28^th  May 2017

Dear All,

On Monday we were fortunate enough to attend the Chelsea Flower Show Preview Day. It was sunny all day and not too crowded. There were the usual celebrities to spot: Nigel Havers, Joanna Lumley, Anneka Rice, Bill Bailey, Darcey Bussell, Jo Whiley but there were only 8 large show gardens – down from 13 and most of these were packed with rocks and architecture. The small Artisan gardens were much more interesting and the indoor displays were as usual fantastic. The garden furniture and sculptures are more amazing each year. We had to leave before the Queen arrived – but I am sure she understood!

I had to do a talk on Moldova for the Women’s Fellowship on Tuesday before driving down to Hove. We took Albert to the Hove paddling pool on Wednesday – to say he enjoyed it would be an understatement.

 

Our Thursday walk began at Horseheath this week. Kate and I were leading the shorter walk. Philip gathered everyone before the start for a talk which included being careful in the sudden hot weather, drink plenty of water and take a short cut if you were feeling the effects. We were back at the pub by 12.30pm after 7.6 miles. Philip leading the longer walk arrived back at 1.30pm having covered 13 miles!

In between there has been plenty of gardening planting squash, pumpkins, marrows, courgettes, Sweet Corn,, Aubergine, chilis, Sweet potatoes, leeks, Brussels sprouts, calabrese, cauliflowers, kale and cabbage.

We were on Street Pastors on Friday night. The combination of hot weather, a beer festival, pay day and a Bank Holiday weekend meant that there were a lot of people out, but fortunately not too much trouble. The police briefing told us that following Manchester there were 4 armed response officers around but we did not see any evidence of their presence.

love

Mike & Kate

21st May 2017

Dear All,

It has been a busy week catching up with the garden, sorting photos, arranging a cricket team and a visit to a college garden.

On Monday I had a Garden Club talk at Ramsey. There were over 50 present and they were quite lively. On Tuesday I dismantled the seed propagator for the summer and the sand bed was full of ants which seem to be increasing each year. In the evening was a church business meeting where they agreed a £500 donation for Moldova.

Wednesday was meant to be our first chapel cricket match of the season and after spending considerable time assembling the team and confirming the opposition, it predictably broke the drought and it has been raining on and off ever since!

Our Thursday walk started at Clare in the Stour Valley. In Bulgaria each day’s walk was described as: Distance 15 km, climbing 500 m, descent 400 m. At Clare it was: Distance 14 km, climbing 10m, descent 10m! It was a return to mud underfoot but a pleasant walk and no rain while we were walking. We tried to prepare a cricket wicket in the evening but it was too wet and we did more harm than good.

 

     Clare  

                     

                          

  Belchamp St Paul church

 

 

Near Belchamp  

      

                                 

                                                                       River Stour

Friday evening I had arranged a garden visit to Murray Edwards College in Cambridge. This was opened in 1964 as “New College” but received a wad of cash from the Edwards family a few years back and was renamed including Murray from a distinguished head of college. It is the only college garden with a female head gardener and unique in encouraging visitors and students to take cuttings and sample edibles.

 

  Entrance to Murray Edwards                                   

The Dome

Jo Cobb head gardener                       

                                  

                                     

Pond

Yesterday it was the AGM of Street Pastors together with a talk on Homelessness. Last year there were 100 street patrols, 266 individuals were helped, 8500 glass bottles picked up, 300 bottles of water and 600 pairs of flip flops distributed. Nightlite was open 51 weeks, had 1200 visitors, helped 700 recover and gave practical assistance to 194.

The Homelessness talk was given by the Ely Dioses chaplain to the Homeless, John Canessa who amongst many other things chairs the “Cambridge Churches Homeless Project” who offer extra beds in churches in Cambridge during the 4 winter months. This uses 360 volunteers. The main challenges are that homelessness has doubled in 3 years, the police have withdrawn their Street Life Officers, affordable housing is scarce in Cambridge, begging earnings average £14 per hour and the growth in use of Spice (synthetic cannabis).

love

Mike & Kate

14^th May 2017

Dear All,

We have just returned from a week walking in Bulgaria. It was a great holiday and we can thoroughly recommend it. We stayed at Yagodina in the Rodolphe Mountains in the south of Bulgaria only 30 Km from the Greek border. Our accommodation was a small family run guest house which served traditional Bulgarian food. The scenery was spectacular – we were at about the height of Snowden and climbed about 300 m most days. In a week’s walking we only saw one other hiker and he was looking for mushrooms. It was about as remote as you can get in Europe with steep limestone gorges and tree covered slopes. The area is home to bears, wolves and wild boar but we only managed to see chamois and deer of the larger animals but also several birds and reptiles. Plant wise there were numerous orchids, wild iris, and roman hyacinths and several unique indigenous flowers.

We were in a party of 10 and the others were all interesting characters with tales to tell and our leader, a Bulgarian girl was excellent displaying great enthusiasm and knowledge of the area.

I have taken a few photos and hope to put them on Dropbox before long!

love

Mike & Kate