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Farley Mount butterflies declined; the Blackbirds fledge; Pyrola minor – gone; Jane departs Chelsea College; failing to shop in Bournemouth; an unexpected meeting; cricket with Julian; Smarties from Ricky; Adrian’s Day, and how that Yellowhammer sings!

July 10th 1956.  “Just before two o’clock”, Gran writes:

…Alan Hill, the young naturalist from Ireland, who is again in England on holiday, came over to see me, and we took our tea to Farley Mount. Alan was on a motorbike, so he went on and waited for me there.

Among the commoner plants and other wildlife they note there, Gran describes passing a “flowery corner, teeming with butterflies, among them several lovely Silver-washed Fritillaries”.

“This was the area”, Dad reminds me, “which was known to the family as Pa’s Corner, strictly in Crab Wood. It is now an overgrown picnic area, and there are very few butterflies to be seen”.

Gran, in her journal, adds:

I picked a spray of Deadly Nightshade Atropa belladonna since I had promised to paint it for Maureen Toole… We enjoyed our tea among the downland flowers before climbing up to the monument, from which we had an excellent view of the Isle of Wight, bathed in brilliant sunshine, and Fawley.

[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 81)

Union Castle ship interiors; a window is unveiled; a male Blackbird sits; a Jaguar at Noar Hill; a Gannet and a murder in Dorset; a bird’s identity unresolved; unsporting behaviour and a long day across the border in Sussex.

On June 20th 1956, having first checked her Blackbirds’ nest, the progress of which she is following in the garden, Gran says:

Later I went to Southampton, where it was Visitors’ Day on board the “Winchester Castle”, and I was shewn over the ship by an official of the Union Castle Line, who entertained a small party to lunch in the dining room afterwards. I have, of course, been over several Castle boats before, when delivering flowers for Fowlers’, but today I saw the lounge, swimming pool and smoke-room, and enjoyed an excellent lunch on board as well.

The woodwork throughout is of a delightful golden-yellow, and the furnishings in pastel shades, which tone together beautifully. The pictures are in good taste also, and in one suite there hung one by Russell Flint, R.A. depicting a mountain scene of great charm and colour. All the draperies, such as bedspreads, cushions and eiderdowns, are of different colour in each cabin, but all are in keeping with the golden woodwork. An orchestra was playing during lunch.

Samples of the chef’s art, in the way of dressed and decorated meats, were arranged on a table outside the dining-room, and the sight of them made the mouth water in advance! The sun was shining and the gulls constantly circled round the ship.

[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 80)

A reduced evening chorus; Furzey Gardens; Jane’s last half-term; the Chelsea Flower Show – again; flowers from Hazel; migraine medication; five essays; St Mary’s re-dedicated, and a Blackbird builds a nest.

Book 58

On May 19th 1956 Gran tells us: “As always at Whitsun I recorded the evening chorus for the Glanton Bird Research Station, and, for the purpose, went down to the Lake.”  She notes the times of the day’s last songs and calls of a total of nineteen species, including Cuckoo and Wood Warbler, the only two species on her list unlikely to be heard there nowadays.  No Nightingale is heard, nor a Nightjar, so it appears that these summer visitors no longer find the habitats suitable in their old Hiltingbury haunts. [Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 79)