with back pain lately. She seems rather better.

We then went on to Wickham where we hoped to shop in Chesapeake Mill, an antiques centre, which had closed before we arrived. This was no real hardship because it meant we were able to dine at the Veranda. My choice of meal was Lamb Lal Maas, and special fried rice. Jackie chose chicken korma and mushroom rice. We shared a superb paratha and onion bhaji; and both drank Kingfisher.

Both the town and the restaurant were festooned in Christmas lights.

P.S. My good friend, Barrie Haynes, has provided the following important information:

UP THE CREEK!

This one is for you Derrick Knight, but I would like my US FB friends also to see this, as it is an interesting piece of history that people pass by everyday without knowing of it. There are a number of explanations to the expression, ‘Up the Creek’ but the accepted one in Hampshire is that many fine vessels ended their lives and were broken up in Fareham Creek, which is just off Portsmouth Harbour. The USS Chesapeake (1799) was a three masted heavy frigate that was captured by the Royal Navy. She eventually ended up at Fareham and in 1820 a miller from the ancient town of Wickham (around eight miles inland) bought her remains and used her timbers to build the Chesapeake Mill, which still stands to this day!

The Stockpot

Last night Elizabeth told us she had found a golf ball on her bedroom floor (see post of 8th. September).

It was a pretty drizzly day today. Michael came down and spent the morning with us, after which Jackie drove me to Winchester to collect the plants left behind yesterday. As she was on holiday she thought she would like an ice cream, which she consumed with a superb chocolate eclair whilst I drank a double espresso in two mouthfuls. A boy in his first year or so at school, with his finger up his nose, kept asking, at full decibels, what was his father’s favourite colour. Being unable to quieten his son the man offered the opinion that perhaps his teacher should be asked to focus on his behaviour.

A young, very tanned, man sat cross-legged in a doorway. We wondered whether he was the owner of the bicycle bearing a placard asking people to ‘SAVE TIBET’. A rather older gentleman carrying a folding white stick told us, as he put up his rain hood and tightly buttoned his coat, that the weather was going to deteriorate from tonight. We thanked him for the information. The young man seemed unconcerned.

We wandered down the High Street and into the Cathedral precincts. There was such a wealth of history in the buildings that a piece of Roman pavement in a corner of the Deanery could seem to have been forgotten and almost buried in what is now a second-hand bookshop, selling what look like donated books in order raise funds for the cathedral. I delighted the custodian by selecting a P. D. James novel. We held a mutual belief that it is the depth of her characterisation that marks her out as an author. Jackie was interested in my other choice, a book on Elizabethan England by A.L. Rowse.

Following the signs to the Water Meadows we found ourselves by what we took to be the river Itchen, and strolled along it for a while. At one point we were intrigued by

a conversation between a grasshopper and a snail perched on either side of a bent umbellifer stem.

For our evening meal, Jackie fried another couple of sausages and added them to the still plentiful left over sausage and bacon casserole. A Firs Mess (see 2nd. September) completed the meal, which, for Elizabeth and me was complemented by Villapani 2011, and for Jackie by Buddweiser. The now very tasty stock from my original casserole turned the conversation to stockpots. The only person I know who now keeps a traditional stockpot is my friend Norman. This is a continuing pan of juices from cooked dishes which is constantly reused and added to over a period of time. In the old days this never left the kitchen stove. Because Norman doesn’t have the old kitchen range, and doesn’t cook every day, he keeps his pot in the fridge. I can assure you it is put to good use. Ann, the late wife of my friend Don (see 10th. August), told me she knew of a woman in Cerrigydrudion, where they had their Welsh home, who had kept a stockpot going for fifty years. A small chain of restaurants in the very heart of Central London is one of Norman’s favourite haunts. Given their situation, these establishments offer an incredibly cheap, very well cooked, range of basic, tasty meals. Norman is something of a gourmet, and his recommendation is not to be discounted. I know, I’ve followed it. The chain is called The Stockpot. As the founder has retired they are all on a franchise now.