20th May 2012

20th May 2012.

Dear All,

On Tuesday I had a meeting at Wisley and Kate met up with Mary-Ann and Amélie. The rhododendrons and azaleas were spectacular at Wisley. We were judging asparagus and keeping tabs on new parsley, lettuce and tomato trials. The level of expertise at RHS has dipped in recent years so there is always plenty to discuss on these visits.

Wisley Battlesdon Hill

We managed a swim this week joined by Kate F and Carol for the first time after breaking her arm in the snow.

The Tuesday walk was rather local meeting at Willingham and walking through Over Fen, along the river to Earith and looping back to Over then Willingham again. Fortunately it was dry overhead and not too bad under foot.



Earith Bridge

We managed to get the cricket pitch sorted well enough to play after cancelling the previous 2 weeks and both teams managed exciting wins, the 1sts by 8 runs and the 2nds by 1 wicket.

Otherwise we have been busily trying to plant as much as possible in the garden before departing for Poland tonight for James (Kate’s nephew) wedding in Kilice.
We plan to catch the boat train to Harwich this evening meeting up with Kate’s sister Sue and husband Bill to drive to Poland via Magdeburg and Poznan. We are away for 10 days so no letter next week.

Love

Mike & Kate

13th May 2012

13th May 2012.

Dear All,

A week of pestilence as several members of the household succumbed to sickness and diahorrea. Andy arrived poorly on Sunday and spent most of his time in bed, Esther stayed an extra night as she was so sick on Monday and Kate felt bad on Monday night and was still being sick on Saturday. Nobody is blaming Amélie - but only those who changed her nappies succumbed!!!

Couldn’t have been me!

I have spent the wet days writing reports and articles and the dry ones catching up in the garden. This now looks well after a month of steady rain – except for the parts that were underwater last week.




Kate missed two celebratory nights out with meals for Margery Johnson (80) and Kate Foster (59).

The Thursday walk started at Braughing in Hertfordshire and although sticky underfoot stayed dry until we had finished. Philip our leader has just returned from a 9 week cruise from Sydney – good these army pensions!

Sticky underfoot

The cricket square is still soggy but they managed a match on the artificial wicket yesterday.

love
Mike & Kate

6th May 2012

6th May 2012.

Dear All,

John Law and I survived another trip to Moldova where the weather was seriously hot and they understand the true meaning of the word drought. The temperature in the shade was mid 30s and when we moved the thermometer to full sun it rose to 52°C. In addition the SW region has not had rain for several months so water is a huge issue.
As ever there were encouraging signs as well as a few set backs. We had been discussing piping one of the springs in the hills to the village for about 6 years and now it is underway. A huge ex winery tank has been towed to the hills to act as a reservoir and we paid for 2 km pipes to connect to the village so hopefully that will be connected within 2 weeks.

Water tank and pipeline

Our star grower Oleg in whom we invested a 30’ poly tunnels last year has it up and working and produced decent data from last years trials. He is however short of water and we further invested in a 60 m deep well.


Oleg’s tunnel

The local church had arranged for a Romanian acting group to stage a multimedia outreach presentation in the former Communist Cultural Centre and 250 people turned
Out. We managed another growers training day and 38 attended.
We took large quantities of Lego this time mainly for the Street Children’s project and this was a big hit with the old as well as the young.

Lego

As usual we tried to visit all the local growers who have ex NIAB tunnels and managed to distribute over 1500 packets of seed.
Other projects that came up were plans for a small shop in Chisinau to ensure fairer prices for the growers, a 3 ha walnut project and planted trees on the river floodplain to prevent erosion.
As John is planning to lead a photographic trip to Moldova next year we visited a couple of extra potentially photogenic places: Transneistra and their version of the “Grand Canyon”. The Transneistra situation is thawing a bit and certainly not as sinister as when I visited 15 years ago. There are still 3 border check points and a few places where you cannot take photos but far less Russian soldiers and less Kalashnikovs in evidence.
The Grand Canyon is their no.1 tourist attraction, it is a large U shaped limestone valley with a monastery in caves and attractive villages.


Transneistra war memorial


The Grand Canyon

I arrived back Thursday evening to find the bottom of the garden under water and every where decidedly soggy.
Esther, Mary-Ann and Amélie have been up for the weekend to help celebrate Kate’s 65th birthday. Andy is due this afternoon and Ben is in Nicaragua.

love
Mike & Kate