Christmas Tidings
More than ever, it’s a human thing, solidarity getting through midwinter, helping each other in a spirit of giving, remembering the most vulnerable. Warmest greetings to all our readers and all our community at this special time!
Christmas Party… Santa makes his usual magical appearance photo Joanne Hughes 06-12-2015
Coming up …
More details in church gazette and separate wel-e-bulletins
Sun 20 Dec Duke of Wellington children’s Christmas Party with Santa 4-6pm (£1 per child)
Wed 30 Dec Christmas Lecture “Time and clocks”, Martin Brown 4-5pm Village Hall
Thu-Sat 14-16 Jan Appleton Panto at AW Village Hall contact Jackie Mcreddie 01609 881358
Thu 28 Jan NHWAG EGM 8pm Appleton Wiske Village Hall
Quiz of the month …
Best decorated village? At this time of year many homes and villages are decorated and lit up in celebration. Which in your view is the best decorated local village, all things
considered (homes and public spaces)? Does any single feature stand out for you?
Answers from last month (as far as we know; tell us if you know better).
Welbury circuit? When jogging in the past, I reckoned the Deighton loop to be 5.7 miles, made up to just 6 miles if you go to the Wiske Bridge. For 10k (i.e. 10 km) you need a little more, about 6.21 miles, about like doing the loop and going to the school entrance. Marcus and the cyclists also have measured the circuit as 5.7 miles, so there’s the answer.
Snippets …
Ready to go Sunny start from Spring Hill Photo Sue McDonnell 28-09-2015
Charity walk: Sue McDonnell writes: My daughters Tracy and Angela decided to do a 10k run in aid of Macmillan for the first
anniversary of my husband Phil’s passing, 1st October, and persuaded me to do a 10k walk, even though I had just run the coffee morning (with a little help from my friends). Mike O’Carroll accompanied me on the walk and Linda Crosby did some of the training with me. We were lucky it was a sunny day and we enjoyed the walk very much.
For the run and walk together we raised £1,363 of which at least £250 was donated by my friends and family, in Welbury, the Rountons and elsewhere. Vodafone added
£350 to the total for Angela and with gift aid added the total became £2,054. This was amazing when Angela’s original target was
£1,000. The coffee morning in Welbury raised £586 plus gift aid of £146 which became £732.
Therefore the total we raised, including gift aid was £2,786. Thanks again to everybody for your kind donations.
Weather from Rod …
To go along with the very patchy weather over bthe last 6 weeks, we also have a very patchy weather summary this month: our anemometer seized up a couple of weeks ago and in mid-November the rain gauge also developed an intermittent fault which wasn’t
obvious until I downloaded the data today (December 12th). The initial data suggested we’d had more than 900 mm of rain in the last month and though this may not be far from
the truth for the unfortunate people over in Cumbria, it’s definitely not the case for us. Having tried to eliminate the spurious readings, I estimate we had around 115 mm of rainfall in November and a further 85 mm
so far in December, though there’s probably a +/-25% uncertainty level on these data. I’ve now fitted a new rain gauge and anemometer, so all should be well from now on.
With more certainty, I can say that November 1st (19.3 °C) was the warmest November day since we’ve been keeping records and the
night of the 9/10th didn’t fall below 15 °C. Conversely, the 21st was the coldest night of the winter so far, dropping to –3.4 °C. The average monthly temperature was 8.3 °C, half
a degree warmer than November 2014.
To date, December has been very much warmer than last year. Up until the 12th, the average temperature has been about 8 °C compared with 3.5 °C for the same period last
December.
Oil buying group: The next BULK order will close on the 11th January 2016. Email Ken on oil@appletonwiske.org asking to be included on the email alerts
Book of the month …
Letters of Note
– correspondence deserving of a wider audience
compiled by Shaun Usher
This book was given to me as a gift and is quite a sizeable
volume – it contains a collection of one hundred and twenty five
letters written by famous and not so famous people and is
highly engaging and entertaining.
The letters are often very unusual and inspiring. One of the more unusual is from the Queen
to President Eisenhower which includes her recipe for drop scones
– she had promised it to him and then forgotten but duly sends it with the letter having seen his picture in the newspaper and had her memory jogged! Iggy Pop writes poignantly, movingly and delicately to a troubled fan to give advice and Leonardo da Vinci applies for a job! One of my personal
favourites is the letter from Mick Jagger to Andy Warhol concerning the album cover for ‘Sticky Fingers’. The Stones had approached Warhol to do the artwork and Jagger writes in quite a laid-back (albeit highly articulate) fashion: I leave it in your capable hands to do what ever you want……. and please write back saying how much money you would like.
There is something to appeal to everyone in this book and the photographs of the original
letters are a joy – spidery handwriting included! These letters are most certainly deserving of a wider audience as they show another side to many well-known people including Virginia Woolf, Spike Milligan, Charles Dickens, Roald Dahl, Alec Guinness and Einstein to name but a few!Buy it as a gift and you will probably end up engrossed in it yourself. It’s certainly got plenty to
keep the most avid reader going for a while and it is a book to return to many times.
Sarah Hoiles
W I Report (November)
Julie welcomed Captain Cook, a moose, a black bear, several cowhands, as well as ladies dressed in red and white to match the maple leaf flag to a Canadian themed evening. After a brief AGM when a busy and enjoyable year was reported on, and the existing officers and committee were given a resounding vote of confidence by being re-elected unanimously everyone sat down to a meal including salmon and
maple syrup in various recipes. Next
month we gather at Tina’s for an evening of carol singing and mince pies.
WI AGM 19-11-2015
Village footpath …
The Parish Council has recently discussed the idea of
extending the village footpath from the church to the Village Hall. Parish Clerk
Elizabeth Robson writes, after the November meeting: The footpath was discussed as part of matters arising; as you know there had been very few responses received regarding people’s views although there were more negative than positive opinions raised both as part of the discussion and the request through the wel-e-news. Therefore it was decided to abandon any further discussion around the proposal of a footpath extension to the village hall.
Bike race …
Following last year’s bike races, organiser Marcus Smith asks for
views: Do you think the Circuit of Welbury would be good on the Sunday Aug 7th ? Or would it be better on the Saturday 6th Aug? Would this help with the village fete? Or would another different date be better? The editor will be pleased to collect and pass on responses.
Trianne Concert 4-12-2015
Seasonal snow 12-12-2015
Though short lived and rather mushy
And lights …
