HADLOW DOWN HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY
JANUARY NEWSLETTER 2022
January 2022 Newsletter
Book Club, Gardening Club, Horticultural Society, Short Mat TN22 Clubs, Variety Club.
HADLOW DOWN HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY
JANUARY NEWSLETTER 2022
January 2022 Newsletter
We hope everyone enjoyed completing the Book Club Quiz.
It was never supposed to be murder but pensioner Felix Pink was about to find out that it’s never too late … for life to go horribly wrong.
Having read a number of quite challenging novels recently, this month we decided to try something lighter and chose Exit (2021) by Belinda Bauer, recently recommended on Radio 4’s ‘A Good Read’. Continue reading “Hadlow Down Book Club Review – December 2021”
2021 has been a challenging year for gardeners. (Predictive text offered “rotten year – even better! ). The cold spring followed by spells of heat, drought, night-time frosts and torrential rain left us and our plants puzzled as to what on earth to do for the best. Many seeds sown in the garden failed to germinate. Sowing in modules in the greenhouse is more reliable but we still had failures during the heatwave when the compost dried out quicker than we could rewet it. The difficulties were shared by many of you as illustrated by the greatly reduced number of entries to our August Annual Horticultural Show. Continue reading “The Garden – December by Ken Mines”
It is with sadness that we learn of the peaceful passing of Mavis Farrer, on November 2nd. at the age of 98 .
For many years Mavis, past resident of Hadlow Down and wife of the late John, mother of Alison and Simon, grandmother and great grandmother. was a key member of the Variety Club and the Horticultural Society as well as being a co-editor of the Parish Magazine.
The funeral is to be held at St. Phillip’s Church, Ticehurst Road, Burwash, Burwash Weald, UK, TN19 7NA at 11 am on Friday November 26th..
One of the few constants in an ever-changing climate is the autumn of mists and mellow fruitfulness. Well, mists anyway – often spectacular from our garden looking towards Crowborough in the early morning when it lies in a thick blanket in the valley, the tops of trees poking through here and there. Fruitfulness for us is not traditional – we don’t have room for pumpkins and although fascinatingly colourful we can’t make room for inedible gourds. Instead, we take advantage of the protection afforded by the greenhouse and polytunnel to keep us supplied throughout the coming months with salads. Cut and come again’ varieties include rocket, mizuna and several types of mixed leaves. American land cress can be sown as late as September and is very hardy: even surviving outdoors.
Continue reading “The Garden – Ken Mine’s Column for November”
“The finest fictional record of the war produced by a British writer.”Anthony Burgess
This month we have been reading Olivia Manning’s ‘The Levant Trilogy’ (1977-80). Following her ‘Balkan Trilogy’ the novel follows Guy and Harriet Pringle as they flee from the Nazis in Eastern Europe to Cairo, also under new threat from Rommel’s advancing army. Continue reading “Hadlow Down Book Club Review – November”
In August the Book Club always takes a break and members read their own choice of book and bring back recommendations to the group. We certainly had a diverse and interesting selection and I for one can’t wait to start reading some of them.
To start with some vintage World War novels, ‘Death of a Hero’ (1929) was written by Richard Aldington and based on his own first-hand experience of World War 1. It is sometimes considered the greatest of all novels about that War and makes a scalding critique of those pre-war voices that helped to make that global catastrophe inevitable. It is that very anger that made this a fascinating read. Nigel Balchin was a psychologist, a writer and deputy scientific adviser to the Army Council. Like Aldington he writes from first-hand knowledge in ‘Darkness Falls from the Air’ (1942) a vivid account of living through the blitz and ‘Small Back Room’ (1943) a story of the backroom boys. Of their time, they are readable, informative and vivid.
Continue reading “Hadlow Down Book Club Review -August 2021”