Our monthly coffee mornings are becoming increasingly popular. Held on the first Monday of the month at the Murley Hall in Ludgvan, it is a lovely opportunity to catch up with friends in a relaxed local setting. As you would expect, there is always a range of delicious cakes on offer too to accompany the chat and friendship.
For their October Meeting, Snappers, our photography group, went to Godolphin Woods to take photos of Autumnal colour. Despite the gloomy weather, the photos really captured this beautiful season.
Members were delighted to welcome Trevor Smitheram back to The Murley Hall for this month’s meeting. Trevor is a local historian and the president of Hayle Old Cornwall Society, with an amazing knowledge of our local area. His moving talk was accompanied by photos, videos and personal stories about Rick Rescorla, a Hayle man, whose selfless actions saved around 2700 people from the World Trade Centre.
You can see more about Trevor and his talks on his website: https://cornishtrevor.org/
Several of the members had read Swallows and Amazons with their children as it had been written specifically with children in mind and this recalled a lot of good memories. The plot of the story was based around a family who had travelled for their holiday to stay in a farmhouse – Mother with baby Vicky and Nannie, John the eldest, Susan, Titty and Roger. Father had stayed at home working but his permission was sought in order that they may sail the boat and camp on a little distant island. John appeared to be very competent with his sailing and guided the others on their adventures, which they had a plenty. Each morning found one or more of the children rowing across to a local farm to collect milk, bread and at times delicious cake. Both the farmer and his wife kept a lookout for the children. Two other youngsters joined in the fun Nancy and Peggy – both again being great sailors with their little yacht. Camp fires, the catching and cooking of fish took up a great deal of their time but did not deter them from finding stolen treasure and helping to solve a robbery from a locally moored boat – all ended well leaving everyone looking forward to meeting up again the following year for more sailing adventures.
The whole atmosphere of the story brought back to us the time when life appeared carefree and we all felt that life many years ago was mostly a safe place for children to play – with their parents quite happy to let them explore. The roads were not so busy – especially if you lived in the countryside nearly everyone knew and looked out for each other. Personally, I remember that there were parts of the beach upon we were not allowed to venture and again should the sea begin to turn rough, the local fishermen would call us out of the water, although to us it looked quite inviting. All in all a very warm read.
This month’s craft activity with Gail was Decoupage. Using attractive serviettes, coloured tissue paper and a variety of items such as pebbles, flower pots or even ‘Yakult’ bottles we used decoupage to create attractive items. Although messy and a little sticky everyone had great fun and we’re very pleased with their treasured outcomes.
Brothers Bruce and Peter Hawkey were our speakers for the September monthly meeting. They came to talk about their mother, Gisela’s extraordinary life of grief, loss, hope and happiness from her childhood in East Germany to her adopted homeland of Cornwall, that has been captured in a book ‘A Fight for Life’.
This year’s educational trip for Crowlas and Ludgvan WI was held on probably one of the warmest days of the year, if not the most humid! After an early start 35 members travelled east across the Tamar into Devon. Our first stop was Tavistock to enjoy a browse around the pannier market. After lunch in one of the many little cafes dotted around the town centre we left Tavistock for a 30 minute journey to Buckland Abbey . We were greeted by our excellent guides and many of our members then went on a tour of the beautiful abbey and grounds. We learnt all about the history of building, from it being a Cistercian abbey to the home of famous seafarers Sir Richard Grenville and Sir Francis Drake. After the fascinating 45 minute tour you were still left feeling there was a lot more to learn about both the abbey and it’s former occupants! We then met up at in the small barn for lovely cream tea before making our way back to the coach for our journey home.
Snappers, our photography subgroup have been taking photos of flowers in ice. The beautiful formations of the frozen flowers and the bubbles and patterns made by the ice made striking photographs, both when frozen and as the ice melted. With such a success, they are going to try pebbles and shells next to see what effects they get from these.
The Recycled Ukelele band provided wonderful entertainment for our August Meeting. It has become something of a tradition to do something a little different in August, so the usual evening meeting gave way to a fun afternoon, with a Teddy Bear’s Picnic, both sweet and savoury scones and an array of popular tunes to sing along to.
Our monthly subgroup, known as Meet and Eat, like to get out and about in West Cornwall and enjoy tasty lunches at venues ranging from garden centres, cafes, and restaurants to local pubs, including this month’s venue; The White Hart at Ludgvan. Everyone was delighted when this historic village pub recently reopened with new owners, and they were eager to try out the new menu. They were particularly happy to recommend the bubble and squeak with fried hens egg and Serrano ham!
Crowlas & Ludgvan WI 