Dear All,
It was Street Pastors last night, Kate was in the cafe and I was on
the streets. It was not especially busy but several incidents which made it
worthwhile. An Italian mother and 17 year old daughter claimed to have lost
their money passports etc and were camped out in the shopping centre hoping to
last until Monday when they had an appointment with their embassy in London. They
couldn’t speak English so their story was incoherent and we had to go to a pub
to ask if anyone could speak Italian. In the end our leader took them home for
the weekend. Another youth was comatose on the pavement and barely breathing
having been celebrating his 18th birthday and had to be taken to A
& E. Another scantily clad young girl was crying and shouting that she had
been robbed of all her money and documents, she refused our help and ran off
only to be seen with a man with his arm round her. Fearing she was vulnerable
we followed her up only to find that the man, who did not know her paid for a
taxi and sent her home – two heart warming incidents in one night!
The toughest part was driving home at 4.30am in thick fog.
Kate and I went to the Fitzwilliam Museum on Tuesday to see the latest
exhibition “Death on the Nile” as well as view a few of the painting galleries.
Fitzwilliam Museum
Inside
On Wednesday a former Sutton Bonington colleague, Paul Rennie, came
to stay the night. He had worked abroad with VSO and CMS in Zambia and
Pakistan. He lost two wives to cancer and the third, Sue who was with him had
also lost two husbands. As they did not leave until 10 am on Thursday we missed
the U3A walk but did our own thing round Swavesey Fen. IT was saturated after a
day of rain on Wednesday so was more like the Lake District than East Anglia.
Paul & Sue
Swavesey Fen
In “Biographies” we studied “Joseph Needham”, he was a Cambridge
Biochemist who through working with Chinese students became fascinated by China
and specifically why they had led the world in discovering gunpowder, paper,
printing etc fell severely behind. He first visited China on a diplomatic
mission while the Japanese were invading in 1940 and travelled over 30,000
miles collecting material which he aimed to publish in a book. He soon realised
that one book would not be enough and after the 7th decided work
should carry on after his death so he managed to set up the “Needham Institute”
at Robinson College, Cambridge. He and his wife believed in open marriage and
after she died when he was 87 he married one of the Chinese students, who had
been his mistress when he was 89! Needless to say being Cambridge a couple of
the Biographies class had met him and filled in a few of the gaps regarding his
difficult character!
It is the Forth Bridge decorating season again so accordingly we
have been repainting our bedroom this week – same colours, refreshed paintwork
so not too difficult.
Esther is in Bulgaria again this week teaching “Posture Management”
Love
Mike & Kate
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