30th August 2009

30th August 2009.

Dear All,

We have been entertaining last night and today. Leonard is a Zimbabwean who had to flee for his life 8 years ago after backing the opposition party – many of his colleagues were beaten or murdered. His case was taken up by Amnesty International and his wife Anna was able to join him 5 years ago and Raymond was born that year but 2 small children had to be left behind with grandparents. Hilary Allen’s brother helped with the Amnesty side of things and our church helped with funding the children’s escape last year. Leonard has a gardening job near Oxford but still awaits proper Home Office clearance. The family were visiting this weekend and needed somewhere to stay. The elder two children Petronella and Simba are much better behaved than Raymond but overall they are a great family so I hope it works out for them.

Simba, Anna, Leonard,Raymand & Petronella

Kate and I also met up with the Barr family from Northern Ireland for a picnic lunch at Cambridge Botanic gardens. We stayed with them near Coleraine when we celebrated our 25thwedding anniversary. Their daughter Jane used to work with me at NIAB and father Hugh is in the Guinness Book of Records for winning the World Ploughing Championship three years running.


Jane, Kate, Kathleen & Hugh


Cambridge Botanic Gardens

I had a trip to Wisley on Wednesday judging Sweet Corn, cabbages and endive. There is always plenty to admire there but the star exhibit this time was a trial of celosias (cockscomb) in full bloom

Celosia trial

Celosia

We had a courgette open day at NIAB this week; we have been picking 22 varieties 3 times a week for a couple of months so have had courgettes coming out of our ears!
I have been in to work an extra day this week due to pressure of onion grading, sweet corn, courgette and oriental veg harvesting.
Thursday was Icknield Way section 10 from Icklington to Euston. The first section was through the Kings Forest and part of the rest was through the Elvedon Estate (owned by the Guinness family) 12 miles in all and hardly a human in sight.
We won our third match on the trot Saturday beating March who are top of the table so our late season form continues – again not much due to me except in catching.
Mary-Ann and Andy are at a music festival in Paris this weekend and Esther is in the Scottish Highlands. Hope you all have a good bank holiday.

Love


Mike & Kate

23rd August 2009

23rd August 2009.

Dear All,

Our home group attended one of the open air Shakespeare plays this week. It was a performance of “The Merry Wives of Windsor” in the gardens of Kings College. It was a good night as the weather was fine, the performance good and the setting fantastic.

Kings College Gardens

My other cultural highlight was to visit one of the many Darwin Exhibitions in Cambridge. This was at the Fitzwilliam Museum and was mainly paintings which had affected him or he had influenced. It was reasonable enough but the connections were a rather tenuous in some instances.

Fitzwilliam Museum

We had an open day at Thetford on Tuesday showing new onion varieties; again the weather was kind and the attendance pretty good. Most of our trials look good this year which is a tribute to the amount of rain at most sites.
Our walk this week was a circular route starting at Haynes in Bedfordshire taking in 10 miles via Clophill including the Greensand Ridge Walk. We did get wet briefly, for the first time recently, but it was a good walk with a few contours.


Haynes, The Greyhound


Haynes Park

We won back to back Saturday cricket matches for the first time this season – I did not contribute many runs but took a surprisingly sprightly catch for a 63 year old!

Love


Mike & Kate

17th August 2009

17th August 2009.

Dear All,

We have had a weekend entertaining Derbyshire folk, so no time for letter writing. There was a chapel trip to Madingley Hall gardens on Saturday morning which was well attended and brought to life by the head gardener who had been there for 22 years. The house was built in 1543 and been added to on numerous occasions. The gardens were designed by Capability Brown, of course, and the whole estate of house and 5000 acres of land was purchased by Cambridge University for £50,000 in 1948. It is now the home of the University’s Institute of Continuing Education offering courses and conferences to the public and business groups.


Madingley Hall

Kate took the visitors to Denny Abbey Farm and Countryside museum in the afternoon while I played cricket. Esther came up on Sunday to help with the entertainment, so several small card board boxes made from Christmas cards should be making their way to Derbyshire as I write!
The garden needed a bit of attention after a week of wet weather while we were away. I picked 2 large crates of runner and French beans as well as several cucumbers, courgettes, tomatoes, beetroot and carrots. Raspberries and blackberries are also cropping well so nature is bountiful at present.
Thursdays walk was the 9th section of the Icknield Way from Gazeley to Icklington, via Herringswell, Tuddenham and Cavenham Heath. The weather did not look promising but once again it turned out fine and no waterproofs were needed.


Tuddenham


River Lark


Cavenham Heath

Love


Mike & Kate

10th August 2009

10th August 2009.

Dear All,

Kate, Esther and I arrived back safely on Saturday evening from a week in France with the Brown tribe. We stayed in a hamlet of three houses called Fretay in the middle of a prosperous agricultural region. The nearest town was Savigny-sur-Braye and the nearest city was Le Mans. We crossed from Dover to Calais and had a 300 mile journey which was fairly painless apart from the tolls. The house was a large converted barn standing in a large garden with a swimming pool. One of the neighbouring houses was a chateau complete with moat.

House at Fretay

Neighbours!

The weather was very hot so the local wheat harvest was completed while we were there. All the grass was burned brown and maize was being heavily irrigated. One downside to the rural location was a pig unit in the next hamlet which sometimes wafted country smells especially when slurry spreading! and always seemed to encourage a host of flies. There was plenty of larger local wildlife including a wild boar and several deer.
The pool was very welcome and used to cool off most days.


Pool Lifeguards!

The scenery was not spectacular but we were close to Le Loir (which is a smaller tributary of La Loire) and there were a number of interesting towns on it which we visited in turn. All were decorated with window boxes and flower borders and most had troglodyte cave dwellings as the rock was easily excavated.



Lavigny

Verdome

It was a restful week with a craft or activity rota each night and a chance to get to know younger relatives much better!

Aunty Kate’s homemade volcanoes

Love


Mike & Kate