26^th June 2016

Dear All,

Street Pastors last night – hence the delay in this epistle. It was a reasonably quiet night with plenty of high spirits and drunkenness but no violence or even sickness. The number of rough sleepers in Cambridge has risen to over 150 with rumours of some cities giving homeless individuals one way tickets to Cambridge!

Last weekend there were open gardens in both Fenstanton and Swavesey. Kate and I visited 16 in Fenstanton and Kate had visited several in Swavesey plus an ambitious display based on “Food” in Swavesey church. Fenstanton had a special exhibit on Capability Brown as he lived there and it is 300 years since his birth.

Fenstanton Garden

On Monday we drove down to Hove and stayed until Tuesday night. Albert is now crawling and charming everyone with his smile – he seems to be a very cheerful chap. Amélie continues to enjoy school and is on daily countdown to her birthday in a couple of weeks.

On Tuesday we visited the Brighton Police Museum shown round by a retired policeman who was on duty during the Brighton bombing.

Our Thursday walk started at Sawtry and took in Hamerton and Steeple Gidding. We ended up rather damp due to rain and “sauna bath” humidity.

Preparing cricket wickets has been tricky finding dry interludes nevertheless I managed to cut and roll 3 strips on Friday morning and the 1^st XI played yesterday without interruption. At the same time there was a serious heavy in Swavesey and a serious hailstorm in Cambridge. Last night there was a carpet of green leaves under every tree.

I was judging Stapleford Fruit & Vegetable show yesterday. It is the smallest and least impressive show that I judge so it was not too exacting.

Just as we were leaving for Street Pastors last night I noticed we had a puncture, I had never changed a wheel on the Peugeot and it was a steep learning curve with nut caps, security bolts and a wheel that did not want to budge!.

We had a church lunch today to belatedly celebrate the Queen’s birthday. Conversations were dominated by “Brexit” which has divided opinion very sharply.

The following seems to cover the situation:

Love

Mike & Kate