daytime: May 2014

Sunday, 18 May 2014

11th May 2014

11^th May 2014.

Dear All,

It was our turn at Hove again this week and the weather on Wednesday was of the proper seaside sort, so we spent the day walking to Brighton along the sea front. One brave soul was taking his first sea swim of the year wisely wearing beach shoes due to the somewhat course nature of the sand! Amélie was fascinated by the fact that “he was going into the sea with his shoes on”.

Brighton

Our walk on Thursday started at Halls Green, near Stevenage, and it was a beautiful sunny day with gently undulating scenery.

Messy church yesterday, I was in charge of origami boats and the Sea of Galilee i.e. paddling pool was popular on a hot afternoon.

Lots of gardening this week ready for going away tonight so early sweet corn, Brussels sprouts, sprouting broccoli, Romanesco, courgettes aubergines and cucumbers have all been planted. We have invested in a new pest proof vegetable cage to try and keep pigeons and butterflies at bay.

There have been three cricket matches on The Green this week so the square has needed some attention especially as the grass is growing at a rate of knots.

We are due to fly to Turkey tomorrow after staying overnight in Harrow.

Love

Mike & Kate

Sunday, 11 May 2014

11^th May 2014.

Dear All,

I have spent much of the week catching up in the garden, writing the Moldova report and preparing the cricket square.

Kate had looked after the garden well and employed resourcefulness on the nights when frost threatened so there was no serious damage and most crops look very well.

I dug in the crimson clover that I use for green manure but as it had sucked out all the soil moisture the ground had set like concrete.

Crimson Clover

Vegetable Patch

The good news re Moldova is that the seed finally turned up in Burlacu on Day 18 of the 3-5 day promised delivery time! Still this is Moldova.

I spent nearly 4 hours cutting and rolling the cricket square on Wednesday then another hour marking out in the rain on Thursday with John Lane – only for both Friday and Saturday games to be cancelled.

I managed the walk on Thursday, my first for a month as my knee has been playing up. This started at Stapleford and took in Wandlebury and was rather damp.

Damp Walker

On Tuesday a group of us went to Warboys to listen to Matt Gamston who has been a missionary in the Philipines for 11 years. He is a breath of fresh air in that his newsletters were down to earth and amusing despite the dreadful situations he encountered with people living on the streets, dying for lack of money to pay doctors and coping with the typhoon last year.

We had a chapel outing to St John’s College on Friday evening shown round by the head gardener. 6 gardeners have to cope with 22 acres so they have their hands full.

Trespassing in Fellows Garden

The Masters Lodge (where the Duke of Cambridge recently studied)

Second Court

The Bridge of Sighs

Pythagoras Building

Love

Mike & Kate

Sunday, 4 May 2014

4^th May 2014.

Dear All,

I have just returned from my 10^th trip to Moldova. John Law my companion this time was on his 14^th visit and claimed it was “the best yet”. I will write a fuller account when I have time but I am sending a few photos now to give you a taste of things. We flew Moldovan Airlines and it was fine. They were more punctual than most I have been on lately but you would not recommend the inhouse refreshment – a cross between a croissant and a bread roll. Unfortunately the 2000 packets of seed that I have lovingly sorted, catalogued and dispatched by courier did not arrive by the time we had left. Arriving late Saturday night was a problem as we were due at a service in Burlacu 3 hours away at 10 am next morning. Our driver opted to deliver us that night rather than early next morning. He got back to Chisinau at 1.30 am. We were not able to change money in Chisinau and when we had the opportunity in Cahul there were 44 ahead of us in the queue and a shortage of large denomination notes.

Several of the polythene tunnels needed recovering and we were able to sort some decent polythene. The Training Day went well and the church at Burlacu are erecting a new building. We were treated very well at Burlacu and had time to walk and explore as well as plant and talk, teach English at school and help with the “Meal Deal”

Leova the town further north is much more of a challenge. The house extension we have been funding is nothing like the plans we agreed and still far from finished. They treated us to goat for breakfast. We arrived at about 4.30 pm and they said “we have a service at 7 pm” fine we thought we do not have a translator until tomorrow so that lets us off. At 6.45pm they announced: “Chris Ducker is coming to translate and you two are speaking”. In the end it went OK and we were invited to Razesi to see the Duckers community project and brand new tunnel. We stayed for lunch and met the family who all seem to be very happy.

Igor drove us back to Chisinau and as it was a (another!) holiday he was relaxed and collected his wife and daughter and took us sight seeing to the “Moldovan Grand Canyon”, their tallest monastry and a winery where we treated them to dinner.

The situation in Ukraine, particularly the deaths in Odessa created a lot of discussion in Chisinau. In Burlacu it seems a long way away as they do not have newspapers or listen to the news.

It is the best way I know of making your life seem longer!

Meanwhile Kate took a flying visit to Derbyshire meeting up with a 102 year old relative who filled her in with some of the dark secrets of family history.