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