27th February 2022

 

Dear All,

It was our turn to lead the Thursday walk this week but we had not been able to carry out a recce until the day before. We started at Therfield above Royston and headed south to Sandon and Kelshall. It was a new route for us and as it had rained every day the previous week the going was a bit soggy underfoot especially on cultivated fields, of which there were five, so we spent a lot of the recce plotting alternative routes to avoid the worst fields. This together with a few missed paths meant we did a good 10 miles on Wednesday and were not that keen to do it all again on Thursday especially as were woke to a downpour. However, when the going gets tough, the tough get going – unless you can think of a good excuse – and we couldn’t! In the event although we started in rain it soon cleared up and the sun even made an appearance and Thursday’s walk was easier because of the rerouting and was in the end quite enjoyable. On Wednesday we spotted the Therfield roe deer herd of well over 100 individuals including several white ones. 18 miles in two days was quite enough for old codgers like us!

 

 

Damp Start

 

Icknield Way

 

 

Green End

 

 

Snowdrop Patch

 

 

Storm Damage

 

It was “Legumes” in “Just Vegetating” this week and Kate’s recipes were: Mixed Bean Masala, Quick fried Runner Beans and Crispy Chick Pea Chaat. – all available on application with a stamped addressed envelope!

My old NIAB boss Bill Chowings came to the ex NIAB employees lunch at Girton Golf Course on Tuesday. He now lives at Saham Toney in Norfolk but was staying with his son in Swavesey for a week. Bill’s wife died just before last Christmas. After we called on Glynis for a catch up as Bill was also her boss for a time. Glynis is having cancer treatment but being characteristically upbeat about it.

We missed the U3A History session this week due to the recce but have received 16 pages of notes! It was mainly about Aethelred the Unready and the continued Viking raids resulting in Cnut becoming king of England. Aethelred was king for 38 years starting when he was 10 years old but did not emerge with a good reputation being described as weak, cowardly and ineffective – and that was just by his friends!

“Biographies” subject this week was “John von Neumann” a Hungarian born mathematician presented by Keith our computer boffin and as usual his topic went slightly over most people’s heads. Evidently von Neumann made major contributions to many fields, including mathematics (foundations of mathematics, functional analysis, ergodic theory, group theory, representation theory, operator algebras, geometry, topology, and numerical analysis), physics (quantum mechanics, hydrodynamics, and quantum statistical mechanics), economics (game theory), computing (Von Neumann architecture, linear programming, self-replicating machines, stochastic computing), and statistics. He was a pioneer of the application of operator theory to quantum mechanics in the development of functional analysis, and a key figure in the development of game theory and the concepts of cellular automata, the universal constructor and the digital computer. So now you know!. In Dr Bronowski’s book “The Ascent of Man” he devotes the last three pages to von Neumann describing him as “The cleverest man I ever knew, without exception.”

 

 

John von Neumann

 

Laura and Adrian both called on Friday afternoon, Kate entertained one the front room and I the other in the back!

Wood chopping Saturday morning followed by Hemingford 0 v 1 Over.

Gordon’s mother died suddenly on Friday following a fall, within half an hour we also heard that one of our walking group had passed on and then we heard that Ken Gage, a village man that our children will know, also died yesterday.

The Cambridge News photo feature this week was “Cities” and my contribution was “Budapest”.

 

 

Budapest

 

With love

Mike & Kate