nature

Pesky Blue Tits; storm-blown seabirds; sore fingers; post delivered on Christmas Day; a strange use for a fungus; Gran sets foot in a Department Store, and what will the second half of the century bring?

October 28^th 1949:

I have always had a particular fondness for Bluetits [sic] and have smiled indulgently when they have picked the tops off milk bottles and drunk the cream, but the sight that met my eyes when I entered my bedroom…made me wonder if perhaps they were not such lovable little birds after all! I had noticed five of them on the ground beneath my window when I first came into the house but little did I know what mischief had been going on in my absence. The bedroom window was open about two inches. On the table in the middle of the room stands a very precious picture of wild flowers which Adrian painted. It has glass on both sides, with passe-partout over the top and down the sides until the frame is reached. The tit or tits had pecked this and strewn the paper in little bits all over the table and floor. It was almost completely stripped!

[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 28)

An influx of Striped Hawk-moths; some additions to the family’s Hampshire bird list; a rabbit is released in Devon; Jimsonweed in Eastleigh; Roger Deakin, Roger Tobia and John Crook; gypsies and farmers; the awesomeness of migrating salmon.

August 16th 1949:

During the morning a strange little procession arrived at my door. It consisted of my grocer, with a jam-jar in his hand, followed by his own and three other small boys all aged about five years, one behind the other like so many ducklings following the drake! The grocer said he had some strange creature with an awful stinger! When I looked at it, it was an innocent Pine Hawk caterpillar, the “awful stinger” being its harmless horn. I told them that if they liked to come in, Barry would show them a Pine Hawk moth, whereupon they all trooped in to see the Hawk moths, afterwards letting the caterpillar go again. We really do have some unusual callers and they seem to think we can tell them all they want to know about wild creatures – they bring the oddest things to us sometimes.

[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 27)

The athletic Goaters; some moving poetry; a new butterfly on St. Catherine’s Hill; a snake bite; a hornet sting; an Exhibition; two birthdays and the hurt of Bee Orchids.

Every evening, Gran describes the sunset seen from The Ridge, often in great detail, and when the sky is cloudy, she invariably writes, “sunset obscured”. On May 5th 1949 though, she misses it entirely:

…because I attended a concert given by a local troop of Girl Guides, of which Jane is a member. It was an excellent show and the spirit of friendliness increased by the presence of five members of a Polish Guide movement. It was almost dark when it was over.

[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 25)

Winston Churchill on Hut Hill; more woodland clearance; a doggy encounter; Rooks in peril; that Cuckoo is back again; “the Egg”; flowers to “the Queen”; Gran has an epiphany and Norris picks a rare flower.

Book 10

March 18th 1949, Gran writes:

Necessity took me to Southampton today… The bombed sites are ablaze with Coltsfoot now, creeping over the rubble and pouring down the slopes like golden streams. Knots of people standing about and the Convent schoolgirls lining The Avenue spoke of some untoward excitement and I was surprised to hear that Mr Churchill was expected to pass at any moment on his way to the docks to board “Queen Elizabeth”. I was already in the ‘bus for home and I cannot say that I saw him but we did pass his car on Hut Hill! In Park Road a Larch tree is already decked in its soft green tassels of fresh, new growth, one of the loveliest sights of Spring.

[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 24)

Jobs in the Park Road garden; a man – grubbing; Gadwall on Sowley Pond; Waxwings at St Cross; “Jock” MacNoe, and a hare causes entertainment.

It’s late January 1949. Gran spends most afternoons in the Park Road garden on a range of tasks; transplanting Caucasus Primroses; various jobs in the greenhouse (where, on the 27^th, she is saddened to see a long-tailed field mouse caught in a trap – “I would lose all my produce rather than catch them if the place belonged to me”, she writes) also outside weeding a bed of Primula wanda; watering Arums; sowing peas to bring them on for sowing out later, and enjoying the quiet and peace as she mixes soil and sieved leaves for seed-sowing. “I like to feel the soil in my hands…”

On the 27^th she records that:

Iris stylosa opened her first four beautiful flowers to the sunshine in the garden. How I love them, and how they break my heart! Just over two years ago I sent some to Adrian because he had never seen them. He never did see them though he was sufficiently conscious to know they came and were placed near him and later his mother put them into his hand for me – a gesture I shall never forget and one which in itself secured for her my undying friendship and affection.

[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 23)

Severe winter effects on small birds; an amusing put-down to a proposal of marriage; Barry is delayed by an aerial dog-fight and he ices a cake; Cranbury Lake is “bearing”; Cirl Bunting; floods and mumps.

On November 25th 1948:

Stonechats were present at Stony Cross in the New Forest this afternoon. Here also is the largest oak tree in the New Forest, known as the Knightwood Oak. Last August the tree measured 22ft 4½ ins in girth. The largest tree to be cut down in the New Forest was also an oak – in Langley Wood. When felled in 1758 it was found to contain 300 rings of annual growth, and required twelve horses to drag it to the coast. [Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 22)

A dragonfly misnamed; the Hampton Court vine; solace found on the downs; Trafalgar Day; Junior English prize for daughter Jane; a prince is born and a mother’s anxiety.

Joan Goater writes on 15th September 1948:

A large green and black bodied dragonfly flew about under the yew tree opposite here, performing amazing feats of aerobatics. I agree with what Brian Vesey-Fitzgerald said recently on the wireless about this lovely creature’s misnomer. It is far too beautiful to be named “Dragon”, which one always associates with an ugly monster, but the repulsive “grub” is equally mis-named “nymph”, because one always thinks of a nymph as an exquisitely dainty creature. They should certainly bear each other’s names. [Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 21)

Blackberries – bottled and jammed; identifying small birds by call; a bit of Anglo Saxon history; the Hostel of St Cross; planes versus trains; “sugaring” for moths; the Burren Green and ladies’ tresses.

Book 7

It’s August 20th 1948. A change of season is in the air and Gran writes, while blackberrying again in the woods opposite:

Again the fragrance of damp bracken and water mint mingled with the perfume of ripe blackberries to give that indescribable scent of the August woodland, and the tang of Autumn was heavy in the air… the birds were silent, save for an occasional “T’seet” from a Tit…”

Great, Blue and Coal Tits, together with several other small woodland species, I found difficult to identify by their calls when I started birding, and I remember asking Dad’s advice about how to tell them apart. His answer was, in a Mexican accent, “ eetz eazzy” (this being the call of all these birds) which we both found entertaining, but was of little help to me, as I did not find it easy!

[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 20)

More from Beattie’s Field; a visit by Adrian’s mother; a positive outlook on life; tennis again after 15 years; first flower memories; RMS Aquitania; a mother’s thoughts, and Hedgehog gets a kipper.

Gran writes on July 11th 1948, shortly after daughter Jane’s Confirmation:

Another cloudy dawn but fine enough for us to get to Compton Church for Jane’s first Communion. A Wood-Pigeon was softly calling in the opposite wood when I awakened at 6.15 and the Lark was already singing in the nearby field, or rather over what used to be a field, but it is now part of Hillier’s nursery, at 7.15 as we left home. …a Green Woodpecker flew over the church during the service uttering its strident alarm notes. The flowers on the altar were, as usual, beautiful and tastefully arranged.

[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 19)