by Phillida Hurn
This year our Club started with a very good meal at our
local pub The Marsham Arms, followed by our AGM. Our Chairman
Paul Clements offered to stand as our Chairman for one more
year, with Ian Turvey as Vice-Chairman, it seems that nobody
wanted to take on my job of Secretary or Treasurer so I remained
in office!! We are a very small Club of only 15 members!
But everyone is keen to keep it going.
The next big occasion
was to be Paul Clements sale of his Pedigree Simmentals in
March. We had two more Dinners at the pub in March and May
with a small meeting afterwards to discuss what would happen
at the shows, food, etc. Also to discuss trips!
Well we had
two! They were a Boogie night on the Norfolk Broads and a
trip to see Penny Lally in Cornwall! I am about to tell you
what a great time was had by all!!
Firstly, I would like
to congratulate some of our members; being John Carter, Paul
Gunther, John Key, and Eddie Morgan-Evans for winning Supreme
Championships at County and local Shows this year. Another
thank-you to Paul Clements and his family for all the help
in providing the delicious food at the Suffolk Show, also
to Hilly Morgan-Evans for providing equally good food at
the Norfolk Show.
We had 27 members and their friends join
us on the Boat trip in July, what a night to remember! We
all met for a meal in The Country Carvery on the riverside
in Wroxham, across from where we boarded the large double
decker passenger boat. We climbed on board at 7.45pm to set
sail down the river onto the Broads. The evening was warm
and sunny, so with a drink in their hands everyone was either
singing or dancing to the sixties & seventies music with
holidaymakers joining in on the banks of the river!
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| Club trip to Cornwall |
Then
come the middle of October after most of the harvest is done,
9 of the members set off to see how the other half live (as
Penny Lally quoted!) in Cornwall!! So different coming from
East Anglia where it is common to find fields of 90 acres
plus! Their 90 acres would be about 10 – 15 fields
surrounded by stonewall banks!! Probably belonging to two
or three farmers!
Well we flew down from Stansted airport
to Newquay. We all shared transport to save leaving too many
cars in the car park, having a group booking we all met up
at the check in, in good time, things were going very well,
we all had the correct weight for the bags, etc., until Norman
and Margaret Smith checked in! No passports!! (“Didn’t
think we needed them as not leaving the UK” says Margaret!)
Needed for identification!! So they wouldn’t let them
fly! Poor Margaret and Norman had no option but to get on
an overnight bus to Newquay! Arriving at 7am Newquay, but
where? Airport, no bus station! Penny went to the airport!
Lots of delay and phone calls and Penny eventually found
them, to bring them to Penny’s B&B for a warm well
needed breakfast!
Well we were all together again! Janet
and Brian Filby and Tony and myself with the Smiths were
staying at Penny’s B&B, Denis Mitchell and Valerie
and Paul Clements were staying at Viv Halls B&B, we were
all very comfortable and well looked after! Very much recommended!
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| The ‘Under the Stars’ Theatre
at Minack |
Our first morning we visited Viv and Geoff Halls pedigree
and x-bred cattle, having met up with the Clements’ and
Denis over a nice cup of coffee and very good cakes! Not
much room to eat them after such a good breakfast!! Then
we set off to “The Theatre under the Stars” at
Minack, and visited the Visitor centre to hear the remarkable
story of a wonderful Lady, Rowena Cade who built it, we all
enjoyed the beautiful views and weather over Porthcurno Bay
to the Logan Rock, also had a very tasty snack in the restaurant.
Over the weekend we met up with many of the Cornish group
in the evenings for a meal, it was great fun they had many
a tale to tell! They do have a lot of cattle in Cornwall,
we saw as we were travelling round there are still many dairy
herds, a lot were Jersey and Guernsey, I think they must
have survived so well in this present dairy farming decline,
due to the high demand for “cream teas” Oh boy!
We had so many jam scones with huge amounts of thick cream!!
We visited Barry Wynter and his Uncle Edward White’s
herd of very good Simmental cattle, plus nearly a herd of
cats!! One in particular spent most of the time in Barry’s
arms!!
We also visited two different breeds one of Geoff
and Pat Thomas’s great herd of Red Devon’s and
Irwin and Dilys Rowe’s large herd of good big Angus,
they all looked after us very well with beautiful cream scones
and Cornish pasties.
We were meant to have visited the Tin
Mine at Geevor on the Saturday, but it was closed! So Penny
changed things round and we managed to go on Sunday, which
was very interesting, the underground tour was very claustrophobic!
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| Penny admiring cattle
at Jim Bucklands farm |
Two more very important farms we visited, with great big
fleshy Simmentals was our host Penny Lally and also Jim Buckland,
who I believe helps Penny with her cattle and will stand
in when she is away on Council duties!! It was very interesting
looking round Penny’s Pet Crematorium,
some members found it a little upsetting to see the pets
waiting to go into the burners! There is a human burial ground
too, what a beautiful place to lay in peace.
On the Monday
off North to the Eden Project with Viv Hall and Jim Buckland
as our escorts! We all found this to be fascinating; as we
entered the tropical dome we had the only rain of the weekend,
and what a storm, thunder and lightning just like the tropics,
it was almost as if it had been ordered!
Then as our flight
wasn’t until the evening, Steve and Gill
Gummow showed us round their Simmental herd. We were then
asked to make ourselves at home, and were given the loveliest
Cornish pasties and more jam scones and cream!!
We had a
good flight home with the Smiths this time! As their passports
had arrived by special delivery on Saturday!! I believe we
all had a good journey home, although it was 2am when Tony
and I climbed into bed!
We had one more very good Dinner
plus a meeting at The Marsham Arms on the 8th November which
was attended by 11 members, such a good evening was had,
we closed the meeting at 11.15pm!!
I would like to thank
all the members for their support this year, also the members
backing me for the position of Vice-Chairman of the 2008
World Congress committee! I will do my best!
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