19th April 2020

Dear All,

And so it continues! 28^th day of walking and gardening. Highlight this week was a tour round the Manderson Trust fishing lakes at Overcote. These were originally donated for anglers with handicaps but are now open to all. John Lane – my cricket pitch colleague, is on the committee and spends most mornings working on maintenance and improvements. We happened to spot him on one of our walks and he showed us round (at social distance of course). There are 4 large lakes and a smaller pond. One is stocked with large carp – 2ft plus. We are very fortunate with the walks in that after 28 days we have not exactly repeated one yet and we have discovered several new routes.

 

Manderson Lakes

 

Lake 5

 

Carp

  

Brownshill Farm Rhubarb patch

Near Swavesey Church

Ash Flowers

Limousin calf

Garden wise I have planted Cucumbers, Peppers and Aubergines in a greenhouse and sowed Brussels Sprouts, Sprouting Broccoli, Kale, Cauliflowers, Leeks Runner beans, Climbing French Beans and Sweet Corn indoors for transplanting – some of these are a bit early but that is the season (and having time to spare!).

Highlight this year has been the Watercress, I have not grown it before as I thought it needed running water but grown in a pot and watered every day it has produced a splendid crop. Spring cabbage also started this week and asparagus is on-going. We had a decent rain on Friday night which has softened clods and made earthing up spuds much easier.

 

Watercress

 

Spring Cabbage Pyramid

Kate has come up with the idea of writing our biographies (a la David) for the benefit of our children rather than publication! It is to cover the time when they might say “I wish I had asked them that when they were alive!”. When compared to David’s account it might explain why there are 4 slightly varying Gospels!

We have had ZOOM sessions with some of the walkers and family this week and chapel are due to tune in at 10am.

John Bell rang yesterday; he has trouble with one leg and walking with a stick.

With love

Mike & Kate

12th April 2020

Dear All,

Last week it was Gardening and walking, ZOOM , painting and a few DVDs, this week I can add frogs and birds so not much change!

Gardening wise I have sown parsnips, planted more peas and Dwarf French Beans and sorted Ken Elsom’s plot. I have also experimented making my own Growbags. Kate has expanded her flower repertoire with seedlings cropping up everywhere as well as microgreens and sprouted seeds. We have also experimented with watercress and it has worked quite well so far. We have also begun harvesting asparagus this week which is a plus.

Water Cress

Early Potatoes

  

Peas

Walks continue on a daily basis but only locally. Thursday by way of tradition we went further taking in the Over Fen RSPB site where we heard Bitterns booming and saw swallows for the first time this year.

 

Over RSPB

 

New Calves

Plum Trees full of Blossom

Plenty of Butterflies this year

 

Maple in flower

Mervyn decided to fill in his pond this week and brought round about a dozen frogs. Whether they will stay remains to be seen as they have a strong homing instinct so I can picture them with their knapsacks setting out for a return journey.

We have repeated ZOOM sessions with church, walkers and family. I am coming to the conclusion that you perhaps need to think about what you are going to say before going on-line!

Over News is going on-line in reduced form next month as there are no meetings or events to publicise but I have still submitted the Garden Column – whether this is considered vital remains to be seen!

Kate finished painting the utility room this week and shopped in Willingham Co-op. Our village shop has stepped up and stocked many more items than usual.

We had a long phone call with Jackie requesting some seeds and swapped some locally for some partridge breasts!

Dave Garlick emailed for details of when we visited Ecuador and asked for some photos. He is writing some sort of report.

With love

Mike & Kate

5th April 2020

Dear All,

Last week it was Gardening and walking, this week it has been Gardening, walking, ZOOM, painting and a few DVDs.

We have managed a local walk each day and a longer Thursday walk round the Fen Drayton Lakes. It was a sunny morning and a big contrast to our last outing there in January when we could hardly plod through the mud by the river.

Kerry Sheep in Over Fen

Between Over & Swavesey

Fen Drayton Lakes

 

Cormorants in Moore Lake

The Ferryboat, Holywell, across the River Ouse

  

Kate Social distancing!

Gardening wise I have planted cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, onions, beetroot, land cress, salsify, celeriac and broad beans outside this week and tomatoes in the greenhouse. I have also pressure washed the greenhouses.

We had a ZOOM session with a few of the walking group on Thursday and the family on Friday. The latter to mark Ben’s birthday. Ben has run 100 miles in 7 days for the first time in his career!

Kate started painting in the utility room this week and I have tackled the bike shed.

Local craftsman!

The Gregory’s have invested in a Dickens box set and lent us David Copperfield in 4 episodes. It was very good with a star-studded cast. In addition, we watched “the Long Sleep” starring Humphrey Bogart last night – they don’t make them like that anymore!

Keep well and cheerful.

With love

Mike & Kate

29th March 2020

Dear All,

Lockdown week 2 – I hope you are all coping? The weather this week has helped as it has been good for walking and gardening despite a series of frosts most nights.

On Monday we planted late potatoes in the allotment and at Ken Elsoms then walked round Over Fen.

Germination Cabinet

Celeriac

Overwintered Alliums

Tuesday, I tried an experimental posting of seed to Moldova then broke up the wooden bench I made with Dad several moons ago as it had rotted beyond repair. We then walked down Furtherford and Middle Way before planting peas from gutters. Mervyn collected spare lettuce plants and Adrian celeriac – both at suitable social distancing!

Wednesday, we walked along the flood bank to the river (past the tree where Tarzan demonstrated how he climbs trees!). We were due at the solicitors to update our Wills in the afternoon but that was cancelled and we were asked to draft it and send a copy on-line. The solicitor is evidently going to charge £450 for approving what we have written! Green bin collection has been suspended locally so I had a bonfire to burn all the tree pruning’s and non-compostable waste.

Fen End pond

 

Furtherford

As is traditional we had a more ambitious walk on Thursday starting at Hayley Wood and taking in East Hatley. It was good for exercise and isolation as we saw very few other walkers. The flowers were exceptional with violets, primroses, wood anemones, the most celandines I have ever seen and even the first bluebells.

Hayley Wood

 

Celandines

Hatley Park Gatehouse

I had a message that an old NIAB colleague Bryan Withers had died. He was based at Kirton in Lincolnshire and expert on all things Brassica. He had polio as a child which deformed his chest and recently, he had severe breathing difficulties. His wife has been told that he almost certainly will have to be cremated and attendance at the funeral would be restricted or banned completely.

Friday, we broke the walking routine and I spent the morning digging and rotovating Adrian’s garden. He is a professional gardener but gets too tired to keep on top of his own plot. Kate braved Tesco’s and was not impressed by their safe distancing or health practiced so she will not be going again for some time.

The couple that we share lifts with for our normal Thursday walking both succumbed to coronavirus but with only relatively mild symptoms and seemed to have recovered. We had not travelled with them for 3 weeks due to colds, but they had taken part in one of Philip’s “additional walks” with 12 others.

Yesterday we walked to the Guided Bus way and back through the Mustill’s Lane allotments where Glynis and Richard were busy and we collected a helping of rhubarb as mine died over winter.

David is encouraging everyone to join ZOOM so we will see how useful that will prove. Each Deacon has been allocated 6 or 7 families to check (by phone or email) on a rotating basis. Peter Nunn phone last night to check on our health, evidently, he has done the round of cousins Guernsey is the place to be only one case so far!

Keep well.

With love

Mike & Kate

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