21st February 2021

 

Dear All,

We had a trip to St Ives on Monday for decorating materials. Kate has finished renovating the dining room chairs this week and is now threatening action on the study. While there I visited Poundland and purchased ingredients for a Treasure Chest for the grandchildren. This involved quite a lot of wrapping but Andy videoed them unwrapping it, so I guess it was all worthwhile?

One of the seedsmen I knew through work sent me a sample of the latest leading variety of onion seed this week. I duly split it and sent it to friends who requested some, but I only put 2^nd class stamps on the envelopes and so far, none has been delivered.

I planted a few early potatoes in pots in the greenhouse and have so far checked about 80 seed lots for germination. The benches are already looking fairly full.

 

 

Greenhouse Bench

 

We have listened to two Zoom lectures this week: on Tuesday it was on CAP (Christians Against Poverty) it is a charitable company founded in Bradford, by John Kirkby in 1996. It is a national organisation specialising in debt counselling for people in financial difficulty, including those in need of bankruptcy or insolvency. Our church is thinking of joining the volunteer helpers.

On Wednesday we tuned into Prof Jack Price from Kings College, London talking about “The Future of Brain Repairs using Stem Cells”. Evidently there has been significant progress in targeting specific cells to replace damaged sites particularly in Parkinson’s Disease and Age-Related Macular Degeneration. Might be a bit late for some of us but maybe the younger generation?

It was Brenda Ingle’s funeral on Thursday morning. She was one of the first lady deacons at chapel and had been fighting cancer for over 5 years. Attendance was by invitation due to Covid, so apart from family most households were limited to one representative. Kate attended and I watched on Zoom as did some of her relatives in Australia.

We have walked several times in the week but on Thursday after the funeral we took the road to the Windmill then along the Guided busway to Swavesey, returning to Over. Not the most scenic walk but firm underfoot.

 

 

Longstanton Road Pond

 

 

Over Windmill

 

 

Guided Busway

 

Mere Fen

 

“Biographies” topic this week was “Octavia Hill” she was an English social reformer, whose main concern was the welfare of the inhabitants of cities, especially London, in the second half of the nineteenth century. She was also a co-founder of the National Trust.

 

 

Octavia Hill

Kate and I spent some time yesterday hacking down ivy at the cemetery which had overgrown and old gateway and got top heavy and collapsed. It was a thick knot of branches and roots and a bit of a challenge. We cleared one side with another to go. I mav have mentioned before that I have a glut of Parsnips this year so I did another distribution to the poor and needy (actually friends in the village!).

 

 

 

With love

Mike & Kate