18^th June 2017

Dear All,

How are you standing the heat? It has been a little uncomfortable here for a couple of days. Highlights this week were the Cousin’s Reunion, the “Just Vegetating” lunch and Street Patrol on Friday night.

The Cousin’s Reunion was hosted by Dave & Jen at Beaumont with Jen heroically providing the food. John & Muriel were able to attend as it is a route that John is familiar with driving – and he still won’t be driven by anyone else – I guess at 89 he is unlikely to change! Peter & Annemarie were driven by their daughter Wendy as Peter had been fitted with a few stents a few days before! After lunch we drove to the Naze for a walk and then had a conducted tour of Colin & Amanda’s estate next door.

  

300 years of Wisdom?

The Naze Tower

On Friday we held a lunch here for the attendees of our “Just Vegetating” course. 18 turned up; Kate masterminded the food but some helped provided extra this time. Fortunately the weather was good – unlike last year when everyone ended up indoors.

The Street patrol on Friday was reasonably quiet with just two serious incidents. The first was a comatose girl who was diabetic but had consumed 13 units of alcohol. The night club had ordered an ambulance but it had not arrived as all overtime has been cut and they are operating a very basic service. In the end her mother was summoned from Ramsey and we were with her for over an hour. The second incident concerned an oriental gentleman who had been ejected from a club for throwing missiles and picking fights and had promptly passed out on the pavement. He took some time to wake up and was then copiously sick a few times but still not responsive. It was gone 3 am by this time and we could not find out who he was or where he was living. Fortunately two lads one Italian and one east European, both well drunk came by and claimed to know him as a student at St Edmunds college – but not living in. They were very enthusiastic with their support as only drunk people can be and said they would take him back to the college to sleep in their rooms if necessary. The next problem was how to get him there as taxi drivers are understandably resistant to taking drunks. In the end they found one who was willing (?) to take him and I managed to manhandle him into the taxi. He weighed a ton as his legs weren’t working but we managed to bundle him in and waved him off with some relief. Meanwhile we had been called to another case but this time the ambulance beat us to it and proved to be a good miss as the police were also involved in a difficult incident.

All the services are stretched at present, the police did not turn up for our usual briefing and part way through the night one of the clubs came on the radio to ask for police assistance as there had been an assault and they were holding the aggressor who was on bail. The reply was “take his details and let him go as we have no one available to deal with it at present!”

We attended Lily Firth’s funeral on Thursday at March. Her youngest son Brian gave an excellent eulogy and her husband Michael was able to attend, but following a stroke he is paralysed from the neck downwards and was very sad to see.

Over won a thrilling match by 2 runs yesterday which was unexpected as the first XI only had 4 regulars as the rest are in Poland for a stag weekend!

love

Mike & Kate