Christmas News 2024

Wigneys Christmas Newsletter 2024

It's that time of year again! Here's our annual update.

Mike retired at the end of April.  There was a huge leaving do for him and another retiring colleague - even the big boss from Bonn came, and there were colleagues from Prague and India as well as those who had left long ago themselves.  He was presented with a 6-month beer subscription, a large ships bell inscribed " ring for beer", a beer glass inscribed "the legend has retired"  (bit of a theme going on here!), a very generous Amazon gift card and a hat with the slogan "not my problem".  It all had to be brought home by him on the train too! 

  

  

Ten days after retiring Mike was off on the annual canal boat ringing trip which he organises, which was somewhat eventful this year. He had planned to go to Cambridge - down the River Nene from Northampton to Peterborough, across the levels and up the Ouse and Cam to Cambridge. A trip of three weeks, one with lots of towers for quarter peals, one week of boating, and one week with some handbells to get the boat back. But when he applied for a licence for the Cam, it turned out that no visitor licences were being issued. In addition, there was the problem of a silt bar, stopping all boats from getting onto the Ouse, which was clearly not going to be cleared by the British Waterways Authority in time. So he re-planned at very short notice a trip of two weeks boating to March and back with some ringing, and dropped the third week and the handbells.  Unfortunately, when they got to Warmington they found winter maintenance, which had been due to finish in February, had still not been completed. The lock was drained, scaffolding and welders were inside the lock, and they could definitely go no further. So they had to turn round and boat back to Thrapston where they handed over to the week two crew - who then re-visited Warmington before heading back to the marina at Northampton. At Titchmarsh they arrived just in time to find that British Waterways had closed the lock and turned it into a sluice for flood prevention. So they had to sit tight and couldn't move the boat. After two days the flood levels above them were back to normal but they were made to wait a further three days before the separate navigation team would re-open it. Thankfully, the stoppage was exactly at the Middle Nene Cruising Club four-day beer festival. Much beer and cider was consumed, which kept them sane!  They finally got going again only to find that a lock gate had broken on the final flight of locks before the marina, so they had to abandon the narrowboat just outside Northampton and go home.

Mike was kept busy throughout the summer organising lots of ringing - tower outings, quarter peal days, a week's ringing trip around North Devon, and of course the Barnes Ringers Summer Trip.  He also spent hours in the garden weeding - which mainly involved battling with bindweed!  I would often come home and find the unoccupied wheelchair on the lawn and Mike under a bush somewhere.

  

      

      

I stepped down from all my Middlesex roles (Membership Secretary 18 years, Report Editor 6 years and Peal Recorder 2 years) at the Association's AGM in April - and was awarded Honorary Life Membership of the Association.  I was somewhat overwhelmed as I didn't feel I had done enough to warrant it, but very pleased too.  They also gave me a gift bag of goodies.

One of the goodies in the gift bag was a voucher for The Cheese Shed - which is an amazing cheese shop in Bovey selling cheeses from the South West (clearly some local knowledge had been obtained by the committee).  Mike and I have been working our way through their stock of 150 or so cheeses over the last couple of years, and have a spreadsheet to keep track!  We had for some time wanted to try their cheese toasties which they serve in the courtyard during the summer, so the voucher seemed an ideal excuse to go there for lunch.  The toasties were amazing - several different cheeses melted between toasted soda bread with a selection of chutneys.

In July Mike went on the Roving Ringers annual tour again this year, based at the Youth Hostel in Street, and we both went on the Barnes Summer Ringing Trip - a return visit to Hartington near Burton on Trent.  The hotel was under new management and was a huge improvement on last year, particularly the breakfast and the attitude of the proprietor! In September Mike organised a Quarter Peal week based in Northam in North Devon.  At the last minute I booked a cottage nearby for Bruce and myself (Mike's accommodation did not allow dogs) on a farm up a long track.  It was small and basic but very cosy and had beautiful views. 

It was our Silver Wedding Anniversary on 6 November and we celebrated with a lunch on 1 November for family and close friends at The Moorland Hotel at Hay Tor. Amanda made a cake to fit the cross stitched cake bands I had kept from our wedding cake, as well as a large number of cup cakes.  The bottom two squares of the cake were false! She also arranged a children's activities table, which certainly kept the children amused. 

  

The original

  

The anniversary version

  

  

The family came down for the whole of half term week - Leanne and family stayed in an AirBnB in Bovey which was fun. We had a good few days doing activities together such as pony riding (Finlake Riding Centre) and pig cuddling/pumpkin collecting (Pennywell Farm). 

We had a couple of friends from London staying with us, Maryanne and Mary, and it turned into quite a weekend house party with friends Gill and Martin parked on the drive in their motorhome. 

      

      

It was tinged with a little sadness that my dear friend Monica had passed away just six weeks earlier - she was due to have travelled down with Mary and stayed with us too, and I know she had been looking forward to it.  We were friends for over twenty-five years  - she made our wedding cake.  I shall miss her.

On the Saturday the house party came to our choir (Exeter Bach Choir) concert - Mozart's Requiem.  It was nice to have a whole row of supporters there and finished off the whole celebration weekend very nicely.

Click here for 2024 Highlights - with more items and photos