31st May 2020

Dear All,

Well it seems like more of the same this week: walking, watering, ZOOMing and gardening. The main addition for us has been a trip to Kate & Gordon’s at Haddenham – the furthest we have been for 10 weeks to replace some tomato plants and a battle with badgers at the allotment. I have grown potatoes for about 60 years and have never had a serious pest problem but I suspect because of the drought the badgers have discovered my patch at the allotment and dug about a quarter of them. I think they are probably looking for worms but also chew the seed potatoes as well. This week we have replaced a puny low fence with 1.5m chicken wire dug in at the bottom and weighted down. In addition, we have placed petrol-soaked rags around the edge. It worked Friday night but we haven’t checked today as yet. Frustratingly they have not touched potatoes on the other allotments which are not protected at all.

Badger damage

 

New Fence

For our longer walk this week we drove to Earith bridge and walked round the lakes there. We intended starting by taking the footpath along the Old Bedford River but it was closed. In general, it was not as good as recent walks as the lakes are mostly owned by private fishing syndicates and sealed off with wire fences. The highlight was the vast numbers of Damselflies. The previous day walking in Over Fen there were masses of Banded Demoiselles.

An unusual sight was an Allan Williams turret. It is a Pre-Fabricated Defence Structure built of Steel. It was manned by two crew members with a Lewis Gun, who entered through the entrance tunnel The turret could be rotated through 360 degrees giving a limitless field of view of fire. 199 Turrets ordered and built. Designed to be used for all types of light weapons: Bren, Lewis, Boys, Hotchkiss & Browning.

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Damselflies

  

Earith Lakes

 

Allan Williams Turret

Banded Demoiselle

This week in the garden I have planted cabbage, cauliflowers and leeks while strawberries and raspberries are coming on stream, together with calabrese, broad beans and mange tout peas.

With love

Mike & Kate