22nd January 2023

 

Dear All,

We started another session of “Just Vegetating” on Monday. The kitchen at the Friends Meeting House has been stripped and renovated so is now very smart. The new group seem lively with a record number of questions, which is always encouraging. Week 1 is always “Carrots and Parsnips” and Kate produced Carrot Marmalade, Parsnips in Miso and Carrot cakes.

On Tuesday, we visited Oakington Garden Centre to buy seed potatoes and Kate stocked up with flower seeds. In the afternoon I set up the seed propagator in the greenhouse, started the germination tests for a few seed samples and sowed more Broad beans which have succumbed to Muntjac and frost. There was a church business meeting in the evening and Kate was re-elected as a Deacon.

It was Over Garden Club Wednesday evening with a speaker on “Raking up the Past” covering old implements and structures.

Thursdays walk was a great improvement on the previous week as the frost meant that it was much firmer underfoot and the sun shone for much of the time. We started at Wrestlingworth near Potton and took in Eyeworth, Guilden Morden and Tadlow.

 

 

Chilly sheep near Wrestlingworth

 

 

Near Eyeworth

 

 

Hook Mill near Guilden Morden

 

 

Old Mill near Guilden Morden

 

We have had a troublesome car tyre this week as it slowly lost pressure but when I took it to Kwik Fit, they couldn’t find a leak - so it remains one of life’s mysteries,

 

We had a double header at Biographies this week: Nansen the explorer and Eddington after whom the new development near NIAB has been named.

Nansen learnt to ski aged 3 and had a yen for polar exploration. He led the first crossing of the Greenland icecap and got to latitude 87°N trying to reach the North Pole. He became an ambassador, member of the League of Nations, negotiated Norway achieving separation from Sweden and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922.

 

 

Fridtjof Nansen

Arthur Eddington was a Physicist, Astronomer, Ambassador for Science and Quaker. He initially worked in the Greenwich Observatory then made Prof. of Astronomy at Cambridge aged 31.in 1914. He was then under great pressure to enlist for WWI but as a pacifist resisted and the University made a case that his work was vital for the country. He wrote 13 books, never married carried out numerous lecture tours explaining the stars and Einstein’s theory of relativity. He attended Quaker meetings in the very room that we were holding the lecture and was belatedly knighted.

 

 

Sir Arthur Eddington

 

The Cambridge News photo feature was Winter Sunshine and I contributed a view from Ramsau, Austria which Graham & Mary might recall?

 

 

Ramsau, Austria.

 

All local football was off yesterday due to frozen ground except for those with access to all weather pitches. We managed to catch a game at Comberton 2 v 5 Cambridge University Press, carefully wrapped in Long John’s and extra socks!

 

Love

Mike & Kate