24th June 2012

24th June 2012.

Dear All,

We had an enjoyable week in Cheddar despite the last couple of days being on the damp side. Kate, Mary-Ann, Amélie and I all arrived at Wellington Farm at the head of the Gorge on Saturday afternoon. The farmer Miles (not Giles) was very friendly and seemed to have plenty of time to chat. It was a small all grass farm which specialised in raising calves which are moved on after weaning. In addition, they had 11 alpacas, 3 goats, a pony several Guinea pigs and rabbits plus 2 dogs and a cat – all of which met with Amélie’s approval.


Three Generations

Calves and nearly walking

On Sunday the churches in Cheddar had a combined service and fun day for Father’s Day at a school including free coffee and cakes, burgers, games, bouncy castles, bubble machine and a service where the main speaker was Bob Grace a guru from the music industry who relaunched David Bowie and published or promoted many legendary performers.
Esther arrived Sunday lunchtime having been practicing for singing at the Albert Hall the previous day. We did a Mendips walk from Burrington in the afternoon.
On Monday we visited Wells which had been decorated with 60 painted swans for the Jubilee then on to Glasonbury where we climbed the Tor. We visited a wetland bird centre on the way back and were advised that the “hot topic” was the first ever nest of Greater Egrets in this country. We walked some distance to see lots of “twitchers” but the nest was not visible or any birds but we did see a bittern – which was a first for me.

Wells swan

Wells cathedral

We tried the beach on Tuesday driving through Burnham-on-Sea to Brean. The sea was very distant but the sand was pretty exciting for Amélie while Kate and I walked to the end of Brean Down. Andy arrived in the evening.

Glasonbury Tor

Brean beach

On Wednesday Kate and I walked round the Cheddar Gorge circular which included a couple of steep climbs and took over 4 hours but the views were spectacular. The others spent the day at Weston-Super-Mare where there was more sand to sample.
Andy had to return to work on Thursday and the weather deteriorated from then onwards. We drove to Watchet and walked round the harbour and inspected the museum.

Cheddar Gorge

Alpaca herd

Friday was not much better so we stayed in Cheddar. We resisted the caves as the current fee for caves, bus trip, circular walk and museum is £18.50. We did visit a Cheddar cheese factory for an interesting demonstration of how the cheese is made.

Love

Mike & Kate

10th June 2012

10th June 2012.

Dear All,

How was the Jubilee for you? It was rather cold and damp here and if not low key – moderate key at best. There was a children’s sports day on Saturday, a joint service on Sunday and a tea party on the Green on Tuesday followed by lighting the beacon and singing of “patriotic songs”. Not quite up to London standards but warmer watching on TV than waving at a flotilla of boats for 4 hours!


Damp tea party

Entertainment



Loyal singing!

The Beacon

We managed a swim on Wednesday and our first chapel cricket match between showers in the evening, beating St Neots Methodists at Waresley.
My feet however were so sore afterwards that I missed the Thursday walk – perhaps someone is trying to tell me something? Kate went to the walk beginning at Cavendish and taking in Clare.
Cricket pitch preparation has been a bit fraught with the weather and our heavy roller being broken but the county under 14s played London under 14s here on Wednesday and there is a county under 10s! on the square today.
We plan to go down to Godalming tonight as Mary-Ann has to have a minor op. tomorrow. On Wednesday we are invited to Joy Larkcom’s latest book launch at the Garden Museum, Lambeth and then we are off to the Mendips for a family holiday on Saturday.

Love

Mike & Kate

3rd June 2012

3rd June 2012.

Dear All,

Our Polish trip was very enjoyable and worked out quite well. Kate and I caught the boat train to Parkeston on Sunday evening and met Kate’s sister Sue and husband John (aka Bill) on the Stenna Hollandia for a night crossing to The Hook of Holland. They were driving son James car to allow him to bring his bride and wedding presents back to the UK. The boat was very impressive, 2 years old and huge, the crossing was calm and we were on the road by 8.30 am next morning. We managed 380 miles the first day stopping near Magdeburg and crossed the Polish border by mid day on Tuesday.
We explored Poznan, Kilisz and Lodz before reaching the wedding venue at Kilice where we stayed for 4 days. After the wedding we spent 2 nights in Krakov before flying back last Wednesday.
Poznan has on old market square much like Krakov, Kilisz is a small town on the “Amber route” from the Baltic and Lodz an industrial city with the longest (5km) street in Poland.


Poznan

Kilisz

Lodz

Bride and parents

At Kilice we stayed in the hotel Lesny Dwor in woods a walking distance from the city centre. As everywhere else in Poland there has been enthusiastic spending of EU money on roads and building projects resulting in tremendous progress since we were last there 10 years ago.

Kilice Cathedral

Joanna & James
Esther, Mary-Ann and Ben flew out on Friday evening together with about 40 others and were met by a coach at Krakov airport. The wedding took place in the Catholic Cathedral with no English translation and the reception was at our hotel. There were several huge pluses compared with UK equivalents: unobtrusive photos, no speeches, live music, Polish traditional ceremonies and multiple food and drink courses. The menu listed the first course at 6 pm and the last at 2 am (we were missing). The music stopped at 3 am. The next day there was a buffet lunch and a disco!



Glamorous Guests

The brides family were very friendly and the bride (Joanna) delightful.

Kosciuszki Mound

Krakov

On the way to Krakov we stopped at some stalagmite caves and hill top fort. We stayed in a hotel near the Debricki Bridge and the first evening we climbed the Kosciuszki mound. We were joined by James and Joanna next day and revisited several of the places we saw last time and some extras including the newly opened museum at Schindler’s factory.
The weather was hot throughout the trip as it seems to have been at home. The garden had become a jungle while we were away and has taken a couple of days to reclaim it.

Love

Mike & Kate

20th May 2012

20th May 2012.

Dear All,

On Tuesday I had a meeting at Wisley and Kate met up with Mary-Ann and Amélie. The rhododendrons and azaleas were spectacular at Wisley. We were judging asparagus and keeping tabs on new parsley, lettuce and tomato trials. The level of expertise at RHS has dipped in recent years so there is always plenty to discuss on these visits.

Wisley Battlesdon Hill

We managed a swim this week joined by Kate F and Carol for the first time after breaking her arm in the snow.

The Tuesday walk was rather local meeting at Willingham and walking through Over Fen, along the river to Earith and looping back to Over then Willingham again. Fortunately it was dry overhead and not too bad under foot.



Earith Bridge

We managed to get the cricket pitch sorted well enough to play after cancelling the previous 2 weeks and both teams managed exciting wins, the 1sts by 8 runs and the 2nds by 1 wicket.

Otherwise we have been busily trying to plant as much as possible in the garden before departing for Poland tonight for James (Kate’s nephew) wedding in Kilice.
We plan to catch the boat train to Harwich this evening meeting up with Kate’s sister Sue and husband Bill to drive to Poland via Magdeburg and Poznan. We are away for 10 days so no letter next week.

Love

Mike & Kate

13th May 2012

13th May 2012.

Dear All,

A week of pestilence as several members of the household succumbed to sickness and diahorrea. Andy arrived poorly on Sunday and spent most of his time in bed, Esther stayed an extra night as she was so sick on Monday and Kate felt bad on Monday night and was still being sick on Saturday. Nobody is blaming Amélie - but only those who changed her nappies succumbed!!!

Couldn’t have been me!

I have spent the wet days writing reports and articles and the dry ones catching up in the garden. This now looks well after a month of steady rain – except for the parts that were underwater last week.




Kate missed two celebratory nights out with meals for Margery Johnson (80) and Kate Foster (59).

The Thursday walk started at Braughing in Hertfordshire and although sticky underfoot stayed dry until we had finished. Philip our leader has just returned from a 9 week cruise from Sydney – good these army pensions!

Sticky underfoot

The cricket square is still soggy but they managed a match on the artificial wicket yesterday.

love
Mike & Kate

6th May 2012

6th May 2012.

Dear All,

John Law and I survived another trip to Moldova where the weather was seriously hot and they understand the true meaning of the word drought. The temperature in the shade was mid 30s and when we moved the thermometer to full sun it rose to 52°C. In addition the SW region has not had rain for several months so water is a huge issue.
As ever there were encouraging signs as well as a few set backs. We had been discussing piping one of the springs in the hills to the village for about 6 years and now it is underway. A huge ex winery tank has been towed to the hills to act as a reservoir and we paid for 2 km pipes to connect to the village so hopefully that will be connected within 2 weeks.

Water tank and pipeline

Our star grower Oleg in whom we invested a 30’ poly tunnels last year has it up and working and produced decent data from last years trials. He is however short of water and we further invested in a 60 m deep well.


Oleg’s tunnel

The local church had arranged for a Romanian acting group to stage a multimedia outreach presentation in the former Communist Cultural Centre and 250 people turned
Out. We managed another growers training day and 38 attended.
We took large quantities of Lego this time mainly for the Street Children’s project and this was a big hit with the old as well as the young.

Lego

As usual we tried to visit all the local growers who have ex NIAB tunnels and managed to distribute over 1500 packets of seed.
Other projects that came up were plans for a small shop in Chisinau to ensure fairer prices for the growers, a 3 ha walnut project and planted trees on the river floodplain to prevent erosion.
As John is planning to lead a photographic trip to Moldova next year we visited a couple of extra potentially photogenic places: Transneistra and their version of the “Grand Canyon”. The Transneistra situation is thawing a bit and certainly not as sinister as when I visited 15 years ago. There are still 3 border check points and a few places where you cannot take photos but far less Russian soldiers and less Kalashnikovs in evidence.
The Grand Canyon is their no.1 tourist attraction, it is a large U shaped limestone valley with a monastery in caves and attractive villages.


Transneistra war memorial


The Grand Canyon

I arrived back Thursday evening to find the bottom of the garden under water and every where decidedly soggy.
Esther, Mary-Ann and Amélie have been up for the weekend to help celebrate Kate’s 65th birthday. Andy is due this afternoon and Ben is in Nicaragua.

love
Mike & Kate

22 April 2012

22nd April 2012.

Dear All,

Kate and I travelled to Godalming on Monday morning returning Wednesday afternoon. We managed to sort a few jobs as well as catch up with Mary-Ann, Andy and of course Amélie. The drought has certainly broken in that part of the country and we managed to get wet each time we left the house.
Amélie now has 4 teeth and rapidly becoming a jet propelled crawler, so fixing stair gates has been a recent priority. She continues to smile in a winning way (I expect all grandparents say that?) and take an interest in anything that fits in her mouth – mostly, but not exclusively food! I think the main downside for her parents is that she seems to have lost the knack of sleeping through the night.

Amélie at 8 months

We visited Wisley on Tuesday principally to see the rhododendrons and azaleas on Battleston Hill but these were not yet at their best and the camellias were past their best. However there were spectacular orchids in the hot house, carpets of dog violets and a good show in the alpine house.

Wisley Rockery

Dog Violets



Camelia

Cherry blossom

Alpine Daphne

Orchid

On Wednesday evening we attended the Christians in Sport Quiz at St Neots as defending champions. We only managed 3rd this time mainly due to an injudicious choice of round for the joker – in fact our worst round – but it was good fun and over 70 attended. The speaker was Ian Lancaster a legendary? ex Carlisle footballer.
We had a rare wet walk this week starting on Royston Heath, climbing to Therfield and Reed with lunch in the Golf Club. In fact we did not get too wet and as it was mainly chalk underfoot the going was not too sticky.
An exciting week on the computer: first someone sent an attachment so huge it ground the emails to a standstill and repeated 2 days worth 10 times. Then someone hacked into my seldom used Facebook page claiming that I had an accident in Madrid and had lost all my money “please send some emergency cash to…” I have now suspended my account.
Plenty to do in the garden this week planting, sowing, weeding, mowing and harvesting – but I won’t bore you with the details.
John Law and I should be off to Moldova on Thursday so no letter next week.

love
Mike & Kate