4th January 2009.

Dear All,

Happy New Year to all my readers (that sounds pretentious! - but us correspondents have to milk it). I hope you all had an enjoyable Christmas and are looking forward to a challenging and stimulating New Year. Thanks for cards and presents to all those who sent them, why not to all who didn’t?!
An update on people, places and things:
People
Ben arrived on the Tuesday before Christmas with a bad cold, Esther came Christmas Eve and both stayed until Monday. Eirwen came Boxing Day until Sunday, Mary-Ann and Andy came Saturday after Christmas and stayed until New Year’s Eve.
Places
We managed several walks over the duration:
Swavesey Fen in Boxing Day sunshine
Over Fen more bracing the next day
Fen Drayton Pits at dusk on the Sunday
Welney swans and Ely on Tuesday
Hall’s Green, Luffenhall, Cromer (near Stevenage), Hare Street and Weston – 9 miles with Kate and the U3A on New Year’s Day.
North Repps, Overstrand, Cromer (Norfolk) with friends yesterday.

Swavesey Fen

Fen Drayton Pits

Things
My star gift this year was an iPod from my family who thought I was ready for my next step in technology. Andy started me off and loaded it with several story Cds and a selection of elderly music (suitable for elderly persons). So far so good but the ear plugs encourage my tinnitus so I have ordered speakers!
I managed the usual pre Christmas Brussels Sprout distribution – 50 stems and 2 nets from Biggleswade. One of our former host growers gets them for me as he no longer grows the crop. There were once 17,000 acres of Sprouts in Bedfordshire, now only one large grower survives.
We bought a new game called “Timed Out” as advertised in the Guardian for Christmas and it was very good, in addition Ben taught us a couple of new card games. Mary-Ann and Andy showed us some of their photos from South, Central and North America, and very good they are too. They had sportingly pruned them from 10,000 to 600 so that we could have time to enjoy them more!
Yesterday we drove up to North Repps near Cromer in north Norfolk to visit Sue and Duncan Colquhoun who have purchased a barn jointly with Sue’s sister and are converting it into living accommodation. £140K seems a high price for a barn when you need to spend £100K or so on the conversion, but I guess it is the thrill of the challenge. We did a 4 hour walk to the coast and along the beach. There are certainly some attractive walks in that part of the country.
We had good congregations for the pre Christmas services especially the evening which was candlelight and included the school choir. Since then however numbers have been decimated by flu, colds and the sickness bug. In addition the heating cut out tonight so it was no place for the feint or half hearted!



Cromer from Overstrand




Welney

Love

Mike & Kate