30th December 2018

Dear All,

I hope you all enjoyed Christmas? We certainly were pleased to have our branch of the family here. Ben cycled up on Sunday taking less than 6 hours. He chose a more scenic route back on Friday which took well over 7 hours and while here had cycled to St Ives, Cambridge and Ely. Andy also took a little exercise walking to St Ives and back a couple of times as well as other shorter excursions with Mary-Ann who played her part with a couple of jogs!

Esther and Emma arrived for Christmas lunch with a certain amount of luggage, considering they were only here for one night before returning to work on Thursday!

Christmas Morning

Christmas Afternoon

We all went to St Ives on Boxing Day to meet up with Andy (walking) and Ben (biking), mainly to feed the water fowl which were by no means starving. Jackie arrived for lunch en route for Beaumont and we were very pleased to see her.

St Ives Quay

Three Wiseish men?

Happy Families?

On Thursday Andy had to work and the rest of us went to Cambridge to the Fitzwilliam Museum and Newnham Playpark. Amélie had been studying ancient Egypt at school so we thought she would like to see the mummies but I think the highlight of the trip was “the café”.

 

Fitzwilliam Museum

At Newnham

Ben left Friday morning and the Hoveites after lunch. Albert had been coughing on the last day and deteriorated to wheezing overnight so had to be taken to the clinic where they put him on a nebulizer and ordered an ambulance to hospital. He was kept there for most of the day under observation having been given steroids and an inhaler. He was released home with the inhaler. Meanwhile Kate has broken a tooth at a less than ideal time to catch a working dentist!

Return Journey

Best wishes for the New Year to all (both?) our readers!

Love

Mike & Kate

PS Albert is much better but his inhaler is a two man job!

23rd December 2018

Dear All,

Well it’s pretty close now, I hope you are all ready and will have an enjoyable time. We have partaken of a couple of Christmas lunches this week. On Monday it was with the ex NIAB “Wrinklies” at The Moat House at Bar Hill, there were 30 of us and the meal was good, much better than the previous year – you can never be sure with mass catering!

On Thursday it was the turn of the Rambling Group at the Orchard at Grantchester, this was more variable as my Turkey was fine but Kate’s beef was rather chewy and she had a long wait for cheese and biscuits.

Lunch at the Orchard, Grantchester

Swimming on Monday was bracing as the pool was rather chilly, but OK once you had gone numb!

NIAB celebrates 100 years next year and they sent out a request for photos to augment their collections so I took some in on Tuesday and met up with a few survivors. I dropped Kate off in Cambridge for a few last minute purchases then we travelled to Coton to supplement our fish tank. We had another Christmas “Bring and Share” meal at the Kitson’s as our home group celebration, followed by a “Sing, Say or Do” session on a Christmas theme.

We had a shortish walk on Thursday before the meal starting at Grantchester and looping locally via Coton and Newnham. We were entertained to mulled wine and mince pies in a member’s very grand and old house in Newnham. The man of the house is East German by birth and escaped from there by swimming across a river by night with a bicycle strapped to his back.

Grantchester

Newnham house for refreshments

River Cam at Grantchester

I collected Brussels sprouts on Friday with David Cook. My usual supply in Bedfordshire has dried up and as last year I had to go to Hilgay in Norfolk to collect stems which I think originated in Kent. The price was higher than last year but still cheaper than Christmas cards and the quality was better than expected after the dry summer. The distribution list now stands at 60 so that occupied the rest of Friday and Saturday morning.

Sprouts 2018

We rose early on Saturday and were in Tesco’s by 7am to beat the crowds – but we were far from being alone!

Ben should arrive Sunday, Mary-Ann, Andy, Amélie and Albert on Monday and Esther and Emma on Christmas Day. Andy fortunately flew home via Gatwick before the drone saga.

Best wishes to you all.

Love

Mike & Kate

16th December 2018

Dear All,

The news of the week was Esther ringing on Monday to announce that she was engaged to Emma. Yes, I was surprised – and I don’t always manage surprises very well! but she is very happy so we wish them well.

Back on Planet Earth we finished “Just Vegetating” on Monday with “Oriental Vegetables”. Kate produced a Beetroot chocolate cake, Chickpea and carrot crepes, crispy onions, Fried green tomatoes and Black bean hummus. They have been an excellent group this year and we were presented with a £202 collection for Moldova.

I had another Wisley meeting on Tuesday judging Winter cabbage and Shallots. Kate came with me and we travelled on to Hove.

We did a little Christmas shopping on Wednesday and walked to the sea which was decidedly frisky. We saw the outside of a flat that Mary-Ann & Andy will be hiring after the New Year while their house is being knocked about. Albert is undergoing serious potty training but would not wee in the restaurant toilet, only up the wall outside!

Bonding

Fierce Cheetah

Temporary Quarters

I missed Over Garden Club Christmas party on Wednesday but left 4 photos for Glynis to stage and was awarded 2 x 1^st, 1 x 2^nd and 1 x 3^rd.

3^rd in Animal, Bird or Insect in a garden

2^nd in My Garden

1^st for a Shot from the Garden Club visit to Dorset

1^st in Garden Flower

The weather for our Thursday walk was far kinder than the previous week with unforecast sunshine for most of the morning. We started at Babraham and took in Stapleford and Wandlebury. Our leader Philip, worked at Babraham Hall after leaving the army so was keen to point out all his achievements including having a large wood planted on the estate.

Near Babraham

Wandlebury Gatehouse

Posing in Philip’s Wood

Babraham Hall

Kate and I went for flu jabs later that day and fortunately did not suffer serious ill effects.

“Biographies” on Friday was the usual pre-Christmas “Bring a reading or poem about Winter or Christmas”, followed by a quiz and buffet. I was charged with the quiz which was not taken too seriously.

On Saturday I collected a Christmas tree from the Fenwick “Help Yourself” plantation – still only £2 per ft.! Football was Bar Hill v Cherry Hinton and definitely not for the faint hearted weather-wise!

We have just received an email from Ali and Robin with photos of their progress clearing their patch in Devon - it looks like a challenge!

Love

Mike & Kate

9th December 2018

Dear All,

“Just Vegetating” this week was “Minor Crops b” – artichokes, cardoons, sweet corn etc. Kate prepared: Sweet Potato gratin in coconut and chilli, Fried Sweet Corn with ginger and chilli, Squash, sage and chestnut roll, Salsify and Oca. One more week to go. I actually managed to get the reglazing of the largest greenhouse completed on Monday after another trip to the Business Park. Evidently the cutter had difficulty with centimetres and millimetres as he read 106cm as 100.6cm – easily done I guess but not great if it is your job!

Kate and I did some Christmas shopping on Tuesday before she attended her course at the Scott Polar Museum.

Wednesday was an indoor day as it was mizzling all day here so I put in time on my next Biography subject “John Stevens Henslow” who started Cambridge Botanic Gardens on the present site and is most famous for mentoring Darwin.

We were at Steeple Bumpstead on Thursday for our walk. It was very sticky and slippery underfoot as most of the time we were on clay and there was a good ration of cultivated fields.

Steeple Bumpstead Moot Hall and the Fox & Hounds

Wiggens Green

A Serious Drill

Near Helions Bumpstead

“Dietrich Bonhoeffer” was the subject of this week’s “Biographies”. I expect most of you will know he was a German theologian who opposed Hitler and after initially escaping abroad decided to return to Germany and was eventually imprisoned and hung two weeks before the liberation.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

In the evening we attended the Over Pantomime this year it was “Beauty & the Beast”. It was again very good with the right mixture of fine performances and forgotten lines and gaffes!

Over beat Whittlesford 5 v 2 yesterday having gone 2 v 0 down in the first 15 minutes. It was again a full on clash with a player from each side leaving the pitch in some pain. In the evening we were invited to Matthew and Rachel Burrell’s for a meal – we had looked after their daughter Grace when their second Arthur arrived and Rachel had a serious operation. We were asked to be Godparents for Arthur.

Kate has been suffering with a bad back this week, probably due to furniture shifting last Saturday.

Love

Mike & Kate

2^nd December 2018

Dear All,

Yesterday was what you could call a full day with a Men’s Breakfast, helping friends move house, a little glazing, football, Over Christmas Market and grand switching on of the Christmas lights followed by a busy night on the streets.

The speaker at the breakfast, Ed King from Swavesey, has worked for the British Antarctic Survey for forty years, mainly as a Geophysicist measuring the thickness of the ice at the South Pole area. He has no doubts about climate change and has some amazing photos of life down under.

Stan and Maya, our Bulgarian friends, have been renting a house in Fen End and to their surprise it has been sold over their heads. They have managed to find another house in Kirby Close near the War Memorial and were enacting a DIY removal yesterday. I think I drove my car full about eight times before a white van appeared with a Bulgarian mate to shift the larger stuff. They have the heaviest suite I have ever encountered! Kate was helping unpack and started cleaning the old house which she claims probably hadn’t been cleaned while they lived there!

I decided to replace the damaged panes in the glasshouse as it had not been patched for a year or two – 5 panes in all 4 rectangles and a trapezoid. I had three quotes: £120, £87 and £60 the lowest from a recent set up on Over Industrial Site. When I collected them on Friday only one was the right size so I had to take them back and they were recut, Yesterday when I tried to fit them three were still too short!

I watched Over 4 v 1 Soham in the afternoon then on to The Green for a Christmas market and the switching on of the Christmas lights. Folk had complained that the old lights were a bit weedy so they raised cash for replacements so now we have coloured lights all-round the Green and serious flashy ones on the pavilion.

Over Lights

Street Pastors was one of those nights you remember, firstly it was wet before midnight but still plenty of people around as it was payday weekend and office party season. We had three difficult cases: we were called to Ballare to a lad called Chris who was sitting outside “owl eyed” staring like a zombie. We couldn’t get much sense out of him but the security guys found three mates inside who confirmed he was on Ketamine and Ecstasy, as they were but he “often got like that!” They carted him off but they had to get to Bishops Stortford. Next we found a large chap outside Lola Lo head down and uncommunicative, it turned out he was Dutch and knew little English. We gave him water and said we would return later. When we did he hadn’t moved and we tried to get him to the Nightlite café but he was too heavy and his knapsack weighed a ton. Meanwhile we found a girl crumpled on the steps closer to Lola Lo with her head between her knees also uncommunicative, drugged up and shivering. The security people at this club were spectacularly unhelpful and didn’t know whether she had friends in side or anything else. As they were due to close in 20 minutes we wrapped her in a blanket and hoped friends would come out and recognise her – but this did not happen. What to do? She had a phone with a flat battery but we found her driving licence with her address on it. We decided to frog march her back to Nightlite so we could pack up our base then take her home to Fen Drayton hoping her address was current. This we did and found the house, she had a front door key but it would not work as there was a key already in the lock indoors. Finally we had to bang on the door at 4.45am to try and rouse the occupants. Fortunately this worked and her sister took delivery of her!

On Monday we managed a swim before “Just Vegetating” which this week was “Minor Crops a” Kate produced Baked Celeriac in butter, Jerusalem Artichokes, Butternut Squash curry, Celeriac salad and Swede in garlic, honey & hazelnuts.

On Tuesday I spoke to the Cambridge U3A Garden group who meet in a Catholic church. Unfortunately there was a clash with a funeral so my talk was periodically accompanied by serious hymns!

On Wednesday there was a historic moment as the public phone box was removed from the corner of the Green. In the evening I was at “Royston Greenfingers club” for talk number 246!

Goodbye Phonebox

Our Thursday walk started at Rede near Bury St Edmunds. The forecast rain did not materialise but it was very windy which did not improve things.

The Plough, Rede

Near Somerton

Somerton

Kate leaping a stile

“Biography” subject was “Daisy Bates” who was born in Ireland but emigrated to Australia, married three times and eventually became a rather eccentric champion of the aborigines.

Love

Mike & Kate