Tomatoes for the Garden

Last weekend my sister gave me some tomato plants and this weekend we went to the garden centre and bought the right compost to fill some big pots and planted them on. My mini polythene greenhouse is not big enough to hold any of those pots so they are now dotted around the garden where they will catch the sun for at least part of the day - when we get it. Here's hoping we will actually get a crop. Be wonderful if they are half as good as these.

pic by Rameshng at Wikimedia Commons

Cars and Ships

This week I had an encounter with a traffic warden who told me that I should have bought a ticket to put on my car in the Sandbanks car park. Payment is required 24 hours a day. It was fortunate that Jade and I had left the beach and arrived back at the car in time to see him looking at it. He said he would let me off the £35 penalty. He also said that if I arrived as usual at 10 to 8 a £1.50 ticket would only take me up to 07:59 instead of giving the usual hour. There’s something wrong there and I might write to the council about that. I didn’t blame the warden who was very chatty and trying to be helpful. Apparently I can buy a £78 ticket that will give me free parking at any beach car park for a year. I could have told him that would be more than 50% of a week’s state pension, and I have rather more pressing things to spend it on, but I didn’t.

Since that morning I haven’t driven into the car park. We’ve walked elsewhere. But Jade loves to run on the beach, so this morning I parked outside the row of shops across the road from the car park. You can have up to 20 minutes there. Then we strode quickly across the car park for a fairly brief visit to the beach and got back with seconds to spare.

On the way back as usual I took the scenic route harbourside and along the quay. We had a good view of the Brittany Ferries Barfleur on her way out of the harbour to sail to France. In this photo, which I found at Wikimedia Commons, it looks as though she is coming the opposite way towards the port in Poole Harbour.

Pic by Chris Allen

I also found this pic of the Condor Ferries Catamaran sitting in port, just as we see it every morning.

pic by Collin Foot

June: the Month for Roses

I've been out in the rain today, and got pretty wet several times. Visibility was well down on the beach and the only ferry we saw this morning was the chain one between Sandbanks and Studland.

But the rain is good for the garden. My roses are budding and I look forward to the blooms. This is what they will look like.

Torquay Landslide

On Friday I met up with a friend in Torquay. After our lunch, we strolled along Babbacombe Downs overlooking Oddicombe Beach. This area was a favourite haunt of mine when I was a young teenager, but I know that since then there have been many landslides down the cliffs at the far end.

pic by David Hawgood

But from the downs on Friday we saw the results of another one higher up that was much more serious. One of the houses that I used to walk past on the coast path was half collapsed with rubble strewn down the horrendous red gash below it.  A local man stopped to tell us that the house had recently been sold to an unsuspecting buyer for £150,000 by telephone at auction. Of course it hadn't been insured. We couldn't believe that anyone would be so gullible and not smell a rat at that price for a six bedroom house with a sea view. You can see pictures of it and read about it here. 

A Blooming Garden

This was my garden in June 2010. The multicoloured bed was outside my kitchen window. It's never been so colourful since. I now have some heathers in the centre and today we planted begonias around them. Here's hoping.

Summer Has Arrived

The weather forecasters are making everyone feel better here. We have our long awaited high, and warm temperatures with little rain are forecast for the rest of this week. Whoopee!

After our visit to Sandbanks beach this morning, after lunch we went to our little local one which is on the Hamworthy peninsula in Poole Harbour. The car park was busy but  most people must have been on the water in kayaks or little boats because there were only a few groups settled on the beach itself.

I didn't have my camera today, but this pic is one of mine from another year showing our little beach, where dogs are allowed all year round. You can also see part of the heathland that borders it. We started our walk up there so we could take the steps down to the beach just before the first headland in the photo and walk back along the sand. it's a very pleasant walk with beautiful views across the harbour from above the beach as well as on it.

Our Morning Walks

Recently our morning walks have become much more exciting than usual. For the last month, my son has been working on construction sites in Sandbanks, starting at 8 am. Because the first bus he could get doesn't arrive until 8.10, I have volunteered to drive him and Jade comes along for the ride, which takes about twentyfive minutes after we have run the gauntlet of all the traffic lights on the way. Then we have various options for our walk. Jade's favourite is obvious - the beach at Sandbanks. In the summer months, dogs are allowed on the beach between the far end of the car park and the end of the peninsula where the chain ferry crosses to Studland. On the beach Jade runs wild, chasing the stones I throw and digging them into the sand before she picks them up in her mouth. We meet lots of other dogs and their owners, and everyone talks about the weather and how fickle it is, while the dogs sniff each other and try to get Jade to play with them. She never will; she much prefers getting petted by people to rough-housing it with other dogs.

On Tuesday I ignored the immediate beach and turned the car towards Canford Cliffs, which is on the way to Bournemouth. 

                                                             photo by Michael9559 at Wikimedia CommonsHere you can park along the road above the beach and walk along a footpath beside a green, which then goes past a children's play area and into woodland. I noticed that since I was last there a couple of weeks ago, the rhododendrons have started to bloom, giving patches of bright pink among the green of the leaves and the bare tree barks. Farther on there is a delightful carpet of bluebells under the trees. We took a tarmacced pathway that drops down through a chine to the beach. At the bottom is a strange conglomeration of beach huts as you can see in the picture. 

photo by Chris Downer

Down here I have to put Jade on the lead to stop her running onto the sand, which could cost me a fine of up to £1000 at this time of year. We walk along the promenade to another pathway that zigzags back up to the top of the cliff via steep slopes and steps. I have to stop several times on the way up to catch my breath, so I take the opportunity to gaze at the spectacular views: right around to Old Harry Rocks to my right; past Bournemouth to Hengistbury Head on my left, with the Needles of the Isle of Wight beyond.

Sometimes I drive to Whitecliff Park at Parkstone Bay within Poole Harbour which is on my way home. From the free car park here, the dog walks skirt football and cricket pitches, although no-one is using them at this time of day. you can walk along the shore all the way to Poole Quay from here, but we only have time to go about a third of the way before turning away from the sea to complete our circuit. One morning I noticed a sign explaining that there were once quarries here into cliffs which no longer exist, and you can just see a small patch of light earth on the side of the bank up to the road, which explains the name Whitecliff. Back at the car park there are always rooks on the ground in the mornings and they only grudjingly move out of the way when a car needs to pass. Even when Jade or other dogs want to chase them, they don't move far. I've never seen rooks this tame before. Perhaps it's because there is a food stall here and when we go back to the car, it is usually being set up with everything for the day being offloaded from an estate car.

So those are just three of my many morning walk options at present. It's quite an anticlimax at the weekends when we just step outside and walk to the park at the end of the our road.