25th March 2012

19 Willingham Road
Over
Cambridge
CB24 5PD

25th March 2012.

Dear All,

We had a great week in Ramsau am Dachstein, Austria as you have all doubtless read in your postcards. We arrived in drizzle and left in snow otherwise it was more or less wall to wall sunshine, far warmer than Italy last year so we tended to have packed the wrong clothes. There was plenty of snow – still a couple of feet on the highland but beginning to melt in the valleys. We had three days of valley or gentle slope walking and three of ski lifts or gondolas to the top of mountains followed by walking downhill.
Travelling was a bit complex with the return journey consisting of taxi, two Austrian trains, trolley bus, plane, shuttle bus, 3 UK trains, bus, then collect our car from Harrow to drive home.
As usual the Travel Agent (Graham) was faultless with transport, accommodation, routes all immaculately planned.


4 feet of snow

Knollhof Hotel


Gondola to Dachsteingletsher

View from the Gondola

View at the top

In the Ice cave



Descent from Turlwand

Descent from Hochwurzen



Sun worshippers

Local transport

As the fine weather continued here it has been a good week in the garden – but I won’t go into details for fear of boring my readers!
I have received two more donations of seed for Moldova making four in total, fortunately John has managed to negotiate a charity baggage allowance of an additional 20kg FOC with Austrian Airlines – all we need now is a sherpa to carry it!
Our local walk started in Great Chesterford on Thursday and as the going was firm and sunny and the countryside undulating it was very enjoyable.
Kate and I travelled to Hutton yesterday to meet Mandy and Natasha then later Ben before attending Esther’s concert at the Brentwood Centre. Five choirs combined to produce 200 singers and an orchestra of 75 for “Te Deum” by Berlioz – any questions? Please address Esther.
love
Mike & Kate

11th March 2012

11th March 2012.

Dear All,

We didn’t travel very far this Monday as I had an X-Ray on my foot at Hinchingbrooke but we managed to explore Huntingdon, Houghton Garden Centre and Houghton village.

Huntingdon Centre

Catkins

The Cromwell museum

Catkins cu


Huntingdon bridge

Houghton centre

The Tuesday film was “The Big Sleep” starring Humphrey Bogart, a 1946 B&W adaptation of a Raymond Chandler novel. It was excellent and cracked along at an impressive pace.

Kate and I attended a seminar at Eden chapel, Cambridge on Wednesday on “The Doctrine of God” by Mike Reeves from UCCF. It was a bit heavy! In the afternoon my Art Appreciation class resumed after a months absence studying Caravaggio and El Greco.
The Thursday walk started at Godmanchester and circled via the Hemingfords, St Ives and Houghton. It was 11 miles but not too bad as it was flat and there were no ploughed fields to traverse.

Heminford Abbots

Hemingford Grey

The change back to cooler weather slowed down gardening activities apart from digging so I have been working on updating one of my Garden Club talks and preparing some talks for Moldova.
We did a recce round Over Fen yesterday as we are leading a church walk today. There were swans, a new badger set and new born calves as well as plenty of other birds.
I watched Over held to a 1 v 1 draw by Cottenham yesterday – the first points they have dropped since the new manager took over.
No letter next week as we are due to fly out to Austria with Graham and Mary tomorrow.


love

Mike & Kate

4th March 2012

4th March 2012.

Dear All,

On Monday we visited Bishops Stortford. We took the town trail in the morning and I gave a talk to the U3A Plants Group in the afternoon. I had never been in the centre of the town before and the most noticeable feature were the number of old coaching inns from the time it was on the route from London to Cambridge.

Bishops Stortford The Black Lion

The Boars Head


The Corn Exchange

The George

The Stag

Carved Pew

The Tuesday film was “La Terra Trema” a Viconti film from 1948 about exploitation of fishermen in Sicily. It was largely acted by the locals and not professional actors and commissioned by the Communist Party.
The Home Group meeting was a birthday do for Norman Ingle was has the distinction of being born on the 29th February so has therefore only had 17 birthdays in 68 years. Question “How many Norman’s were registered in 2005?” Answer: 2.
I have planted or sown early potatoes, broad beans, beetroot, carrots, shallots, onion sets, garlic, lettuce and cabbage this week and purchased a greengage tree, a red gooseberry and some yellow raspberry canes.
Our walk on Thursday started at Much Hadham and circled round the River Ash valley. It was sunny and firm underfoot and an excellent walk albeit 11 miles long.

Much Hadham

Ash valley

The ACC course in the evening takes a bit of concentration as it is 2.5 hours long.
The Twisses (opposite) came for coffee on Friday and we were in Whittlesey last night for an area officers meal.


love

Mike & Kate

26th February 2012

26th February 2012.

Dear All,

Kate and I visited Ely Cathedral on Monday and had a tour of the Octagonal Tower. It is truly amazing how a building so large could have been built on dodgy foundations (5ft) in the 11th century and the Octagonal tower in the 14th century. It was quite a good climb up narrow staircases and one member of our party was too broad to get through one of the doors. The views from the top over the flat fens were spectacular. The Cathedral was also hosting the Quaker tapestry exhibition which Esther and Mary-Ann visited in Kendall last year.


Inside the Octagonal Tower

Octagonal Tower

Views from the top of the Tower

The sunny weather has meant that I started sowing a few things in the greenhouse: celeriac, cut ‘n come again, show onions, broad beans and finished digging.
Tuesday’s film was “Toto Le Heros” based on the belief of one man that he was switched with another baby at birth and someone else had lived his life. Interesting but not a barrel of laughs!
I was on the panel for a Gardeners Question Time at Shelford in the evening, as usual there was a paucity of vegetable questions – 2 out of 20 and one of those was on water cress.
We had an early swim on Wednesday and then I helped Geoff Allen replace some of the drawers in the chapel kitchen with the wooden frames we removed when we had our kitchen redone. In the evening we lead a chapel outing to Welney to watch the swans and ducks fed under floodlights. It is always a spectacle but there were fewer swans about. Many of the Bewicks stopped off on the way from Siberia due to the milder winter.


Welney at dusk

Welney at night

Thursday’s walk was a circular round Hatley St George near Wimpole – 10 miles and the only crops we saw were wheat and rape!


Shirt sleeved walk

It was Pastoral Care course part 4 in the evening – not easy to be on maximum alert after the walk.
On Friday I took David Cook, one of the walkers to Southery to view the NIAB late leek trial. There had been some frost damage but that was useful in sorting the varieties.



Leek trial

Harvesting Rig

Over won again yesterday only 2 v 1 but a good game in perfect conditions. In the evening we had a Deacons & Wives meal and planning meeting – so another week in which it would have been difficult to fit in work!

love

Mike & Kate

19th February 2012

19th February 2012.

Dear All,

No letter last week as we travelled to Esther’s on Saturday night to meet up with Mary-Ann, Amélie and Natasha before travelling to Streatham on Sunday afternoon to help Ben decorating his flat. We stayed until Wednesday pm and decorated the hall and erected and mended a few things. Ben had to work each day so we were left to get on with it. On Tuesday he ran home (12 miles) and ran back next morning. Streatham is fairly multicultural and almost seems like a foreign holiday. The streets are rather more lively than Over at 10pm. The veg shops are interesting but why so many nail bars?

Ben’s Hall – before

and after

We started the ACC Pastoral Care course on Saturday before travelling. It started with a double session from 10 to 4 including lunch (cooked by Kate). There are 21 on the course from Over and elsewhere and occupies 10 sessions.
The previous Monday we spent a snowy day in Sudbury including a tour of Gainsborough’s house as well as several other interesting buildings.

Gainsborough’s House

Sudbury Library ex Corn Exchange



Mill Hotel

The Old Priory

We saw “The Threepenny Opera” at film club and “The Artist” on Friday – I am looking for a dog like the one featured and think he should certainly win an Oscar!
The 9th Feb walk started in Clare and followed part of the “Stour Valley Way” in quite deep snow. It was only 9 miles but seemed like more. This week it was a local walk starting at Fen Drayton, through the RSPB pits to Overcote, the Staunch, returning by Over and Swavesey.



Clare walk



Fen Drayton walk

I had Garden Club talks at Over on Wednesday and Waterbeach on Thursday.
Carol Kitson slipped on the ice last Sunday and broke her arm so they have been here for lunch today.
It was chapel spring cleaning yesterday and quite a lot was achieved in a reasonably short time – for a short time ALL the strip lights are working!



Spring Cleaning Gang

Over beat Somersham 6 v 0 yesterday – same squad, different manager!

love

Mike & Kate

5th February 2012

5th February 2012.

Dear All,

We had heavy overnight snow up to 6” – it is the most in one deposit that I can remember for a long time. We were at Sutton last evening when it started and driving back on slippery minor roads in a blinding snow storm beside fen dykes and rivers was quite exciting.

“Quality Time Monday” saw us in London at the British Museum mainly to see the Grayson Perry Exhibition “The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman”. It was very well done as he had taken genuine exhibits from the museum and produced his own updated versions: tapestries, ceramics, drawings and sculptures. You often had to read the label to see which was the original. We also managed to view the “Top 10 exhibits in the museum such as the Rosetta Stone, Easter Island statues and the Assyrian wall plaques.

Grayson Perry exhibits

British Museum exhibits

I had a meeting at Wisley on Tuesday and met up with Mary-Ann and Amélie for lunch and a look at the butterflies in the glasshouse beforehand.



Wisley lunch

On Wednesday we tried an early morning swim at 8 am then I had a meeting with John Law to plan the next Moldova trip. I had a Garden Club at Great Chesterford in the evening in a cold Methodist church. The temperature dropped to -8° C here that night then -9°C Friday night.

Our Thursday walk started at Orwell and took in Wimpole Hall and Eversden, 9 miles on frozen ground was easier than the mud of the previous week. Kate and I did another walk on Friday catching the guided bus to St Ives then following the river to Houghton.



Wimpole Hall

Orwell Clunch Pit




St Ives

Ben was successful in his interview on Monday so has gained a significant promotion at Kings College.
I spent yesterday morning sawing logs and chopping kindling – just in time for the snow!

love

Mike & Kate