30th September 2018

Dear All,

It took some time to get back to a normal sleep pattern – then we were on Street Pastors Friday night which again causes some disruption.

The garden had moved on during two weeks away and we were able to harvest good crops of tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and amazing late flushes of runner and French beans.

It is our Harvest supper and thanksgiving this weekend and I took Jim Burr for a ride to supplement supplies at Biggleswade. Jim was in the RAF with a keen interest in aeroplanes so I took him to Shuttleworth to view their collection. I hadn’t visited since University days when we used to play the local agricultural college at football, rugby and hockey. Jim can hardly walk these days and the collection was not especially wheelchair friendly, but he seemed to enjoy it.

I missed the Thursday walk – Kate went starting at Cottered, as it was cricket pitch winter preparation day. We had more help than usual which was as well as we are preparing two extra strips making it 7 in total. It was the familiar operation: cut, scarify, aerate, fertilise, reseed and add 70 bags of loam.

I returned the heavy roller to its winter parking place at Les Cook’s farm in the fen. He was a little upset as he had just had his first ever TB reactor on his Hereford herd. He makes a living selling breeding stock so it is very serious as he can only sell for slaughter until he has the all clear. He is not sure of the source of the infection but the number of badger setts has exploded locally so they are probably prime suspects.

Street Pastors was fairly lively Friday night as it was a payday weekend and some students have returned. However it was the street life which caused most problems including one who “helpfully” supervised our care of vomiting German girl with such comments as “Why weren’t you here sooner”, You should have the café open Friday as well as Saturday”, “You should pay for a taxi to get her home” and “Give her some chips to settle her stomach!”

It was Trevor & Daphne Grange’s 50^th wedding anniversary last Friday and they hosted a celebration at the White Swan yesterday afternoon – so no football!

In the evening the harvest supper speaker was the chairman of the Ely Food Bank Karl Relton.

Love

Mike & Kate