22nd March 2020

Dear All,

Things are certainly moving quickly – 2 weeks ago life seemed fairly normal, last week most things were happening now no church services today, no football, no U3A no walking group and panic buying. We have operated reverse panic buying by not shopping at all. Actually, Monday was still fairly normal as we went swimming, shopped for paint (as yet unused), held an Events committee meeting and attended the dentist.

We celebrated my birthday on Tuesday by having coffee at the Willingham “Book Warren” an enterprising couple have set up a café in the Industrial site lined with second hand books.

Further plans to celebrate with a weekend meal for friends was initially reduced to a takeaway then cancelled completely. Thanks for your telephone messages, cards and presents. Unfortunately, I also celebrated by collecting the heaviest cold I have suffered for several years and have been dripping ever since – hopefully not practice for corona virus!

Philip went ahead with a walk on Thursday but we did not attend, they did not use the pub and walked a few feet apart! We intended doing a local walk but as I was incapacitated Kate circumnavigated the fens on her own. We did manage a joint walk on Friday.

Over, Mill Pits

We finished cataloguing the seed from Mr Fothergill’s this week: 3010 packets and 632 different varieties of vegetables, herbs and flowers. Moldova has cancelled all flights from countries with incidence of virus so we will not be going in May – what becomes of the seed remains to be seen. My contact with the embassy was met with the usual straight bat “You need a Phytosanitary Certificate for each lot” and with 632 lots that is not going to happen.

Fortunately, we have been able to garden most days so that is looking shipshape and I even got around to applying lawn sand to the grass as there are several patches of moss.

The Magnolias at the front have looked splendid this year. We took delivery of a batch of frogspawn yesterday so spring is springing!

In the absence of church gatherings David has recorded sermons on the chapel web site – a Brave New World.

With love

Mike & Kate

15th March 2020

Dear All,

Well we are living in interesting times! U3A cancelled all meeting indoors and outdoors on Thursday. Needless to say our walks leader Philip is still contemplating whether to comply. Church has stopped all meetings involving food, started collecting names of attendees and deciding whether all meetings will go ahead. Over football was cancelled as the opposition requested it and to make it worse Kate has decided that the freed up time should be spent decorating!

It is not all bad news as we managed to get a plumber this week to fix an overflow problem – he is the third one we have tried after six messages.

On Monday I was down at Wisley to assess onions from storage. It was a good time to go as the Magnolias and Azaleias were beginning to show on Battlesdon Hill and there were huge sweeps of crocuses. Needless to say the M25 was not flowing freely so we barely made it in time. Kate meanwhile attended the U3A film which this week was a Hitchcock thriller “Shadow of a Doubt“.

 

Onion Storage

Wednesday was the best weather we have enjoyed so far and I managed to plant early potatoes and onion sets and round up digging after leeks and parsnips. In the evening I was at Whittlesford Garden Club – my 8^th talk in the last 7 weeks.

Thursday saw us at Therfield above Royston. It was a good walk but very up and down with some severe wind gusts. Violets were the flowers of the day.

 

Overlooking Royston

Violets

Yesterday John Lane and I attended a cricket pitch maintenance course at Cambourne. You can always teach old dogs new tricks! In the afternoon Dave and I went to watch Comberton v Hemingford – one of the few surviving fixtures.

With love

Mike & Kate

8th March 2020

Dear All,

It was a Hove visit again this week and we took Albert to Brighton on Wednesday to explore. There is always something new to discover in Brighton, this time we visited St Bartholomew’s the tallest (to the roof) church in Europe complete with a solid silver altar. We then visited a new park (to us) and found a street market.  We were back in Hove for lunch in a café run by one of Amelie’s school friends’ parents and got into conversation with a couple of elderly gents one of whom turned out to be Michael Jayston an actor who has appeared on “Only Fools and Horses”, and “Dr Who”.

 

St Bartholomew’s Church, Brighton

The Silver Altar

 

In the Levels park

 

Street Art

On Monday we assembled 5 for swimming then we were sorting seed again. In the evening I was speaking at Willingham Garden Club arriving home for the second half of a Deacon’s meeting.

Thursday’s walk started at Chippenham near Newmarket where the soil is sandy so less mud than usual.

Chippenham Fen

 

Landwade church

Landwade bridge over the moat

In “Biographies” we were introduced to a double bill of “William Morgan” and “John Williams” both were Welsh 16^th century clerics who studied at St John’s college, Cambridge. Morgan translated the Bible into Welsh and Williams became political advisor to James I.

 

                        William Morgan                                 John Williams

We fetched Ben from Huntingdon Station on Friday night as he is up to run the Cambridge Half Marathon this weekend.

The garden dried enough to plant out Peas and sow Broad beans and to give the grass the first trim of the year.

With love

Mike & Kate

1^st March 2020

Dear All,

Well, Friday was a good day, first Kate got an “all clear” from her latest mammogram, then a walk colleague came to help me sort the seed from Mr Fothergill’s then we completed our last Street Patrol - at least for a while, as we are taking a break after more than 5 years. It was payday Friday so the streets were fairly busy and we had enough incidents to stop us getting bored! We had donned an extra layer of clothing heeding the weather forecast, but actually it was not too cold and stayed dry throughout.

We have been sorting the seed by crop and variety and so far have 200 vegetable varieties and 970 packets without starting on the flowers.

Just beginning

On Tuesday we attended the U3A film which was “The Touch” directed by Ingmar Bergman – his first in English. It was absorbing but fairly unbelievable.

I had another Garden Club talk on Wednesday this time at Baldock. Kate came with me to share the driving and it was a large group of over 70. I had another photo published in the centrefold of the Cambridge News this week of Willy Lott’s cottage at Flatford which still resembles “The Haywain” without the Haywain!

 

 

As published (part)                                                     The Original

Walking this week was a case of: when the going gets tough – quite a lot of the tough stay at home! We met at Cottenham and Cottenham Fen is not the most attractive spot in the world on a nice day so when it is snowing and blowing with mud underfoot it is a teeth gritter. However, the sun came out half way round and we finished on an entirely different day.

Assembling in a snowshower

Traditional Fenland Flytipping

 

Between Rampton & Cottenham

Rampton

“Biographies” topic this week was “Johannes Kepler” of astronomy fame. He was a remarkable scientist in demonstrating the planets circulating the sun rather than the earth but was a very difficult personality, falling out with everyone he met or worked with.

Joannes Kepler

All local football matches were cancelled yesterday due to waterlogged pitches. Esther and Emma flew to Tenerife yesterday staying in a hotel close to the one that is quarantined!

With love

Mike & Kate

23rd February 2020

Dear All,

I contacted “Mr Fothergill’s” for seed to take to Moldova and they had it ready for collection from Kentford near Newmarket this week. They have been very generous and supplied three large box fulls – the next problem is how to get it to Moldova! I have actually contacted the embassy in London for advice but am not holding my breath.

Seed from Mr Fothergill

We have been to see “Parasite” at the cinema this week – it is the Korean film that upset President Trump so much by winning the Oscar for best film. It is certainly attention grabbing and initially amusing but with an unsettling ending!

I was asked to speak to Over Gardening club this week, “A prophet is not without honour except in his own village!” but it went OK, they are a friendly lot and although I do not charge them, they gave me a donation for Moldova.

Our Thursday jaunt started at a new location as the planned pub have stopped doing food. We gathered at Cornish Hall End between Haverhill and Saffron Walden. It was a dull day with the by now familiar degree of mud but thankfully did not rain until we were back in the pub – when it poured down for a while.

The Horse & Groom, Cornish Hall End

  

Snowdrops at Great Sampford

“Biography” topic this week was Eric Gill a controversial artist, sculpture and typographer. He was responsible for 12 fonts including Sans Gill and Perpetua and numerous sculptures, paintings and drawings. He had architectural training and designed a church at Gorleston-on-Sea. He believed in sexual freedom and was accused of incest with his two daughter, sister and dog! Which sat slightly awkwardly alongside his conversion to Catholicism!

  

Eric Gill

I have seen two football matches this weekend, on Friday night it was the Cambs Premier League cup final at Newmarket between Cheery Hinton and West Wratting. It was played on an artificial pitch and with an appreciable wind did not make for a great game as the ball was difficult to control. It was 0 v 0 until the 88^th minute then Cherry Hinton scored twice.

Yesterday’s game was far more exciting as Over drew 4 v 4 with Eynesbury. The referee had a large influence on the result awarding Eynesbury a dubious penalty, sending an Over man off and putting another into the “sin bin”.

With love

Mike & Kate

16th February 2020

Dear All,

We travelled to Hove via Bexhill-on-Sea on Tuesday as we met up with Robert and Heather Hadland who we met on holiday in Turkey in 2014 and have kept in touch. Robert is chairman of Bexhill U3A and his daughter Sarah is prospering as an actress most famously as Miranda’s sidekick. After we visited Pevensey castle which dates back to Roman days and was very important to William the Conqueror.

Pevensey Castle

Amélie had made an excellent model of the Titanic for homework which was duly taken to school on Wednesday. We took Albert to Hove Park on Wednesday where there is a decent playpark and he played – with caution not liking to get too far from the ground!

HMS Titanic

Fearless Adventurer

Driving back, we had the by know usual excitement of 7 junctions of the M11 and A14 being closed so we had to divert through the villages. A feat I had to repeat on Thursday evening when I was returning from a Garden Club talk in Stapleford.

Our walk this week started in Great Chesterford close to where Kate worked in her final years for Takeda and circled close to Hadstock and Linton. It was a return to mud but compensated by a herd of deer and some rolling hills.

Site of old Roman camp near Gt. Chesterford

On the Icknield Way

 

Manor Cottages Gt Chesterford

Our “Biography” topic this week was Sir Cloudesley Shovell who rose from cabin boy to admiral. He had a distinguished career in naval battles mainly with the Dutch and French but is best remembered for being in charge of one of the biggest naval disasters in British history. He was returning from the siege of Toulon with a fleet of 22 ships when they encountered a storm and ran aground on the Isles of Scilly. All 800 men on his ship drowned and altogether 4 ships were lost and 2000 men. It was mainly due to their inability to calculate longitude in those days.

Sir Cloudesley Shovell

We had a spring-cleaning session at chapel yesterday morning and achieved quite a lot in a short time.

Football was played in less than ideal conditions yesterday afternoon but Over beat Hemingford 3 v 0.

With love

Mike & Kate