10th February 2013.

Dear All,

We have spent a couple of days in Streatham this week decorating Ben’s main room. On the plus side the surfaces did not need too much preparation or filling, on the minus side we had to work round furniture and the ceiling is quite high. Anyway it seemed to look better when we had finished and we had time to erect a shower rail and curtain.

We arrived early on Tuesday and went to the cinema to see “Les Miserables” with about 10 others. Streatham was as usual like a foreign country, multicultural and buzzing at night – but slow to rise in the mornings. You can get your hair cut or nails trimmed at midnight but struggle for a sandwich at 9 am.

 Ben’s Flat after Decoration

  

Shower Rail & Curtain

We managed a swim on Monday and then I had my second session of “Understanding the Brain” – bit harder this week so I will probably postpone my offer of brain operations for a week or two!

The topic of “Biographies” was Dorothy Hodgkin, the first female to be awarded a Nobel Prize for Science for her work on crystallography, describing the structure of Insulin, Penicillin and vitamin B12. When she wrote her first learned paper in the 1930s she had to have a male colleague read it at Oxford and was not even allowed to be in the audience. She was a lifelong communist and ironically taught Margaret Thatcher chemistry at Somerville College, Oxford.

In the evening we were guests at the Over Day Centre Volunteers meal. It was originally planned for 18^th January but postponed because of the snow. As most of the food had been frozen since then it was a voyage of faith but fortunately turned out OK.

Yesterday Graham led our “Church Awayday” at March on the topic of “The Church in 10 years time”. As ever he was brilliant in his role of facilitator and the attendance and participation were both the best we have had. Graham and Mary stayed for dinner so it was good to catch up.

Love

Mike & Kate