Yawn Yawn Wakey Wakey 2024

Thanks Ladybird.
It was a very full meeting as the club is still transitioning into a registered charity, property owning club. The amount of paper work involved has been phenomenal and time and effort needed unbelievable. We have an AGM coming up shortly requiring not only committee member nominations but the election of a new squad of trustees as well as needing a lot of money to be raised to cover ground keeping machinery and building maintainance. The club house is only a wooden chalet style building needing new windows, £5,000 excluding labour, the roof needs refelting etc. etc. I am amazed we managed to raise £65,000 for the purchase of the club, in such a short time.
One of our main problems is finding volunteers to take on the multitude of jobs required to keep a club running as the majority of our members are senior ladies. Fund raising is an ongoing challenge as well. Nothing comes cheap these days. Just the maintainance of 3 lawns equivalent to 3 tennis courts, the verges and surrounding land and hedges is a massive job alone, feeding, aerating, mowing, grass never stops growing down here in Cornwall, keeping the machinery working etc. We have lost so many stalwart members to Covid, poor health, house moves etc. in the last 5 years, there are only 50 odd members so a lot is being asked of people not as young or active as they used to be.
A daunting task but so many recently bereaved widows/widowers have benefited from joining the club it would be a great shame for it to disappear.

 

Oh my goodness @Goldenlily26. That is such an incredibly daunting task. Respect to you and your colleagues who are working so hard to keep your club going. It is difficult these days to find enough younger people to be involved, as they, too, have such busy lives. Many people are unaware as to what has to go on in the background to keep such institutions going. Well done!

 

Morning everyone, dull again, but supposed to brighten up. Volunteer day at Capel Manor yesterday, mostly leaf clearing this time .
After much research I have ordered bulk bag of compost mulch, not got a delivery date yet, hopefully tomorrow.
@Goldenlily26 I wish you all the best with the club. Our council "devolved" all the Allotments, bowls clubs etc and gave us long lease deals. In some ways it has been favourable, in that we control all our own maintenance of trees etc (which the council never did) but getting people willing to be on the committee, be trustees etc is becoming increasingly difficult. I wish there was an easy solution.

 

Tea and toast with Marmite for me in the morning - sometimes I have porridge when I think to soak the oats, the night before. With brown sugar .....

That is certainly a daunting project to have to organise year after year @Goldenlily26 How's Rob? How did you get on @Obelix-Vendée ? I belong to a club which gives homework help after school. I look after the english side of things. There are always squabbles with keys, lack of ink in the printer but nothing major that can't be sorted.

The sun is shining and I stopped at a young friend's for a flat white (haven't had one for years!!) on my walk with Fizz this morning. I have returned clutching 2 lovely drawings to put onto my fridge door!!

A little afternoon rest and then I should check out a few weeds before the sun gets too low.

 

What smashing photos - especially the inclusive 'topper'.
Driech but dry here. I am going to start sorting some clothes for the charity shop.
The lovely folk at the village garage have called and said they can do the brakes on the car tomorrow, instead of Monday. As hub doesn't drive (never has), we only have the one car, so if it's off the road, we're lost!
I planted the last of the 60 tulips yesterday. Some are not as deep as they should be, but they'll have to take their chance.
@Goldenlily26 I take my hat off to you and wish you every success.
What a great idea @Tui34 - I bet your English is much in demand.

 

G'day everyone. It is very cold here with a bitter wind but plenty of sun. Lovely but not conducive to gardening and I have plenty of indoor jobs to keep me out of trouble.

Our visit to our secretary friend wasn't as bad as I feared. She's just had one cataract done and gets the other eye done next week and needs time to recover. She managed to get some infection whilst away on a "cure" and has been wiped out by the antibiotics but all that is resolvable. Trouble is, her OH has a condition he's only just started taking it seriously and her sister has cancer so she still has plenty to worry about. It never rains but it pours n'est-ce pas?

We'll have to wait and see how she is in January but yes, like @Goldenlily26 and @Allotment Boy our small club of 43 has only ç new members who I can call on for replacements as I know the older members aren't going to volunteer. Similar problems at the 150 strong gardening club - no-one wants to be Pres, Tres or Sec and the existing ones have all given notice. We don't have to manage premises as the councils here provide free facilities to clubs like ours with a majority of retired members but the admin still needs doing and the organisation of activities.

I hope all of you with colds, flu, other bugs and injuries are improving rapidly and getting th esupport and care you need. Hugs to all feeling down and poorly critters too.

 

Goodness @Obelix-Vendée, your Secretary certainly has her hands full at the moment. It does make one think - Carpe Diem. Do you have a little break from your club over the festive season or do you keep going up to and around it? My Quiz league and Card playing do Have a natural break until the new year. Gives me time to plan with others our Christmas Fayre which is on December 8th.

 

I am signing out for today. Catch up with you all tomorrow.

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Our French gardening club has about 70 members but most of them are English. We have a new president. I will just miss the next meeting as we won't be back in time.

We did the weekly shop this morning and went to Been Q for a new shower head and a tarpaulin for my car. Fed up with pigeon poo and fallen leaves on it. OH's car has the car port. Took my car to the car wash.

This afternoon I raked up half the leaves on the drive, spoke to son on the phone and made a banana cake. I had over ripe bananas and out of date sultanas and walnuts so all that went in it with some cinnamon. We could have it for pud, I got some clotted cream this morning.

 

@Ladybird4 love your postbox topper photo.

We get 2 weeks off at Xmas and NY but we're there all the other school hols from mid September to the end of June. For some of the women it's the only day of the week they get some "me" time away from demanding OHs or empty houses if they're widowed or divorced so we now keep going thru school hols - 2 weeks each at Halloween, Carnaval and Eatser or thereabouts.

Your banana cake sounds luscious @Busy-Lizzie. Our next garden club meeting is December 8th with the AGM followed by a catered lunch, then a break till Feb 8th when we have a guest speaker followed by rather late galettes des rois.

I helped teach students at a lycée in La Roche to cook in English @Tui34 but the second year of the project was halted by Covid and then the chap who organised it all was promoted to head of the entire HORECA school including college age students and the English sessions stopped. It was fun while it lasted and great facilities, complete with restaurant, for training waiters, Maitre Ds, wine specialists and chefs.

I hope your car repairs go smoothly @Penny_Forthem.rtunat Possum's car needs a new clutch - 1500€ and ready by the 21st as they need to order the clutch. Fortunately she can use one of ours in the meantime.

 

Good morning from a very foggy North West this morning. Today is Children in Need Day. I find that this day is a wonderful reminder of how kind and generous people can be and it restores my faith in humanity. Fingers crossed the brakes on your car are quickly sorted @Penny_Forthem. It is a plus point getting them sorted today rather than having to wait over the weekend. Eek @Obelix-Vendée that is an expensive but necessary repair to Possum's car and cheaper than a new one. I hope that you all have wonderful days. I'll have a piece of your banana cake @Busy-Lizzie. Yum!

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Good morning all!!

Sunny and bright is the promise for today. I haven't put the heating on yet but it does get chilly around 8pm, so toast socks and dressing gown keeps me warm.

Lidl is running the lamb special here @Obelix-Vendée so my neighbour got me one yesterday - 8.99euros p/kg - That'll do for roast with plenty of leftovers for cold and a shepherd's pie. It wasn't advertised in their this week's catalogue.

You'd think so @Penny_Forthem but these days the teaching is quite different as is the attitude and marking of exams. When we came here in 1990, I had to change careers as my French wasn't technical enough. So I did an exam for teaching english as a second language and taught adults mainly in business english and tourism and a few hours in primary schools. I took on coaching school children after school and there were many. Now - there seems to be a few doing the same in this large village, but their prices are very high which makes it difficult for parents to afford. Maths coaching is high on the list too. Then about 15 years ago, I worked in a primary school only, part-time, taking on littlies aged 4 to biggies aged 10 !! I loved it - good atmosphere, nice teachers - we all got on. We did some short plays in english and of course songs for the end of year concert. Now I am retired and 27 at the wrong end so I volunteered at this club - but the children don't really see any benefits and often just have vocabulary or a few sentences for homework. The other volunteers are nice, there is lots of "natter". I'll take it back up in the New Year.



Enjoy your Friday and for those who work, the weekend is just around the corner!

 

Morning all.
I took Rob for a walk in the morning when he met up with his morning walk buddies for the first time since his surgery. Everyone of them came to say "Hello" and inspect his wounded eye. He is progressing steadily, looking for his morning walk and much happier with life in general. I am still recovering! Still feel lack lustre but getting there.
I went for my shoulder scan, not sure what was going on but it took 2 hours of mainly waiting to be called. The scan only took about 15 mins. but I left home at 12.30 and didn't get home until 3.00pm. It seemed as if they were short of receptionists.

The problem of finding volunteers seems to be universal, most of our members shy away from commitment because they have all done it in the past with other clubs etc. and want a break. My daughter dives so their club membership is much younger and they have a job to keep the club going. No one wants to be an officer, too much time and effort needed, some are happy to sit on the committee but not do anything. We used to run 4 teams to play matches in Leagues but at present we cannot raise 1 team, especially if it means travelling to play away matches.
We used to have some really enjoyable trips, sharing the driving to an away match, evening staying overnight for one or two long distance matches, playing the match then stopping at a local hostelry on the way home for a meal before coming home. Great camaraderie and fun. An ASAP group has formed which seems to have split the members which doesn't help. They just call each other to meet up and play with each other which excludes others. Not ideal.

An interesting suggestion was put forward that a couple from club be allowed to rent a small piece of the spare club land to use as an allotment, about the size of 3 allotments, where they would plant an orchard, keep a few chickens and grow veg., having a 10 year lease. They are using a plot of ground elsewhere which they have found not working because they have to travel so far to get to it. The ultimate end eventually would be to buy the plot.
The current maintanence team are not prepared to strim/mow it any longer as it is overgrown with thistles and brambles. A decision was held over until we are signed and sealed owners of the land as our tenure does not allow sub letting.Something was niggling in the back of my mind which made me oppose the idea and eventually the bug has surfaced, there is a covenant on the land which says the land can only be used for agricultural/sporting activity, growing veg. etc is classified as horticulture, as I discovered when I looked into buying the fields surrounding my garden to extend it. I also pointed out the chickens would have to be contained at all times because if they hopped over the fence onto the lawns they would have a field day scratching up the turf and Rob would just love chasing them if given the chance. He almost killed one of my neighbours chickens a few days ago which found its way into my garden. So much for a poorly dog with a sore eye. Chasing a chicken was just too exciting to miss.
The person who proposed the idea was really shocked that the motion was not simply accepted and agreed on, one of my concerns is the project will turn into a small holding set up, why do 2 people need so much ground to produce so much food to give away, it would produce far too much for two people. Perhaps I am being too picky.

 

Good morning all. Bright and sunny here but very cold so he heating is on for a while cos Possum's training is online from home today and we can't have her shivering while having to concentrate.

Set to get to 2C but feel much colder this weekend cos of northerly Arctic winds - bit of a shock for November here. I shall spend most of my day finishing my new jacket but will get outside for an hour or so this afternoon when it'll be at its warmest.

@Goldenlily26 you could maybe borrow some goats or pigs to clear that scrubby ground - agricultural use - and I'd have thought growing fruit and veg and chickens/eggs to eat or sell was agricultural as in smallholding and not horticulture as in gardening.

Hope everyone has a lovely day, whatever you're doing and that all sick and injured are getting better.

 

Good morning all.

I didn't sleep so well, full moon tonight. I saw it was bright outside when I went to the loo twice.

No frost here.

We've had noise outside this morning, sawing up and shredding of a tree on the green. Then the dustbin men. I wish it had been the garden bin and the recycling bin. Garden bin is full again and we forgot to put the recycling bin out last week.

Today we are going back to that pub that had a special offer on main courses for lunch. They've extended the offer.