27^th July 2025

 

           Dear All,

The summer time swimming program started this week and the over 50s slot was very crowded with a bus load from the old folks home! After Kate went to her book club in Cambridge library and I started work on my next Biography choice – Capability Brown.

On Tuesday I had a long email from Michael Phiri an old Zimbabwean friend who was briefly in the village as a carer, he has now retired to Wales and taken an allotment which he refers to as his "farm" and needs constant advice about what the grow and how to grow it! The car passed its MOT this week and we managed to get our landline phone working at last.

I dug main crop potatoes Caledonian Red on Wednesday and Kate was busy stringing onions for the winter.

We led the walk on Thursday from Ely, it was rather a miserable drizzly day so waterproofs were in order which makes for sweaty bodies in the summer. We actually shortened the walk to 7 miles as although the section in the city was fine the countryside part was not so interesting.

 

 

 

Geese by the River Ouse

 

 

River Ouse

 

 

Damp break

 

 

Ely Cathedral from Queen Adelaide Way

 

 

Nearly Back!

David Smith and family are on holiday this week so I loaded the laptop for the services, the last part of which I discovered rather late this morning.  We were watching TV on Thursday night when a neighbour banged on the door and said “have you seen the gigantic fire in your backyard?” we rushed out and the fire was actually some distance away in the orchard but was truly enormous as the guy had been demolishing a barn and replacing it with a house. Sparks were flying everywhere but fortunately because it had rained earlier nothing caught,

On Friday after cricket pitch preparation I brought John Lane home for a drink and found that we already had ex lodger Kathy and Adrian imbibing so a good house full!

Our first Sweet Corn was actually 16 days earlier than last year. I sowed some green manure crops this week.

On Saturday I went to fetch Dave Harrower from Bar Hill to watch the cricket as he can no longer drive. On the way it started to rain then it hammered down so I stopped at his to watch the Test Match for a little while thinking cricket in Over would be washed out. When I got back to Over they were actually playing after a short break and managed to finish the game!

 

Best wishes

Mike & Kate