…… The hedge bordering Banbury lane is covered by mildewed netting. It bulges and sags, like a pair of old-lady knickers.
We reach the corner by the nets and turn up hill, towards the pavilion with its shuttered winter-face, its empty flagpole. The flag pole makes an impatient, metallic ticking sound when the wind blows, some cleat beating another………….Sunday 31st January
Mike is to be awarded Oxfordshire’s High Sheriff Award in recognition of his significant and lasting contribution to community life in Horley and with schools in the local area.
The High Sheriff of Oxfordshire issues awards each year to people who have made a difference to their community over many years, and whose contribution has not been recognised in some other formal way.
The Parish Council put Mike’s name forward for this award for his valuable work over the years. Some of the many activities and projects includes:
The office of High Sheriff is a ceremonial role involving a mix of charitable and community functions. It is the oldest secular office in the country outside of the monarchy but without the extensive powers it used to have. It is unfunded, voluntary and non political. The current High Sheriff 2015/16 is Tom Birch Reynardson. There will be a formal award ceremony in Oxford on 29 February which Mike will attend.
Congratulations Mike, very well deserved and thank you for all your efforts over the years; it is very much appreciated. We hope you will share your pictures of the ceremony and what this award means to you and Sue.
The sky almost couldn’t be more beautiful, more ecstatic, and I know that it heralds rain and greyness to come, but I don’t care. I stand and stretch, pulling in the pink air around me.
Sometimes it’s worth the bad bits, in order to revel in the good.
Dawn is breaking as Pants and I come back from morning walk; great cracks of crimson and violet splitting the dome of the sky. We’ve been to the orchard field, and we go down to the cricket so I can walk clean my boots.
I know my cheeks must be flushed pink, and my hair is wild. I feel vitally, wonderfully alive; the wind is soft against my face, and the air smells of green-things and earth, of new life and living…….
It acts as my barometer; my Nature calendar and a place in which to be gloriously mindless, or earnestly mindful. I’ve walked it wearing ski-gear in minus 6, and I’ve streaked across it at dawn, wearing nothing but wellies and granny-pants, after a fox……: The Year of The Cricket
The Year of The Cricket
Every day, every single day, I walk around the cricket field. It’s where I go when I’m happy or miserable, when I’m in a tearing hurry, or whether I’ve got hours. Every dog walk ends or begins with the Field, and I’ll go alone, or with the daughters, or S, or with friends. I walk it clockwise, anticlockwise, traverse as if tacking a dinghy, diagonally or all over randomly, like a big ant.
This year, I’m going to write about my circles of the Field and how it enriches my life. Walking in general has always been a sort of catharsis for me – a way of balancing soaring highs and gut-wrenching lows – but it’s the Field that has become my centre. My children have grown up playing in it, my dogs have chased a million balls in it, and I’ve watched a hundred cricketers smack sixes from it. I’ve had some brilliant nights in it and made life-long friends in it.
It acts as my barometer; my Nature calendar and a place in which to be gloriously mindless, or earnestly mindful. I’ve walked it wearing ski-gear in minus 6, and I’ve streaked across it at dawn, wearing nothing but wellies and granny-pants, after a fox.
I’m not going to write about any cricket gossip, nor village gossip for that matter, because I can’t bear it when people ask me (repeatedly) when they’re going to be in the blog, or add ‘don’t write about this, will you?’ on the end of every sentence. Yes, because you’re so fascinating, I must record your verbosity for posterity. I don’t promise not to satirise any of the more silly comments, but if I do, it won’t be here.
Whenever I walk, regardless of weather, mood, footwear (often unsuitable), company or time, I never stop being grateful for the fact I can. Thank you to Horley Cricket Club for the privilege, and for keeping the field in exactly the perfect way they do.
Dame Glenys
Our very own Glenys of Rowarth House has been made a Dame in the New Year Honours list ‘for services to education’ (etc).
As the full citation for the award – Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire – puts it: “Glenys Stacey [Mrs Glenys Kyle] has held tough public roles for two decades. As the founding CEO of the Criminal Cases Review Commission she established an effective organisation from scratch. As CEO of the State Veterinary Service from 2004, she restored morale and reformed its practices following the nadir of Foot and Mouth 2001, enabling it to deal effectively with new outbreaks of animal disease. More recently as Chief Regulator and CEO of the Office for Qualifications and Examinations Regulation (Ofqual) since 2011, she has played a significant role in education, developing Ofqual into an effective independent regulator, maintaining standards in qualifications and leading the reform of GCSE, AS and A levels”.
Seemingly not yet ready to hang up her boots, she takes on a new role from the beginning of March 2016 as HM Chief Inspector of Probation.
Dame Glenys, many congratulations!
Glenys Jean Stacey. Chief regulator and chief executive, Ofqual (Office for Qualifications and Examinations Regulation). For services to education
New Year’s honours 2016: the full list
http://www.theguardian.com/…/new-years-honours-2016-the…
Are you a busy bee, feeling stressed out, anxious, need more energy and better sleep? For all stages of a woman’s life, Maiden, Mother, Sage, plants can provide a gentle non habit forming way to balance our bodies and our emotions, enabling us to cope with the inevitable stresses of life more easily.
Join Fiona for a Wild Medicine Forage in and around the fields of Hadsham Farm, you will learn to identify wild medicinal plants, discuss the herbs and how modern herbalists use them, how they were used in the past and how some can be used as safe home remedies. Plus the very fact that you are outside on a beautiful walk down by the lake, what better way to re-connect with nature, and right here on our own doorstep.
Thursdays 2nd & 16th July 6.30-8pm Contact Fiona to book your place. (limited to 15) Call 01295 738609 fionataylormnimh@gmail.com Website Facebook
Cost £5 per person to be donated to the Air Ambulance.
Here comes summer……it’s the land that has really changed; the earth has warmed up, and you can smell summer on the air. Down in Bra Corner there’s a clump of pink campions, flowering as high as my hip, and nettles, growing even higher. The Sor Brook is low and slow; its depths bronzed in the sunlight……
I am walking through the margins in the fields below the dryer, where the grass reaches my mid-thigh, and soaks my jeans above my wellies. I’m walking very slowly, suddenly noticing that there’s a world around me, and that it’s changed completely from the last time I looked.
I have been finishing a book, and for the last two months or so, have thought of little else. The book has been sent away now, to Judith, my agent, and I feel as if I’m returning from someplace I can’t explain.
Stevie is relieved it’s over, and both children seem to have grown an inch or so.
But it’s the land that has really changed; the earth has warmed up, and you can smell summer on the air. Down in Bra Corner there’s a clump of pink campions, flowering as high as my hip, and nettles, growing even higher. The Sor Brook…
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A date for your diary for this years Progressive Dinner (last year only aka Safari Supper).
This annual highlight of the Horley social calendar has come around a little earlier than last year – as we took note that it may be better to try and navigate between hosts in as much daylight as possible….
So 27th June is set as the date to once again showcase the culinary talents of various hosts around the village and to once again meet faces that you see regularly but never get the chance to speak to. For the uninitiated – we meet in the Red Lion, where for the exchange of £20 and a bottle of wine you will then receive the first of three envelopes detailing your journey around the village. Another two courses/houses await you – with the end destination back in the pub to discuss your expeditions. It’s great fun – and also has the added benefit of raising much needed funds for the church.
We are currently recruiting for both hosts and names of people who would like to attend – to put your name down or for further details please email Glenys at glenys_stacey@hotmail.com to put your name down or for further details
Read all about last years Reported sightings – Safari Supper.
Sunday 15th February Hurrah, hurrah! Our first proper walk of the year!
We started from Horley at 1:00pm, and went over the old railway to Drayton, through the defunct golf course, and then through the cutting down the middle…. The Horley Striders | Walk On.
A breath of fresh air does wonders again for those nursing the sick…………..
I am sleep-walking down the Banbury Road, pulled along by Pants. We’ve left Dora at home, guard-dog for Elle, who’s been tremendously sick, and who is now lying supine on the sofa, drugged with cartoons. Pants leads me over the verge, down to the ditch; beneath the oak and into Dave’s field. I let him loose from his lead, watching as he wheels away.
I shiver, duck my nose into my old silk scarf. The air is so cold it feels thin, leaving me breathless. The clouds are a viscous grey; the sun an indistinct silver coin; false treasure in a treacherous sky.
Last night had been unending, holding Elle’s hand and trying not to catch her fear. ‘It’s just a bug.’ I said it over and over. ‘You’re going to be all right’.
‘But Mummy, it hurts.’
This morning, bombed from lack of sleep, I gave Stevie and Jess…
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