10th July 2016

Dear All,

Kate and I met up with Esther at Hampden Court Flower Show on Wednesday. I had four free tickets from RHS as they messed up Chelsea tickets. Pat Howard also came with us. It is not the easiest venue to get to as the year we drove there was a huge traffic jam and the train journey involves several changes, but unlike Chelsea you can always find space once you arrive. The weather was hot and the gardens interesting, but the star item was probably the Floral Marquee which is huge with displays of every kind of flower and foliage. We sat in on a couple of talks by Christine Walkden and Alys Fowler which were more useful for the rest they provided than their content. The “Concept Gardens” were mostly strange and if I was expecting to see vegetables then I would have been disappointed!

  

On Thursday the walk was also in good weather starting at Ardeley which is well off the beaten track below Buntingford, reached by some rather narrow lanes. The walk included a long stretch of Roman road and several shaded lanes. In the evening one of the walkers (Ian Gordon who you may have met at my 70^th) had a spare ticket for the ladies cricket T20 International v Pakistan at Chelmsford. It was very enjoyable, if a bit one sided as England were much bigger, stronger and fitter. The standard of fielding was fantastic – perhaps because I have been used to Over’s efforts!

Ardeley Village Green

On Saturday we held our first “Lego Event” at the chapel. The Kingfisher church that John Law attends have been staging these for a year or so and lent us a vast pile of bricks, wheels etc. and Kate was in charge of bacon rolls. The attendance was moderate but it was a start and it will be punted at the Carnival next Saturday.

It was Street Pastor duty again last night. Kate was in Nightlite and I was on patrol. The atmosphere was fairly merry from the start as there is a 3 day fair on Parkers Piece and some had been indulging long term. The stand out incident arose when the security folk from Revolution, the next door night club delivered a scantily clad young girl to Nightlite, that they had found collapsed in the toilets. She had no documents, money or phone. They eventually extracted her name and found out that she was Polish and had just flown in from the USA.

The new security guy at Nightlite is Czech and very resourceful. He looked her up on Facebook and got a list and photos of her friends, lo and behold he then recognised one of them walking down the street!

His day job is security at Waitrose and had been entertaining the cafe staff with stories of the lengths some people go to steal and shop lift from the store – Kate now knows all the wrinkles!

Amélie was 5 on Tuesday and was blessed by the teachers going on strike so she had the day off school. I guess she will expect this every year just as she believes there is always a Carnival on Over Green – at least when she visits!

Love

Mike & Kate