31st March 2024

 

Dear All,

The undoubted highlight of this week was meeting up with my brother, sister and brother-in-law at Beaumont and Dovercourt on Tuesday. We had lunch at Dovercourt Weatherspoon’s then took a stroll along Dovercourt seafront.  After we visited elderly cousin Muriel in her old folks’ home at Kirby-le-Soken On the way back to Glebe Farm we called in at Beaumont Quay where all the Day children learnt to swim amid black mud, crabs and sewage! We had a quick tour of the farm catching up with Ian who had been spraying and spotting Gavin who was ploughing. At Glebe for tea, we met up with Colin and Amanda.

 

 

Mary, David, Graham & Kate overlooked by Queen Victoria

 

 

The Old Dovercourt Lighthouse

 

 

Beaumont Cut

 

 

Beaumont Cut with Rotting Barge

 

On Monday we began with a swim as usual followed by coffee at Merv’s. Later I met up with three walking colleagues for lunch – guess where? Yes, at Cambridge Weatherspoon’s!

On Wednesday John and I cut and rolled the cricket square a couple of times then it was church group at the Kitson’s. Adrian called at lunchtime and later I helped him in his garden sowing swedes, parsnips, beetroot, carrots and salsify, planting potatoes and assembling a new mini plastic house.

 

 

Adrian’s garden

We didn’t join up with the U3A walk on Wednesday as it was nearly 40 miles away at Helions Bumpstead and the weather forecast was not promising. Instead, it was Tesco’s followed by some greenhouse gardening. We later booked two days away in Woodbridge for 3 weeks hence.

Friday’s weather was better so we did a local walk through Over Fen and circling Barleycroft Lake at Bluntisham. On the way we saw new calves at Cook’s and Andrew Fenwick’s new Pygmy Goats. The river was flowing very swiftly and there were more birds on Barleycroft Lake than last year. On the way back we stopped at Adrian’s for coffee and I took updated photos of his cats in case they wander,

 

 

Cook’s Calves

 

 

Andrew’s Pygmy Goats

 

Barleycroft Lake

 

 Billy & Binkie

 

At 3pm it was the usual Good Friday service at chapel.

We has a morning at the allotment on Saturday with Kate weeding flowers while I planted seeded onion modules and removed the cage over the winter brassicas. Over did not have a match this week so we watched West Wratting 4 v 1 Witchford.

Amḗlie has gone on a school skiing trip to Andorra so we
all hope that goes well. The snow reports seem promising.

  

Andorra Skiing

 

This morning it was an early start as there was an Easter Sunrise Service in the orchard at 6.30am. As this coincided with the clocks going forward it was actually out of bed at 5am!

Surprisingly there was a record attendance – but as usual no sun! This was followed by bacon and sausage rolls at the chapel.

 

 

Sunrise Service

Regards

 

Mike & Kate

 

24th March 2024

 

Dear All,

This was the last week of the U3A term so after swimming Monday it was week 10 of Just vegetating – Chinese Vegetables and Salads. Kate didn’t stick to the script and produced: summer salad, vegan beetroot chocolate cakes and Sweet potato gratin with coconut and chilli. 

The class had been excellent this year with plenty of questions, good attendance and finally generous in their comments and donation of £210 for CEEM.

In the afternoon I managed to book flights to Moldova, this time direct to Chisinau from Luton, 2^nd May to 9^th May. Two of us this time, Geoff Pake a retired Willingham farmer and myself. All we have to do now is make sure the firemen’s uniforms and seed arrive before we do.

French History week 10 covered 1919 to 1945, Depression, Defeat, Collaboration, Resistance & Liberation. Squabbles with Germany after World War 1, then World War 11 which they were not ready for, the split country with the Vichy Zone, D Day etc. Again, it is a surprise that so many people survived!

 

 Lille 1918 – 220 Coal Mines destroyed

 

From the family Zoom Tuesday evening we learnt that Ben is on his travels again this time a long weekend in Luxembourg, also that Albert was to dance in Brighton Pavilion with his school.

 

Strictly come Brighton!

 

We cut the cricket square a couple of times on Wednesday yielding several barrow loads of grass. After I planted cabbage, cauliflowers and calabrese in the fruit cage as that was the only dry piece of land and dug trenches to fill with compost for Runner beans. In the evening it was Over Garden Club and I spoke on Potatoes. To work in with this the committee had purchased some seed potatoes for a competition as well as previously planned begonia corms.

Thursday’s walk started at Wrestlingworth near Potton and circled via Hook’s Mill and Tadlow. It was completely dry overhead and much less mud than recently. There were plenty of spring flowers on show mainly blackthorn, daffodils and violets. Oil seed crops were beginning to colour up.

 

 

Hook’s Water Mill

 

 

Hook’s Windmill

 

 

Well, there was some mud!

 

 

Wrestlingworth church

 

Friday’s Biography subject was Ibn Battutah an Islamic traveller, explorer and scholar. Over a period of thirty years from 1325 to 1354, Ibn Battuta visited most of North Africa, the Middle East, East Africa, Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, China, the Iberian Peninsula, and West Africa, totalling around 117,000 km (73,000 mi).

 

 

Ibn Battutah’s travels

After the class had an end of term lunch at the Maypole pub.

Kate and I managed to plant potatoes here and at the allotment on Saturday and I scarified the lawn which yielded a barrowful of moss and thatch.

I watched Over 4 v 1 Witchford in the afternoon.

 

Regards

 

Mike & Kate

 

17th March 2024

 

Dear All,

Following Monday’s swim, Just Vegetating was Minor crop’s part 2 including Globe and Jerusalem Artichokes and Cardoons. Kate prepared Pumpkin, Sage and Barley bake, Jerusalem Artichoke dauphinoise and stuffed aubergines. One week to go! I managed to plant onions and shallots and sow carrots on the raised bed.

In the evening it was the annual chapel 10 -Pin Bowling evening at Pidley. It was well attended again with 35 dining and 28 bowling. For once Gordon didn’t win but claims he should have done on count back! I performed very modestly leaving 1 or 2 standing 16 out of 20 goes.

 

 

Pre-Contest Meal

 

Mervyn – Poetry in Motion.

 French History on Tuesday covered 1871 to the end of the First World War in 1918 during which France lost 27% of men of fighting age. The session was entitled “Belle Epoque and the Great War as the end of the century was a prosperous time with the building of the Eifel Tower, Lumiere films and scientists like Louis Pasteur.

 

 

La Belle Epoque

 

 

The Great War

 

Our lawn appears to have come through the wet winter with about 50% moss so I went to Berrycroft stores to purchase some Lawn Sand but they no longer stock it instead they have a special lawn fertiliser which is supposed to kill weeds and moss. I have applied it and await results.

Our Thursday walk this week started at Barrow half way between Newmarket and Bury St Edmunds. The A14 had been seriously flooded in previous days but was thankfully open although there was plenty of evidence of tankers and pipelines. The conditions this week were kinder that several recent outings with some sunshine and less mud but what mud there was had a special stickiness as though mixed with glue!

 

 

Barrow Old Clock Tower

 

 

Lest we Forget!

 

 

Wilsummer Wood

 

 

Barrow Village Pond

 

The Biographies subject this week was Dame Freya Stark she was a British-Italian explorer and travel writer. She wrote more than two dozen books on her travels in the Middle East and Afghanistan as well as several autobiographical works and essays. She had a terrible accident as a teenager when her long hair got caught in a carpet loom and yanked part of her hair and scalp away so she always wore a hat thereafter, her most famous book was “The Valleys of the Assassins” about travelling alone in Iran.

 

Freya Stark

 

We held a CEEM meal and meeting Friday evening to progress the sending of the Firemen’s uniforms and seed to Moldova and try and set date for this year’s visit, it looks as though Geoff Pake and I will go on 2^nd to 9^th May but it is not finally booked yet.

The speaker for next Wednesday’s Over Garden Club meeting dropped out this week so I have been asked to substitute.     

Saturday morning, I planted peas from gutters and Beetroot from modules so although the land is still very wet there is some progress on the drier areas.

The big match yesterday was Shelford (top) v Over (3^rd), Unfortunately Shelford won an even contest 3 v 0 but Over are a very young team so will hopefully learn from the experience.

Last night a group of us were in the Church Hall for "Would I Lie to You?". I t was quite entertaining but went on a little too long!

The Magnolia trees have been at their best this week but are already beginning to fade.

 

 

 

Magnolia

 

 

Regards

 

Mike & Kate

 

10th March 2024

 

Dear All,

Monday began with a swim as usual and the pool was fairly crowded again but tolerable. Just Vegetating week 8 was “Minor Vegetables – part 1” featuring 22 crops starting with Scorzonera, Salsify and Hamburg Parsley. Kate cooked Salsify, Spinach & Ricotta roll up lasagne and Cucumber crunch salad. One member of the class is a professional illustrator and sent me some of the veg paintings this week:

 

 Red Onion

 

 Globe Artichoke

 

 

Tomato

  

Squash

 

French History covered the 19^th century post Napoleon and was headed “Monarchy, Republic & Empire”. We covered several kings, a few revolutions and Louis Bonaparte becoming Emperor.

 

Liberty Leading the People by Eugene Delacroix

 

We were pleased to welcome Esther & Emma for the day on Wednesday. Only a few jobs and a little cleaning this visit and we had lunch at the Willingham Auction House café.

That morning, we had our boiler serviced and ironically it was working before the service and would not work afterwards. The engineer suggested a new part which was not available locally so we shivered for 36 hours. Next day Kate took a call from the boss man suggesting that we reset the timer and relight the boiler. This she did and it worked – why the first chap could not do this is a mystery but Kate is now setting up as a consultant heating engineer!

Hosannah, we had a Thursday walk with no rain! There was still a little mud and we had to revise the route to avoid the University Rifle Range as they were blasting away again. The walk was partly one we recced two weeks ago starting at Barton and taking in Grantchester but this time we did not go into Coton.

 

 

Sticky Stretch

 

 

Horses Paddling near Grantchester

 

 River Cam at Grantchester

 

 

River Cam closer to Cambridge

 

Biographies this week was a double header Tom Stoppard and Nevil Shute. The Stoppard talk was by a rather vague lady who asked me to prepare a PowerPoint for her. This involved 13 emails 35 pictures of varying quality from poor to awful presented upside down and back to front. 10 proved to be duplicates and no indication of an order.

Our leader did a short presentation on Nevil Shute concentrating on his aviation experience working on balloons and airships,

 

 

Tom Stoppard

 

 

Nevil Shute

 

I managed to plant lettuce and Broad beans in the garden this week as well as cut the grass again. In the greenhouse I sowed some Skirret an ancient root vegetable that was popular in Tudor times.

 

Skirret

One of my CEEM colleagues managed to collect 20 used firemen’s uniforms from Brighton on Friday which is the first step in sending them to Moldova.

I watched Over Res 1 v 0 Histon Res yesterday while the 1^st team won 5 v 0 at Cherry Hinton.

Regards

 

Mike & Kate