3^rd July 2016

Dear All,

Kate and I were at Hutton on Tuesday to do a few jobs for Esther. It is amazing how much you can fit in a day if you try as we cut the grass, trimmed the hedge, tidied the greenhouse, weeded the front garden and a couple of back borders, laid a few paving slabs, weeded a couple of raised beds, cemented loose bricks on the front wall, cleaned and tried to fix a leaking gutter. Esther was at work all day so we did not actually meet up. She had entertained Mary-Ann, Amélie and Albert at the weekend as Andy participated in the London to Brighton 100 Km walk finishing joint 1^st and raising a decent sum for charity.

In the evening we went to Warboys for a talk by Dan Strange, deputy of Oak Hall about “Christianity and Culture” which was very good.

 On Wednesday it was wet nearly all day as opposed to the usual tropical evening downpour! Preparing cricket pitches has been a challenge but somehow we got through June without cancelling a Saturday match. Both Over teams are having moderate seasons – I think we should be looking for an Icelandic manager!

The Thursday walk started at Cowlinge in Suffolk south of Newmarket. It was dry overhead but there was plenty of moisture around.

Near Cowlinge

Ford at Wickhambrook

 Bee orchid

Plenty of gardening this week including harvesting overwintered onions and planting spring heading cauliflowers. Raspberries, cherries and red currants are all beginning to crop, especially the currants, Kate picked two tubs full without making any impression.

Autumn Onions

We had an interesting speaker at Men’s breakfast yesterday called Jonathan Gibson. He grew up in Huddersfield in a poor neighbourhood with a shared outdoor privie 60 yards down the road. He got into banking then retrained as a scientist and worked for Anglian Water developing microorganisms to treat toxic substances in sewage, then when AW changed direction invested his pay off into a kitchen fitting business.

Ben is safely back from Fiji and Venuatu, he seems to have had a good time but we haven’t heard too many details yet.

Love

Mike & Kate