29th June 2025

 

           Dear All,

 

Pests continue to be a challenge in the garden but the electric fence has been a success so far protecting a decent crop of strawberries. This week we have moved it to the allotment to guard the Sweet Corn.  We walked on Tuesday this week as it was a local walk starting at Fen Drayton and circling round the lakes taking in Swavesey. Fortunately it was about 15C cooler than the previous week.

 

 

Dutch style house in Fen Drayton

 

 

Crossing Far Fen

 

Boat on River Ouse

 

 

 

River Ouse

 

 

Holywell

On Wednesday I had a seasonal shearing followed by church groups at the Kitson’s where mother Etty celebrated her 104^th birthday this week.

On Thursday I tackled the 8 foot hedge planted by next door. It is rather too tall and affects the garden beside it.

On Friday John and I prepared the cricket pitch which is understandably dry but seemed to play well on Saturday as the opposition hit 349 runs which Stag Party weakened Over could only reply with 150.

I decided to lift my early potatoes, Lady Christl, as the tops had died off. The skin quality was excellent. In the evening I had arranged a tour of the RSPB reserve in Over Fen. RSPB wanted to charge participants £12.50 a head but we managed to get three volunteers to do it for nothing but took a voluntary collection. It was a good evening with 17 turning up and we managed to see a fox, a Bittern, a Great Egret and a Crane.

 

 

Participants

 

Crane

Saturday there was a Men’s Breakfast at the chapel with an excellent speaker Dr Ed King from the British Antarctic Survey. I had to dash away to Judge the Fruit & Vegetables at Stapleford Show but the M11 was constipated so I arrive nearly an hour late, Fortunately the judging did not take long even though the number of entries and the standard was higher than usual.

 

Stapleford Exhibits

 

Ben has sent a few pictures from Sao Tome Principe and seems to be enjoying himself. He is due to run a Maraton today.

 

 

Principe

Amelie is undertaking a Duke of Edinburgh hike and camping challenge this weekend – so we wish her well! Mary-Ann completed a course on Women & Empowerment and received her award in London.

 

 

Amelie

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Best wishes

Mike & Kate

 

22nd June 2025

 

           Dear All,

 

Esther & Emma came for lunch last Sunday to mark Father’s Day and kindly came armed with gifts from all our offspring which will put my diet back a week or two!

 

 

Father’s Day offerings

 

After swimming on Monday Kate harvested strawberries, raspberries pink currants, broad beans, peas and Mange Tout. I sowed Fennel and 3^rd batch of Sweet Corn while continuing to water on a daily basis. I also picked the first tomatoes and courgettes this week. On Tuesday. evening I attended the Local History meeting which covered the story of Over Rectory. It was originally built as an out of town house for the Master of Trinity College called Richard Bentley, who was a very clever academic who managed to fall out with most of his contemporaries but was friends with Isaac Newton. The house was not given to the church until 1840. On Wednesday, we attended the funeral of Peter Rickard at Chatteris. I knew him well from work as he was director of Arthur Rickwood EHF and we did several early carrot trials together. In the evening the Over Gardening Club meeting was a garden tour of three member’s gardens. All had large gardens and it was interesting to see their various approaches.

 

 

Garden 1

 

 

Garden 2

 

 

Red Hazel Nuts

 

 

Garden 3

 

Thursday we were down to lead the U3A walk from Over Community Centre. It was a hybrid walk of short and long walkers as 45 members were on an HF holiday in the Brecon Beacons and we were leading the rest. It was a tough walk as the temperature was 32C and the route across the river to Barleycroft Lake was 9 miles. There were a number of birds on the lake and just a few bee orchids.

 

 

River Ouse at Brownshill Staunch

 

 

Break

 

 

Barleycroft Lake

 

 

Bee Orchid

 

On Friday we were invited to a reception at Scotsdales Garden Centre for leading a U3A course. It was a very exotic buffet with a thank you speech from the U3A Chairman. In the evening we attended the first meeting at Willingham Baptist chapel celebrating 150 years. It was a magic and comedy evening with Tom Elliott. We did not go with high expectations but in fact he was very good.

 

 

The celebrations continued on Saturday with an International Food afternoon followed by a talk on the History of Churches in Willingham. We attended the talk and it was very interesting, at one time there were 3 Baptist churches, 2 Congregational, the Anglican and the Salvation Army. One of the Baptist churches had attendances of 700 for 3 services on a Sunday! On Saturday harvesting continued with the highlight being the red currants at the allotment which were nearly as big as grapes!

 

 

Red Currants

Ben is off to the Sao and Principe islands off the west coast of Africa this weekend. He is running in a marathon next Sunday and as the islands are on the Equator and the course profile is described as “Extreme” I hope he knows what he is doing!

 

Best wishes

Mike & Kate

 

15th June 2025

 

           Dear All,

 

Another action packed week in Derbyshire with Sue and John, this time Kate remembered her luggage so a better start than last year!

On the way up last Saturday we stopped at Bradgate Park near Leicester, it was the home of Lady Jane Grey of brief monarchy fame and now is a thriving deer park with 570 Red and Fallow deer plus the ruins of the Grey family house.

 

 

Ruins of Bradgate house

 

 

Fallow Deer

 

 

 

 

Red Deer

On Sunday Sue & John accompanied us to the Wellspring church in Wirksworth which is a combination of the Baptist church where we got married and the Methodists. It appears to be thriving with over 50 present and 14 joined in the last 12 months – but no-one under 50 years old. It had been Well Dressing weekend the previous bank holiday and although the number of exhibits is reducing there was one outside the church. After we visited Open Gardens in Gorsey Bank, Wirksworth – there were only four open but they were of a high standard.

 

 

Well Dressing

 

 

 

Gorsey Bank Gardens

 

On Monday we met up with Kate’s brother Phil and family Mandy and Natasha at the Chatsworth Farm shop for coffee before proceeding as is traditional to Bakewell Market. Kate and I visited the cattle auction and this time managed to find the sheep and calf auctions. It is always enjoyable to see the characters attending these auctions and they were busy with over 500 cattle passing through. After browsing through the other market stalls we visited the Bakewell Museum which was very interesting.

 

 

Mandy, John, Natasha & Sue

 

 

Philip, Kate & Mike

 

 

Bakewell Cattle Market

 

 

Sheep Pens

 

 

Museum Exhibit – Wool Spinning Wheel

 

On Tuesday Kate and I did our own thing and walked from the cabin across Beeley Moor an area of dried heather. The walk included a steep descent to a stream and a severe climb up through a wood. After we called on Kate’s childhood friend Elisabeth Bunting who had been fighting cancer for some time then a new experience attending a small cinema in Wirksworth where John had booked tickets to see “The Salt Path”. This was followed by a meal they had booked in Wirksworth.

 

 

 

New Lambs

 

 

Kate on Beeley Moor

 

 

Halldale Woods bridge

 

 

Desirable Residence

 

On Wednesday Kate and I visited Hardwick Hall, home of Bess of Hardwick who came from humble farming stock but married four times and rose in status and wealth each time. The house is famous for its wall hanging tapestries. The original house is still present as a ruin. After touring the house and gardens we did a parkland walk round the fishing lakes.

 

 

Hardwick Hall

 

 

Tapestry of Gideon Choosing his Army

 

 

Ruins of Old Hall

 

Thursday Sue & John came with us to Hathersage and Stanage Edge, Kate and I were there in 2013 with the walking group when a severe snowstorm covered everything to a considerable depth so it was interesting to compare the scenery this time. After climbing to the ridge we visited Ladybower Reservoir to check the water level – which was low of course.

 

 

 

Stanage Edge

 

 

View of Bomford

 

 

 

Our last outing on Friday was the circular walk down Lathkill Dale near Youlgreave. It was an interesting walk with some excellent views only slightly spoil by Kate tripping on a narrow rocky path and briefly fainting, As we were miles from anywhere it was a relief when she recovered enough to continue but was decidedly shaky.

 

 

 

Views towards Cales Dale

 

 

 

 

 

Lathkill Dale

We took Sue & John out for a meal in the evening and left early Saturday morning and were home by 10.30am. After unpacking there was some serious picking, weeding and watering. Kate picked 8 punnets of strawberries as well as raspberries, peas, broad beans, cabbage and cauliflowers. Over won an exciting cricket match beating a very good Tamil team by one run 221 v 220.

 

 

Fruit Harvest

 

 

 

Best wishes

Mike & Kate