Windows – Page 2 – derrickjknight

Holmsley Revisited

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE. THOSE IN SMALLER GROUPS LEAD TO GALLERIES.

Prompted by questions from Geoff Le Pard, that great storyteller at TanGental, this morning Jackie drove us in search of what had once been a derelict cottage situated on Holmsley Passage, near Anthony’s Bee Bottom on the moors near Holmsley.

We found it close to

Holmsley Bog.

Unbeknown to us I had photographed this area and the house on 17th October.

It lies beyond a stream spanned by a small road bridge. As we arrived, an egret stood in the shallow, but fast-moving water. By the time I had it in focus, the bird flapped smoothly and elegantly away.

As I walked towards the modern building, a small car with three female occupants approached me at a speed slow enough for me to wave it to a halt. I thanked the group for stopping and asked if they belonged to the house. The driver was the owner. I explained my project and asked her if this building had replaced Geoff’s old derelict. It had indeed. She told me she had bought the modern one and added an extension and a small garden. The address is 11, Holmsley Gate house. This amenable woman was quite happy for me to photograph as I wished. She continued her journey and left me to it. I thought this was rather a generous response. I focussed on the house in its setting;

including the public track running alongside. Further study of an Ordnance Survey map (by Jackie) reveals that this way is the old railway line. The website geograph.org.uk confirms:

“Level crossing on disused Brockenhurst to Ringwood railway.

The wide yellow track is the former railway line. Crossing this at ground level is a tarmac minor road running from the A35 through Holmsley Inclosure towards Burley. The modern house, I speculate, was only permitted because there was a crossing keeper’s hut there before. For a better view of the house see SU2201 : Modern house near Holmsley Bog.”

one of the side walls with its log pile, and reflective windows revealing views of the landscape behind.

The roof of the extension had weathered attractively, its windows offering similar effects.

Although the garden enjoyed the protection of high wire netting, three fresh oranges and an avocado had been tastefully placed on the stones outside, no doubt for the delectation of hungry ponies. Mostly they are only given carrots and apples. This was clearly an up-market establishment.

Intending to lunch at Holmsley Old Station Tea Rooms, we continued along Holmsley Passage. Today the weather was as dull and overcast as on our last visit, but the lane was attractive enough for us to determine to return on a better lit day.

Holmsley Station no longer serves a railway line. I have referred to Dr Beeching’s axe on several occasions in this blog. It is perhaps time to explain this, so I quote thus from Wikipedia: “The Beeching cuts (also Beeching Axe) were a reduction of route network and restructuring of the railways in Great Britain, according to a plan outlined in two reports, The Reshaping of British Railways (1963) and The Development of the Major Railway Trunk Routes (1965), written by Dr Richard Beeching and published by the British Railways Board.

The first report identified 2,363 stations and 5,000 miles (8,000 km) of railway line for closure, 55% of stations and 30% of route miles, with an objective of stemming the large losses being incurred during a period of increasing competition from road transport and reducing the rail subsidies necessary to keep the network running; the second identified a small number of major routes for significant investment. The 1963 report also recommended some less well publicised changes, including a switch to containerisation for rail freight.

Protests resulted in the saving of some stations and lines, but the majority were closed as planned and Beeching’s name remains associated with the mass closure of railways and the loss of many local services in the period that followed. A few of these routes have since reopened, some short sections have been preserved as Heritage Railways, while others been incorporated into the National Cycle Network or used for road schemes; others now are lost to construction, simply reverted to farm land, or remain derelict.”

That is perhaps an early example of how the profit motive has overridden the concept of service in our modern world.

The Tea Rooms have put to good use a sad reminder of a wonderfully meandering transport system that, in less frenetic days, we once enjoyed. The buildings have been preserved and refurbished; familiar signs are featured; and, both inside and out, railway paraphernalia are displayed.

The food and service are excellent, too.

We carried away this evening’s dessert, in the form of delicious meringue confections that we couldn’t manage to consume with our lunch. Only when we laid these on the table did we realise that the green fruit were Kiwis. Now there is only one item of food with which I experience discomfort. Yes. It’s Kiwi fruit. It burns the roof of my mouth, which is more than any chili can achieve. Jackie fished them out of my helping, and stuffed them into hers. She blew me a compensatory raspberry.

Before pud we enjoyed Jackie’s pasta arabbiata with which she drank Hoegaarden and I finished the pinot noir.

Stymied

Progress on the computer front has ground to a halt. Yesterday’s senior advisor had undertaken to telephone me to enquire about my reloading of Sierra.

He phoned just before lunch. When I told him I had managed to load one picture, very slowly, he decided I should insert an external hard drive onto which the entire contents of my iMac should be downloaded; and I didn’t take in what else; I told him I didn’t own an external gadget and lived too far away from a source to buy one today. ‘Don’t phone me, I’ll phone you’ was the essence of my additional phrasing. No way was I going to spend more hours on the phone on something that was likely to be beyond me.

What I didn’t know when I spoke to him was that I would be unable to load any more pictures, even at the rate of Aesop’s tortoise. When I discovered this I called a Peacock. Peacock Computers of Lymington, that is. Their James is to visit in an ambulance tomorrow, and take Mac off to hospital.

It seems it needs a heart transplant, in that the hard drive is likely to be on the blink. This was confirmed when I could send no more than five pictures by e-mail to my Windows laptop, and, later not even turn it off. Sometimes you need a good surgeon.

Not to worry. I could, after all, put the photos directly into the laptop from the cameras. Couldn’t I?

Well, no. You see, when you upload photos onto your computer, you have an option to delete them from the camera. That is what I always do. So they, like maggots, are trapped inside the Apple. Stymied.

At least I could add the e-mailed pictures. Ah, but. Hopefully coincidentally, the ‘attachment display settings’ on the sidebar in WordPress has disappeared. This means I can only put small or ‘standard’ pictures on, and they can’t be enlarged. I have sent a query to WordPress Happiness Engineers. It is a bit worrying that there is an unresolved forum thread about this problem.

Here’s one I made earlier, in which Louisa holds Emily in one of the pictures I sent to my granddaughter two days ago. That will have to suffice for today, and act as a further taster for the earlier post.

This evening we dined on lamb and mint sausages, mashed potato, and crunchy carrots and runner beans; followed by Normandy apple tart and evap. I drank Collin-Bourriset Fleurie 2015.

The Village That Died For D-Day

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE. REPEAT IF REQUIRED.

This morning, Aaron and Sean cleared space for the anticipated greenhouse. Holly and Bay trees were cut back and Jackie’s old work corner dismantled.

The sun danced over Jackie’s head as she contemplated the opening.

This afternoon Jackie drove us to Tyneham in Dorset and back.

Now uninhabited for the last 73 years, Tyneham was a thriving village from a previous age, until the villagers were ordered to leave their homes as part of the war effort in 1943. They were never allowed back. Today the remnants of this community were swarming with visitors.

The story of its century of change is fixed to a wall near the telephone box. All will become clear when this photograph is enlarged.

The replaced telephone box bears it own story,

as does the shell of the Post Office.

Most of the buildings are now ruined husks

revealing such as fireplaces,

and vacant windows fitted with stout wooden supports.

Exceptions are the school and the church. Jackie waits for me in the shadows outside

the schoolroom where there is a permanent exhibition. Here are the children’s desks.

The teacher’s faces down the classroom. Note the cane.

Queen Victoria and King George V hang on the wall.

The school photograph from 1912 features, third from right on the front row, Fred Knight.

We met a man who had worked with this former pupil some twenty years ago. Apparently, after Fred’s wife died, he often returned to the village to sit and think. In the second of these rows of coat hooks, young Frederick’s coat hanger is clearly labelled.

Did this lad and his classmates gaze through the schoolroom window and contemplate where they may be laid to rest one day? If so, this was not to be.

One gentleman who had grown up in Tyneham did come back to be buried there in 2010, to be joined by his wife five years later.

Beyond the churchyard, as from anywhere else in the village, can be seen the Purbeck Hills.

The Century of Change board pictured above tells us that it is Evelyn Bond who pinned the notice to the church door on the day the village died.

Priests first washed their hands in the piscina behind the font more than 700 years ago.

With their own little dog straining at the leash, a couple ascended the slope beyond this tethered collie

which was unperturbed as they loomed into silhouette.

Beyond the Military Firing Range on Povington Hill

we can see how close the sea is to the low-lying village. If you examine these pictures carefully, you should be able to distinguish between hay bales and sheep in the fields.

As we approached Wareham on our return journey it became apparent that the road home was very busy. There was therefore only one course of action.

We turned off into this very attractive town and sought out The Rajpoot Indian restaurant. It was not yet open, so we dropped intoThe King’s Arms next door for drinks. The restaurant itself was first class. I enjoyed king prawn naga, as Jackie did her chicken shashlick. We shared the chef’s secret spice rice, an egg paratha, and an onion bahji. We drank small bottles of Kingfisher.

On A Mission 2

This morning I began the nightmare that is the administration attached to moving house. Most organisations prefer you to make the necessary arrangements on line, but I am of the generation that prefers to deal with real people. This is actually possible, but first of all you have to deal with a machine, You may use a keyboard, or in some cases speech, to answer the robot’s questions. At some point the mechanised voice will politely ask you to repeat either what you have said, or the number you have keyed in. If that happens more than once or twice over a particular point, you are advised to wait for an operator whilst you listen either to dubious music or advertising of the particular business’s services. If you are lucky you are told how many people are ahead of you in the queue or how long the delay may be.
Today’s experience wasn’t that difficult. It began with organising the removal service supplied by the admirable Globe removals who have moved us three times already. No problem. Once we passed the machine hoops, BT gave us a very friendly and efficient woman who sorted out the transfer of their equipment and account to be within four days of the move. Even New Forest Council had the decency to have their demands for council tax and consequent direct debits date from 1st April, to coincide nicely with our departure from Castle Malwood Lodge.
I’m bound to forget something, but at least I have made a start.
After lunch Jackie gave me a 90 minute start for a trip to just beyond Bolderwood. She then caught me up in the car and drove me to our destination and back. I walked to Emery Down by the usual route, turning right at The New Forest Inn. Had I not stopped in Minstead for a chat with Anne, I may well have reached our goal. As it was Jackie reached me just a mile from the Canadian Cross.
My readers are more than acquainted with the huge corpses of forest trees and their crudely amputated limbs that littered this stretch of terrain. Pools of still water lay beside them. I suspect it was peat that lent its tincture to some of these glassy patches.
A young and beautiful white pony ambled inquisitively across the dried bracken and watched me walking past.
My Facebook friend, Barrie Haynes, who once lived in the area, had asked me about two maple trees planted either side of the Canadian Cross. He wanted to know how they were surviving, and I undertook to investigate. The Cross is the centrepiece of the Memorial to Canadian Servicemen who lost their lives during the Second World War whilst contributing to the struggle, the outcome of which made my upbringing much safer than it may have been. Barrie wrote that ‘the story goes that two Canadians came back many years [after the memorial had first been erected], looking for the original cross (which had rotted away). When the new cross was first set up, the maples either side were stolen’. They were subsequently replaced.
I am happy to report that the trees, although leafless at the moment, are thriving.
Please spare a thought for Rene Fournier and his compatriots.
This morning’s tussle with technology was a sweet dream compared to the nightmare that beset me when I began to draft the latter half of this post. iMac’s Safari would not load the page. The message they gave me was that the server had discontinued, probably because it was busy. I was to try again in a few minutes. I did so several times over the next hour. Then I had the first of my brilliant ideas. Perhaps it would work on Windows. It did. Oh joy. I could then write the text. But what about the photos? They were on the iMac. No longer on the camera so I couldn’t try to load them onto my HP laptop. I always delete them from the camera once I’ve put them on the computer.
Then I had my second brilliant idea. I could -mail the photos to myself, put them onto the HP desktop, and upload them to WordPess from there. I did send them successfully. But how, on my newest equipment, was I to transfer the pictures from the e-mails? I couldn’t fathom it.
But. Wait a minute. Do you feel brilliant idea number three coming on? I did. I still had my old Toshiba that Becky hasn’t yet collected. I knew how to do it on that. I thought. In fact I’d already forgotten, but I did manage it.
I couldn’t, however, do much with the image sizes, so I hope you will forgive me. In any case, I trust you will appreciate the effort that has gone into illustrating this post.
The superb bottle of Pomerol, La Croix Taillefer 2007, given to me by Shelly and Ron for Christmas, accompanying Jackie’s liver and bacon casserole (recipe), went some way to alleviating my suffering.
As did the WordPress support system. I had alerted them to my problem. Whilst I was completing this piece, David from WordPress came on to chat. He confirmed what I had been beginning to realise, which was it was an internet compatibility problem. He sent me a link which may help. I’m not up to pursuing this tonight. We’ll see what tomorrow may bring.
P.S. At 3 a.m. the next morning, waking up thinking about it, I rose from my bed and tried the link. It advised me to clear my Safari cache. This seemed a pretty scary thing to do. But I did it anyway. And. Blow me. It worked. The result is I have been able to reformat this page with larger photographs.