26^th January 2020

Dear All,

The highlight of this week was the New Year Social for the U3A Walking group. This is normally held in Newnham College but they have been altering their premises so we met in a church hall in Hills Road opposite Homerton College. It was the usual “bring and share” which is excellent as the donors tend to get competitive and the standard is very high! Kate cooked a ham this year and I was responsible for the Review. In addition, we had a saxophone rendition and a poem relating to the year.

After swimming on Monday, I met up with Peter Rickard a guy who I knew from work. He was director of Arthur Rickwood Experimental farm for a while then an ADAS Horticultural advisor so we used to work on carrots and parsnips together. His wife died 5 years ago from a rare vascular disease.

We have signed up for the U3A Film Club this year and the first offering on Tuesday was Charlie Chaplin in “The Great Dictator” which was released in 1940 and a brave offering at the time.

On Thursday we had a long journey down to Much Hadham for our walk which took in Perry Green and the Henry Moore sculpture park. It was a dull day but there was less mud than recently and it stayed fine.

Much Hadham

 

Near Widford

 

Fit a caption contest

 

And another!

The Cambridge News photo page topic this week was “The Sea” and I submitted “Frozen Sea at Lulea, Sweden” which some of you will remember (not warmly!) and it was published on Thursday.

Our “Biography” topic on Friday was Lady Hester Stanhope” (1776-1823) niece of William Pitt the Younger who was his private secretary for a while but after he died began travelling, mainly in the middle east. She was very independent and caused a few scandals. Her archaeological expedition to Ashkelon in 1815 is considered the first modern excavation in the history of Holy Land archaeology.

 Lady Hester Stanhope

With love

Mike & Kate