Having just been away for a weekend meet it is obvious that autumn is with us. Don’t get me wrong, the days were lovely and the skies clear at night, but the chill of colder weather was definitely about. I knew there was a reason why I felt I couldn’t live in Northumberland when I first got married. Mind you I think we enjoy it just as much when we visit because it makes us look and visit places that, if we lived there, we may not appreciate so much.
By the time this gets into the newsletter we will only have one more meet for the year and that will be the Christmas party at Soberton Village Hall. It isn’t a weekend meet this year but there is a site nearby at Scotts Haven where people can stay if they so wish but will need to make their own arrangements with the site owner.
In between now and then there will have been two meets, our harvest supper at Greatham with a visit to the apple tasting on Sunday at Blackmoor apple farm if you want. A good visit to make with plenty of different apples and pears to taste and then buy plus plenty of other stalls to browse. Free entry as well! The last meet of the year may have been over by the newsletter issue although it’s at the end of October and is the Hallowe’en party at Blackfield. Ghostly supper and dressing up, enjoyed by all who come.
Since the last newsletter we have had two meets. We had to cancel our one at Breamore, although that is always an option for another year. Our August bank holiday meet at Drove Lea, Titchfield was well attended and we had new visitors to join us. They appeared to really enjoy themselves and joined in to the dancing with gusto. For plant lovers there are a number of nurseries nearby and a pub just along the road. It was a bit damp but no problem we know how to ‘weather’ weekends like that!
This last weekend saw us at Fort Widley on the Portsdown hills. One of the forts that were built to keep Napoleon out, and how those builders must have worked. I dread to think how many lives may have been lost during their building. There are spectacular views from the higher ground across Portsmouth and its surrounds, the Solent and in the distance the Isle of Wight. Seeing Portsmouth and its geography is dramatic, you don’t get that vista from an atlas. The hall is on site and I understand we had a Zombie meet nearby on the Saturday evening but I never met one. They may have got stuck in the tunnels that exist on site! Of course there was also the Autumn gather in between those two meets and several of our members made the journey to this. Thank you to them for going as not all of us can make it. At least we can hear from them how things are faring at National level.
Pam (Secretary)