29th September 2013

29th September 2013.

Dear All,

No complaints about the weather this week – shirt sleeves all the way and the garden could do with a good rain! Hopefully not too much next week as we are accompanying Esther on her assault on the summit of Snowdon!

I have spent most of the week either gardening or preparing for the U3A course we are teaching, 10 talks are taking rather longer to prepare than I anticipated!

Kate found some interesting wildlife while clearing up in the borders yesterday – hopefully he was hovering up all the slugs.

I harvested most of the pumpkins and squash this week and as usual they make a colourful display.

Kate and I led the short walk on Thursday (although it was about 8 miles) It started at Hempstead in the “Bluebell” pub which was the birthplace of Dick Turpin. In the church are memorials to William Harvey, discoverer of the circulation of the blood and Eliab Harvey, Nelson’s favourite admiral and commander of the “Fighting Temeraire”. The walk was dry and sunny and the wildlife highlight was spotting a grass snake.

The Bluebell, Hempstead

  

It was Harvest Supper last night and John Law was the guest speaker homing in on food miles and seasonality. Harvest Thanksgiving today and our invited speaker from “Send a Cow” has had a heart attack so a certain amount of rearranging is in order. This month marks Ray Asplin being a deacon for 50 years so that is being recognised in the service. In addition, it has been arranged for him to be a guest in the Directors box at Cambridge Utd (yes this is a reward not a punishment as he is a season ticket holder).

I watched Over win 6 v 0 yesterday and rise to the top of the Premier League.

Love

Mike & Kate

22nd September 2013.

Dear All,

Back to cool and damp UK this week – missing the sun drenched Baltic (words you seldom hear!). The garden as usual has been very productive at this time of year so we picked 40 sweet corn cobs and a crate full of tomatoes on Monday, enough to feed Messy church yesterday.

I have had a couple of decent journeys this week: on Tuesday I travelled to Preston, near Hull for an RHS chilli pepper trial and tomato demonstration. A couple of chilli breeders were present and their target is to produce chillis with more flavour rather than heat as heat masks the array of flavours available. The man who hosted the trial is also responsible for the most blight resistant tomatoes available at present.

Chillis

Tomato range

On Friday we travelled down to Cranleigh near Guilford for cousin Roger Jessup’s memorial service. As usual with any M25 journey it took longer than planned so we arrived with 1 minute to spare. It was a very moving service with all his children taking part but not too sad as his funeral had taken place in France the previous week. It was good to catch up with other cousins and some of their offspring including Peter Jessup who we last saw at Dad’s funeral.

Our Thursday walk started at Therfield near Royston and took in a few ploughed fields as you expect this time of year. It was gloomy overhead but did not rain until the last 30 mins.

We called in at Hutton on the way back from Cranleigh and met up with Esther, Mary-Ann and Amélie who were staying for the weekend.

It was Messy church again yesterday and the numbers kept up. Kate was in charge of food with which she copes brilliantly seeing as how you never know how many will turn up.

 Messy church

Love

Mike & Kate

15th September 2013

Dear All,

Kate, Mary, Graham and I arrived back from the Baltics on Friday night having covered nearly 2000 Km and 3 countries. It was a very interesting holiday and we were very fortunate with the weather enjoying wall to wall sunshine for the first week with just a couple of wet periods near the end.

We met up with Malcolm and Ruth Firth in Riga – they have been missionaries there for 17 years and they gave us a meal and “showed us the ropes” on our first day which was very valuable orientation. We also met up with Ana who I encountered as a teacher in Moldova. She had met Latvian Valera on line and eventually married him having met “in the flesh” only twice but shared countless hours on Skype. They seem very happy and now have a 12 month old baby girl Daria.

Each of the capital cities has an “Old City” area with attractive buildings that have either survived various wars or been repaired as the original. All also seem to be extremely well endowed with churches for ex communist states and Graham was keen to explore most of them!

Riga has a flourishing market with comprehensive displays of vegetables, fish and meat. We took in a panoramic view from the top of a ministry building known as “Stalin’s Birthday cake” and spent time in the “Museum of the Occupation” which describes all the periods when Latvia has been bullied by it’s larger neighbours particularly Russia and Germany.

Riga

After 2 days we drove up the Baltic coast to Estonia and stayed two nights in a convent just outside Tallinn. The accommodation was clean and peaceful and an excellent base. Tallinn is on the “Cruise Route” so was crawling with tourists from the boats which was exacerbated by the Dutch being in town for an Estonia v Holland international football match. It has a strong Finnish influence and a long stretch of intact city wall. We also took in Peter the Great’s Palace in a park between Tallinn and our convent.

   Tallinn  

      

                                 

       Peter the Great's Palace

Next day we drove along the north coast of Estonia to Palmse which has a smart Manor which was home to rich barons for many years. On the way we saw a large flock of cranes which was the wildlife highlight of the tour.

                                                      Cranes                                                                        

Palmse

Next stop was Tartu a university town which was staging a student’s art exhibition each in a portable ship container. We ended up back in Latvia for the night near Cesis in a National Park and next morning explored a local river gorge, before skirting Riga again and heading for Lithuania. On the way we took in Rundale Palace, a huge spread designed by the man who built the winter palace in St Petersburg. We stayed a few miles outside of Vilnius in a region of lakes so had mosquito nets on the beds – but sustained no serious damage.

              Cesis               

                                             

Rundale Palace

On Monday we drove into Vilnius and explored the city starting with the Upper castle (it has 2). Vilnius has more catholic influence and so again, a few churches to admire! There is a quaint custom of knitting protective covers for tree trunks.

We moved on to Trakai to the best apartment of our holiday. We borrowed bikes and rode to the castle which is on an island.

Next day we headed for the Lithuanian coast via Kaunas, a large more industrial city and thence to Klaipeda on the Baltic where we encountered our first rain. The main purpose of travelling there was to explore the “Curonian Spit” a nearly 100 Km long sand dune which runs parallel to the shore. Half of it is in Lithuania and the rest in Kaliningrad, a Russian Province so a no go area. We spent a whole day explore the sand dunes, following a wooden sculpture trail, visiting an aquarium (Mike) or searching for amber (the rest).

    Vilnius Cathedral     

                                           

Curonian Sand Dune

We left Klaipeda in the rain next morning (but it soon cleared) and headed back toward Riga taking in the amazing “Hill of Crosses”. It started as a pagan site, which evolved to a catholic one where locals planted crosses to commemorate the fallen. It became a patriotic symbol of resistance to the Czar, then communism. The communists levelled the site 3 times in the 70s but each time more crosses replaced the removed ones. There are now over 200,000 crosses on the site.

Hill of Crosses

Our last night was spent at Ozolnicki again by a lake in a place we had not booked in the UK. It was the worst of the trip being rather grubby and smelly but gave us a glimpse of local colour!

Kate and I arrived in Over at 4.45 pm and the garden was rather full of beans, tomatoes and sweet corn.

I judged Shelford Show yesterday and watched Over beat last years champions (coincidentally Shelford) 3 v 1.

Love

Mike & Kate

PS Have loaded all the photos on Dropbox – should you be interested!

1st September 2013

1^st September 2013.

Dear All,

On Monday Kate and I visited Houghton Hall to view “Houghton Revisited”, the Walpole art collection which was sold to Catherine the Great, and has been loaned back from the Hermitage. It was worth seeing but dominated by portraits, some excellent and several rather drab. The Hall itself was well worth seeing with a deer park, large garden and sculpture trail.

After we went on to explore Kings Lynn which again was interesting and rather cosmopolitan with English a minority language.

 Houghton Hall 

                                                           Formal Garden

Two Priceless statues? 

 Fire and water

 Vegetable Garden

                                                        Kings Lynn Town Hall

 Kings Lynn Boats Old & New

 Kings Lynn Monuments

Kate had her foot examined at Addenbrookes on Tuesday and they gave her another cortisone injection and X- Ray which did not especially please her but she is at least in the system and they have promised follow up.

Two walks this week, a recce at Radwinter and Hempstead on Wednesday for one we are leading later and Abington, Hildersham and Babraham on Thursday both in shirtsleeves.

I was drafted into the cricket team for the last match of the season which we narrowly lost and I managed not to get injured and achieved double figures (just).

Otherwise we have been preparing for our U3A course and harvesting and tidying the garden ready to leave it for 10 days as we leave for Latvia on Tuesday.

Love

Mike & Kate