I hope you have had a nice springtime. It has just been so very wet but little snow. All our walks have taken place on hard tracks as when we venture onto fields there is so much mud which makes the walks difficult rather than pleasurable. So all we can do is wait for summer: dry and sunny but not too hot. We can only hope for these conditions!
We have had a good winter season of lunches and afternoon lectures with some superb speakers on a large range of subjects. I can now tell you we have found an interesting selection of speakers for 24/25 wintertime.
We still have one special evening talk to come, with Andy Beck, who is giving a talk illustrated with his watercolours. He has completed the mammoth task of visiting all the exact spots in the Lake District where Alfred Wainwright stood to make his black and white drawings reproduced in his Fell Guides to the Lake District. Once Andy found the exact location, he made a water colour painting. These have been used to produce a superb book. I am sure we can look forward to an interesting evening.
We can also look forward to our coach trip to Wallington Hall while hoping for sunny weather so we can enjoy time out in the parkland. Wallington has a super walled garden which in July should be very colourful.
Our Quiz Night was a very successful evening with our new quiz masters. A great thank you to Kevin and June who gave us a very interesting Quiz and congratulations to winning team. The money made at the Quiz Night will give us more to donate to Fountains Abbey towards the disabled access sensory garden. This garden will hopefully be open later in summer and when we have a date we will inform you about an opening event. I look to meeting you at this and all at future events I must thank Jan for volunteering to do this, her first newsletter; a hard task to follow all the dedicated work of Helen Stalker, so Jan, I wish you all the very best and welcome you to our committee.