17th December 2023

 

Dear All,

I hope your Christmas excitement level is growing? It all seems to arrive too quickly when you get this close.

On Monday the swimming pool was nearly empty when we arrived but several of the elderly ladies appeared later on as they were off for a Christmas lunch. Kate, Mervyn and I transferred to Tesco’s for coffee and to fill a small gap in the shopping list! Meanwhile Adrian had a successful consultation at Addenbrookes and has been placed on the operation list. Evidently, he had lost fluid in some vertebrae and this has been replaced by cartilage which is rubbing on the nerves, The list could be long but it has cheered him to make some progress, in addition his kittens have arrived this week and he is getting used to the price of cat food!

In the evening we hosted a meal and meeting for CEEM, our current challenge is to organise collecting 30 second hand firemen’s uniforms from Brighton where a charity collects them and transfer them to Market Deeping near Peterborough where there is a transport company with experience of transfers to Moldova. Philip is planning a trip to Moldova on the 31^st December with his new girlfriend who speaks Russian, they hope to include a week at a Moldovan language school.

On Tuesday I was taxi service for John Lee whose wife Vera was having a check up at Addenbrookes. She was being collected in an ambulance but he – at about 95 years old was not allowed to ride with her! It was also time to post Christmas parcels to Derbyshire.

I managed to confirm my order for Christmas Brussels sprouts on Wednesday and then attended Phil Dobson’s funeral, Phil was a qualified vet and the man who used to win all the cups at the Village Produce show and will be sadly missed.

Norman Ingle came for lunch as usual followed by the last session of the midweek church group. In between we watched a U3A lecture on-line entitled “The Box with the Sunflower Clasp” given by a lady whose Jewish family escaped NAZI occupation of Austria by travelling to Shanghai. This is a little-known slice of history but 20,000 escaped by that route.

On Thursday we had a short walk from Trumpington Park & Ride car park taking in Trumpington, Byron’s Pool, Grantchester and the River Cam. We stopped for mulled wine and mince pies at Ian and Felicia Gordon’s before 40 of us descended on La Margarita’s Italian restaurant near Magdalene Bridge for a Christmas lunch.

 

 

Edge of Trumpington

 

 

Byron’s Pool, Grantchester

 

 

Grantchester Old Vicarage chez Geoffrey Archer

 

 

River Cam at Grantchester

 

 

Walkers of 2023

 

 

River Cam near Magdalene Bridge

 

For the Christmas session of Biographies members take in readings and snacks and usually I run a quiz but we ran out of time this week. In the evening we attended the Over Pantomime, this year “Treasure Island”. It is always an enjoyable evening as long as you do not take it too seriously.

 

 

Over did not have a match yesterday so Dave and I travelled to West Wratting to watch them beat Ely Reserves 5 – 1.

The plan is that we travel down to Hove for Christmas next Saturday so no letter next week and Happy Christmas to all our readers!

 

 

Regards

Mike & Kate