Author: crowlasludgvanwi

What a fantastic turnout for our November Coffee Morning. The Murley Hall was lively with chatter as the group escaped the wild weather and enjoyed delicious cakes baked by Secretary Jill.

We were delighted to welcome back Martin Brockman to The Murley Hall to listen to his talk on the wooden lifeboats that served West Cornwall. From the 1840’s to The Solomon Browne in 1981 these boats and their crews braved the coastline of our local area, through treacherous seas and hazardous weather with unfailing committment to save.

Local author Paula Rooney gave a truly inspirational talk on her solo travels around Europe after the age of 50. Waiting until the time felt right with her children following their own paths, Paula set off alone with her backpack and Interail ticket to explore Europe by train, on a budget. Journalling as she travelled, her daily observations, achievements and challenges were transformed upon her return into the above book. Paula also spoke about her subsequent travels, and encouraged everyone, whatever their age, to get out and explore the world.

A group of Crowlas and Ludgvan  WI recently visited the beautiful Grade II listed Georgian Country House, Pencarrow House, near Bodmin.  En-route they enjoyed a coffee stop at  a garden centre near Wadebridge. The house has been used as a filming location in a number of tv programmes and movies, in particular adaptations of Rosamunde Pilcher novels and in the Doc Martin tv series.
Following an interesting tour of the house some members walked the grounds to see a large lake and area of an Iron Age Fort while others relaxed in the gardens.  The afternoon was completed with a delicious cream tea in the Pencarrow tea room.

Our August book choice was Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks – everyone enjoyed it – it scored mostly 10s and all felt it was very well written, with the added bonus that the story was derived from a true event in Derbyshire in 1666.

An unforgettable tale, set in 17^th century England, of a village that quarantines itself to stop the spread of the plague.

When an infected bolt of cloth carries plague from London to an isolated village, a housemaid named Anna Frith emerges as an unlikely heroine and through plants, as an healer. Through the eyes of Anna we follow the story of the fateful year of 1666 as she and her fellow villagers, particularly the vicar and his wife, Elinor, for whom Anna works, confront the spread of the disease and superstition.  As death reaches into every household and villagers turn from prayers to murderous witch-hunting, Anna must find strength to confront the disintegration of her community and the lure of illicit love.   As she struggles to survive, despite the loss of her two young sons, a disastrous year becomes a year of wonder.

A lot of the characters of the village are incorporated into the story – from the people in the Big House disappearing to a safe place without any regard for their community, to a young Quaker girl left on her own to mine coal from her coal mine.

The story is inspired by true events of a village Eyam (pronounced Eem) in the rugged hill  country of Derbyshire, it is a richly detailed evocation of a singular moment in history.

The remedies obtained from plants in this era is so very interesting – no doubt many of them in use today.

A book highly recommended by the Book Club.

Our Meet and Eat lunch group visited the historic pub The King’s Arms in the pretty village of Paul. The menu is interesting and varied and includes a wide range of local, sustainably sourced ingredients. Several members of the group agreed that the highlight of this trip was the amazing, plentiful and delicious Ploughman’s lunch. You can find more details on the pub HERE

Our August Meeting is, by tradition, our Picnic Meeting. We met at The Murley Hall for a fun afternoon with Phil Angell, who took us through a history of music from 2100 BC to the modern day, with anecdotes, stories and songs to sing along to. The array of picnic food provided by members was delicious, plentiful and much appreciated.

Snappers, our photography group, have been undertaking a series of colour challenges in the past few weeks. With a different colour each week, members were tasked with looking around in daily life and selecting objects to reflect the theme. Our next meeting will be an evening trip to the beach. New members are always welcome.

Our friendly and informal lunch group made a trip to Geevor Tin Mine this month to sample the food at their refurbished cafe. With an excellent selection of locally sourced food on the menu and a fantastic view of the Atlantic Ocean, it was the perfect spot. Parking is free, and the cafe is open to all. You can read more about Geevor Tin Mine Here:

Geevor

The book for June The two Boleyn Girls by Philippa Gregory was over 500 pages and some of the members felt that this was rather a long book. 

Those that read the book thoroughly enjoyed it, thought it was a thumping good read – the Tudor era was the background to the story with the main character being Henry VIII and those in his court vying for his attention and of course, the betterment of themselves.    To this end The Howard and Boleyn family presented the King with two lovely Boleyn daughters.     The uncle, the Howard side of the family, was a very unpleasant person just out for his own justification with no regard for the feelings of the girls.    Mary had beautiful red hair and was the first to be presented to the King but at 13 had to marry someone before becoming the King’s mistress.   Mary went on to have a son and daughter but of course, they were illegitimate and therefore unable to be a true heir to Henry.    Ann the other daughter was at the French Court, again a very beautiful dark haired girl and when she came back to England, having been primed by the family, set out to become not only his mistress but his wife and Queen.   At the time Henry was already married to a Spanish Princess Katherine, who was well aware of the position with regard to her husband and his numerous women.   Again she had been unable to give him a male heir, in fact had Princess Mary.   As various obstacles came into the path of Henry and Ann, who had all the tricks of how to beguile a man, with regard to them marrying in order that  Henry have an male heir, several prominent men of the court were beheaded for simple matters no other than they had tried to flirt with the Queen.    Ann was not a very pleasant person especially when the  King’s interest started to wane.      The book goes into great depth about the affairs of court, the various palaces where they lived throughout the year, especially Mary who desperately wanted to be with her children at Hever, but Ann who had a girl, (Elizabeth 1) said she would take Mary’s son as the heir.     In time, Mary did meet someone, who had a small farm, fell in love and eventually moved to the country with him and her children.      

Ann on the other hand fell out of favour with the King as she did not produce a male heir – she did have several miscarriages but this is another aspect of the story.   She was beheaded together with several of her supporters.

By this time Henry was an unwell man and became very much attached to Jane Seymour who he married in due course but again no male heir.