19^th January 2020

Dear All,

The swimming pool was rather chilly again on Monday and sparsely populated – maybe the two were linked? Later I attended the funeral of John Ardley who worked for DEFRA on the NIAB site and lived in Swavesey. He had battled Parkinsons Disease for 32 years but still managed to achieve a geat deal.

On Tuesday afternoon I spoke to the U3A Garden Club which meets in Milton Road catholic church. One of their meetings caught my eye: “After Wednesday Mass come to the Rosary club – you do not have to have your own beads”.

Kate has been suffering all week – actually 12 days to date having lost her voice and coughing for England (in or out of the EU) – it is a serious virus.

I assembled my propagation cabinet on Wednesday and began germination tests on Saturday so the growing season is underway. I attended Over Garden Club in the evening where we were entertained with garden themed poems and readings which was entertaining – I will have to get more poetry into my talks!

Thursday saw the walking group at Tilbrook near Kimbolton. It was undulating topography but still very muddy so you certainly knew you had been taking exercise!.

Cromwell House, Tilbrook

 

Mud still available

U3A motto: We are never lost – sometimes we are not sure where we are!

I had some RHS homework this week as we split up seed catalogues between Panel members to check which varieties have been added or removed.

“Biographies” began again this week and the subject was “Ivan Maisky” who was the Soviet Union ambassador to the UK from 1932 to 1943 and very influential in convincing Churchill that the Russians would not make separate deals with the Germans. He had overcome serious handicaps being Jewish and initially backing the wrong side in the Russian civil war. He had a spell in Siberia and later Stalin accused him of being an English spy, but he survived and died aged 90 at his dacha.

  

Ivan Maisky

Over won a good game Foxton 2 v 4 Over yesterday – a good performance in rather chilly conditions.

With love

Mike & Kate