August

On Friday 7, Overbury Bowling Club held its open evening, and was blessed with a fine warm evening, with a good attendance, including several non-members coming to try the game. Some, we hoped, would decide to join us for the next season.

Members gathering in front of the clubhouse Roger surveys the scene

On Monday 10, just after 1 pm, listeners to Classic FM would have heard Teresa dedicating an extract from Prokofiev’s ‘Classical’ Symphony for Roger’s birthday. Teresa again proving she has the knack of catching the attention of the producer; only this time, instead of the presenter reading her e-mail, she received a phone call and was asked to record her dedication there and then – which she did, impromptu, and very well too. The timing, too, was appropriate: we were just finishing lunch and about to tuck into the birthday cake, freshly baked chocolate sponge with one symbolic candle.

Our main celebrations waited until later in the week, Friday being Helen’s birthday and both she and Jay were at home for that weekend. Roger’s main present was a new camera – so new that we took only a few successful pictures. One shows the bottles of Sagres Helen had found in a Portuguese shop in London, and another the special cup-cakes Teresa had ordered from Waitrose. (Most of the other presents were not food or drink – honest!)

On the Saturday, the girls having missed this year’s Open Evening at the Bowls Club, Roger took them and Teresa along to the green to try the game again. They generally remembered what they learned the year before and really enjoyed themselves.

Helen prepares … … and bowls … … Jay’s turn … … Jay gets shot … … and Teresa gets shot

On Thursday 20 we collected Jay from Oxford. She had finished most of her project work and could do the rest from home. At the weekend we dug some of our own potatoes: grown in poor soil in a newly dug border, it was a small crop. The containers on the patio produce better results.

Roger started to practise with his new camera – incidentally capturing for the record his study shelves and chair. Excuse the dust!

The month finished with a frenzy of activity for Teresa. It was the Winchcombe Show and she had submitted more entries than ever before, including two from our very limited vegetable garden – if indeed a single Growbag and a couple of potato bins can be so described.

But her main assault was on the cooking classes. Disappointingly, and surprisingly, in view of her past successes, her baking did not find favour this year, despite her submissions of Victoria sponge, chocolate cake, scones, rock cakes and jam tarts (the latter at least commended). But she again triumphed in the jams, winning the strawberry jam cup for the second time and places for her raspberry jam and crabapple jelly.

Teresa’s winning crabapple jelly in the foreground of the jams classes; also her third placed raspberry (class 67) alongside her cup winning strawberry (class 66)

Home Diary 2009