August
Teresa and Helen
returned from their American holiday on Sunday, safe and well, after a
brilliant experience organised by Teresa.
Birthdays for Roger
and Helen in the middle of the month, with low key celebrations at home.
For Roger a busy
month of bowls, with competitive and friendly matches coming thick and fast,
culminating on Sunday 25, finals day in the club competitions. Glorious weather and a good turn-out to watch
some high quality bowling – we have a couple of Worcestershire county players
in the club at present, who contested the men’s final.
Further down the card, Roger and his partner had reached the mixed
pairs final, but were well beaten on the day.
To add injury to insult, Roger had a bad fall on leaving the green,
suffering lacerations to the backs of both hands which bled profusely. Club members rallied round, two in particular
staunching the wounds for almost half an hour, getting the bleeding under
control before driving him home. Teresa
and Jay then took over, driving to Tewkesbury Minor Injuries Unit where the
injuries were dressed, before going on to Cheltenham General A and E for a
precautionary X-ray. Here we experienced
the effects of NHS cuts, waiting for over four hours before being signed off. There was only one doctor on duty to deal
with the steady stream of patients. At
least it wasn’t Saturday night, as no-one appeared to be drunk and disorderly,
but some were nevertheless quite vocal in expressing their displeasure.
September
Roger’s hands were
dressed twice a week by nurses at our local surgery before being signed off on
20 September, four weeks after the accident, so he was able to have one final
game of bowls outdoors at the Closing of the Green on 22 September.
A busy
month for Teresa, who for some years had been entering the Winchcombe and Broadway country shows. This
year she took on the additional challenge of the Moreton show
– one of the Cotswold’s leading agricultural and craft shows, held on a large
site next to the Batsford Arboretum. For
several weeks the kitchen was. taken over by
entries for the cooking and preserves classes, while the dining room has been a
studio for the selection of photography and other craft entries.
At Winchcombe, Teresa obtained her usual respectable haul of
awards (Juliet and Sam also chipping in with some of their own), while at
Broadway she won outright the overall cooking cup, which she has only shared in
the past.
To her
surprise and delight she also won first prizes at Moreton for
her chocolate brownies and her lemon curd in the cooking classes, and first
prize in the Dry Stone Wall class for photography.
On the
left above, the winning dry stone wall photograph – our bowling friends may
recognise it as the wall behind the club at Overbury,
just above where we dispose of the grass cuttings after mowing. And
on the right, Teresa’s haul of cups and winnings – a well deserved reward for
her efforts.
On Sunday 15 Teresa
and Roger went to
On Tuesday 17, Teresa
and Roger took our final ride of the year on the Gloucestershire-Warwickshire
railway. Luckily a warm and sunny day
for the experience, which again included the re-enactment event for the local
schools, simulating the Second World War evacuation exercise.
We also said good-bye
to our old dishwasher after 17 years.
However, the new one has been a revelation in terms of performance, so
Teresa was well-pleased in the end to see the old one go.
On Tuesday 24 Mike visited
us again, bearing generous gifts. A
lovely lunch prepared as usual by Teresa
and some happy reminiscences, but also, I have to say, some very gloomy
observations on Brexit: the day after
the referendum, we all felt it was a big mistake, and nothing since has changed
our mind.