Letter 7th September 08

19 Willingham Road
Over
Cambridge
CB24 5PD

7th September 2008.

Dear All,

Nearly everything has been cancelled due to wet weather this week so not much to report.
Our Home Group led a Family Service on “The Olympics” this morning so I have spent several hours downloading photos of “Team GB” and others of course, for Songpro backgrounds and a PowerPoint presentation. Also on a very wet day I scanned the photos from “Switzerland 1998” so these are now available electronically.
We have also been planning an open day and BBQ to mark the first year of CEEM, the amalgamation of “Footprints east” (Moldova) and “ARK” (Ukraine) to form a charitable company so that tax can be claimed back on all your generous donations!
I am attaching an invitation as you are all invited to Moggerhanger Hall on the 20th September should you be free. Moggerhanger is worth seeing in its own right as it won the prize for the best restored Georgian building.
I actually went shopping in Cambridge on Wednesday for the first time since Christmas and it has changed dramatically. Three of the shops I specifically aimed to visit: Gees Electronics, Heffers in the Grafton Centre and The Map Shop in Green Street had all closed. I guess my custom has not been sufficient to keep them going!
We picked Sweet Corn in the wet on Tuesday at work and I am scheduled to go in 3 days next week for a Sweet Corn open day at Cambridge and a salads day near Chichester in Sussex.
My cricket pitch preparing colleague left for his 3000 mile bike ride across the States on Monday and in his honour I cancelled the last league match of the season as it rained solidly on Thursday and Friday.
We also cancelled our proposed chapel outing to Walton-on-the Naze on Saturday as the once optimistic weather forecast changed to showers throughout the day. The seaside does not seem so appealing with grey skies and blustery wind. I guess Kate and I would have been happy to go and walk in these conditions but some souls are a bit more delicate. Dave and Jen were going to provide a BBQ at the farm and we had accumulated quite a lot of food so in the end we did the British thing and set up the BBQ in our garage – the only way you can guarantee a BBQ in English weather – about 20 came so it went quite well. Kate had got up at 6 am to go and feed her cells before the trip so it was a long day for her.
I did a bike ride to relieve my frustration and actually the weather was not too bad here but changed every 10 minutes.
The Family Service went well but several people were away so attendance was not great (a co-incidence I am sure!). This afternoon we had a spectacular storm which seemed to be more or less overhead; thunder, lightening and stair rod rain.
Love


Mike & Kate