We have lived in Wrington since 1981 and since retiring 7 years ago we have added gardening to our activities.

Friends and family will confirm that even with our best efforts parts of the garden are often left in there natural state. Thankfully Marshall Clement's sheep are great lawn mowers in the orchard. Even so there are some 'interesting' wilder areas together with a small meadow that is cut in August. These wilder areas together with flowerbeds and a vegetable garden have led to a marked increase in wildlife, particularly birds and insects.

I decided to make a list of butterflies seen in our garden on 21 June 2003.
Fortunately today has been glorious and so far I have seen 7 different butterflies enjoying the sunshine.

Small Tortoiseshell
Brimstone
Comma
Painted lady
Common Blue
Meadow Brown
and of course the inevitable Cabbage White

Later on in the summer we usually see Peacocks, Speckled Wood and Red Admirals.

We are delighted with the increase in 'visitors' and are encouraged to add further plants to tempt even more varieties.

                                    Jenny Smythe
                           

                                                                     Sue & Helen Clark (both !)
                                                                                  

and the morning preparations for a 140th in the Memorial Hall (2 x 50s and one 40 Rob Clark, Mike Harris, John Rubidge) - it's a James Bond theme ! -

...... became this by the evening:

                                               
                          

Read the web site every week and thoroughly enjoy keeping up to date with everything that goes on. Congratulations to Richard for all the work he must put into it.

Thought you would like to know what the Mortons are doing on June 21 2003. So far we've been for a run, we're very close to Dartmoor so it's great running country, had a phone call from Rosie, our daughter who's in New Zealand (who reminded us it was World Day and has already e-mailed in) breakfasted out-side and now it's on to the more boring things of shopping etc.

John will be busy getting the garden tidy for next weekend as we are holding our church's annual Strawberry Tea so if you're in the area call in. We'll also be talking to Alan (son) who's settled in Battle, East Sussex with his wife Jude.

We'll be off to NZ in December so we may call on all those old Wringtonians out there.

Best wishes to all those you remember us.

Mum is 87 next month & sends her love to all her old friends.

Good luck for the fete in july. Hello to JENNY used to be COLES, my best friend at school. regards Audrey

I lived in Wrington at 'Broadstone' until I went to College in 1978 in Cheltenham. We still visit all the family on a regular basis and do see other familiar faces from time to time.

I've just actually had one of those strange 'Wrington' moments. Our youngest boy had come home from school yesterday with a splinter in his tummy (don't ask!) and it was too deep to get out and looking nasty. So, we went to our doctors in Cerne Abbas for help. Having successfully removed said splinter, we were driving out, when to my surprise, I saw Terry Lions walking beside my car! I stopped and said 'hello' and discovered that it was the Wrington Bell Ringers Outing to Dorset and they were currently ringing the bells in Cerne. I found Joyce Smith and Barbara Coate to speak to but everyone else was ringing or looking around gardens.
You just never know when you are going to bump into someone from Wrington!!
As it was Wrington World Day, it was weird to say the least!

Mike, my husband and I are both in Education in Dorset. Mike is a Head-teacher in Sherborne and I teach 2 days a week ( soon to go up to 3 days) at The Abbey First School in Shaftesbury. Our boys are 8 and 5 respectively, although Stephen is 6 in 4 weeks time. They attend our local school in Buckland Newton and travel each day on a bus, which picks up from our gate. Matthew is football/cricket/golf/tennis mad and is never happier than when he is playing/watching sport of some kind. As you can imagine, he and Grandad (Ken Collins) have a lot in common and discuss results avidly! Stephen also loves his sport but not as intensely! He likes making things and taking things apart to see how they work. Perhaps it's the garage mechanic in him coming out from his Great-Grandad Sidney Kingcott!

Any way, they are happy and healthy which is the most important thing.

I gather we are supposed to say for Wrington World Day what we are doing today. Well, apart from an unannounced visit to the doctors and meeting up with the Wrington Ringers, we are spending the day at home, trying to catch up on a few jobs, as we have had some very hectic weekends lately. We have quite a large garden which can return to it's natural state if we are not careful! Later this afternoon we are going to an event at the children's school. It's called 'It's a Farming Knockout'.This is a local competition between school PTA's. Our school won it last year, so we have to put it on this year. I am on the barbecue, not in the team!!

The games looked very strenuous from what I could see yesterday when they were setting it up. It seemed to involve carrying a lot of water................ Still the boys will enjoy it and it's a good chance to catch up with the gossip!

I have sent a 'photo of Mike, myself, Matthew, Stephen and William (This is George and Liz's boy who wanted to be in the 'photo with his cousins!) taken in Long Lane this month (June 03)when we were visiting Mum and Dad.William is in the middle, Matthew in front of Mike and Stephen in front of me.

I hope lots of people get in touch today, it will be fascinating to read the results. Our e-mail is sandy@glanvilleswootton92.fsnet.co.uk if anyone feels the urge to get in touch. I am about to meet up with Trudie Hill who contacted me from Friends Reunited, so if any school friends want to know how we got on, let me know!!

Best wishes from all of us

Visiting the Wrington web-site has given me much pleasure over the last few years and I am beginning to feel as if I belong to the Wrington extended family.
So far away by miles, but really as close as my computer.

What a wonderful recent recollection that was of Dr. Bell, a man who I admired greatly. Steve may be surprised to know that H A Bell is well known to many of today's fly fishermen in British Columbia particularly to those that fish the lakes.

It is now 5.00 PM on Friday the 20th. at Vancouver, British Columbia ,Canada where I am. Its raining here now but its also Saturday the 21st in Wrington so I guess I can send this E-mail now.

So all the very best Wrington and thank you Richard for putting this whole thing together and also for keeping it running.

Regards
       

SARAH AVERY (née Midgley) - Wrington
Today I hope to spend the day working in my garden in preparation for a
week's time when we are joining with other gardeners in Wrington and sharing
our gardens with the rest of the world (with the small donation of £2.50 to
the charity concerned). I feel like making out a notice to be put at the bottom of our rather steep driveway: "pity you weren't here last/next week"!

I am looking forward to seeing all four of my children over the weekend - how
lucky can one get? They are in their late twenties, early thirties, and
given the excuse of a school reunion are all making the journey home:
Mimi and Jo work in Bristol, so not far to travel, and Richard will no doubt team up with sister Ros (in London for a year or so with her South African husband Peter) and cadge a lift home with them. He is quite happy to go through this life using public (or friend's) transport rather than adding to the Global Warming effect. Good on him!

This large house never seems to quite reach the perfection of its earlier life,
as there is always movement of one sort or another, with packages delivered (in shape of wineboxes) with monotonous regularity for my husband, and (more rarely) boxes awaiting collection; also suitcases coming and going to do with my husband's travels. I think I must enjoy the feeling of fleeting closeness it gives me to all of them, no matter how far away my family may travel.

I also feel that I live in the Upstairs world of this Strawberry Hill Gothic style house without the undoubted benefit of anyone Downstairs. The house seems to be very forgiving, though I expect the muddles shock one or two visitors. Even my late and beloved mother remarked, on visiting the garden shortly before last year's Open Gardens, "Oh well, darling, at least they can enjoy the view!"

Mustn't take more of your time, but should say perhaps that we are concerned
about Monsieur Giscard d'Estang and his designs for the European Constitution. Having had the last five years of my education at a french convent (in Switzerland) I was thrilled at the idea of a United Europe, and much impressed all those years ago that the "grown-ups" (I left school at 15) were going to be able to sit around a large table just like King Arthur, and get along together.

Back to home matters, those to which we may yet have some influence. We are
still recovering from the shock that our walled garden is not fox-proof.
After more than twenty years of keeping hens up there (without the onus of
shutting them in every night) a vixen has found a way of climbing the wall -
presumably with a very big leap to start her off - and has massacred our little
family of poultry. The line has been long, starting with three little black
Faverolles from the original Winford Market and bought by our friend Oscar
Spencer for our children ( I used to take the children there often in preference to the zoo). Through Buff Orpingtons and then Salmon Faverolles with a Windyotte and some Sussex Whites (or some such) we are now down to one and only dear hen who flies up to near the top of the Christmas Tree in her run, and who never fails to give me an egg a day.

So today I have borrowed a little incubator and intend to keep the "line" going for just a little bit longer and put all the eggs I possess in to hatch. My heart fills at the thought of our last broody hen (sister to the survivor) who brought up eleven dear little chicks only for the whole lot, including her, to be taken overnight by the wretched vixen.

Alright, I know her dear little cubs were hungry, but nevertheless.......
perhaps we should support foxhunting.

On a happier note, isn't all this absolutely MARVELLOUS, that we can all
speak to each other, all over the world, on the same day, and the best of it ALL,
is that RICHARD THORN has been prepared to put in goodness knows how many hours to bring us all together. And long may it continue. (and one day soon, Richard, I hope to come to the John Locke room and learn all about the things I can't as yet do with my computer!) A big "thank you" to him, and I insist that he prints this last bit out, and doesn't delete it!

A grey day, showers later, cool southerly winds, top temperature: 13C, an overnight low of 7C, with snow on the near-by hills- a feature not always associated with a typical Australian environment. For much of the year the climate in this part of Victoria is not so very different from Somerset, but the summer months (i.e. December, January and February) can be considerably warmer.

An English Para-Psychologist and his team have chosen to spend this night in the old Melbourne Gaol, now a museum. Armed with assorted digital cameras, sound recording gear and thermal sensors they are seeking ghostly apparitions. Australia is not blessed, or cursed, with as many such phenomena as is England, but, if we do have any on offer, this would be the place to find them.

Meanwhile, down the road at the new Docklands Stadium, there will be close encounters of a more substantial kind an in-form England challenges Australia at Rugby Union.

Belgrave, is situated amid the densely wooded uplands of the Dandenong Ranges some 40 Km east of the City of Melbourne. The Bunurong and Wurunjerri peoples roamed the area prior to European settlement in 1870; merely yesterday by Wringtonian standards!

To get here, the traveller passes directly through Kylie Minogue and "Neighbours" territory –the Melbourne suburbs of Camberwell and Wantirna South- before entering the hilly semi-rural fringe.

Belgrave's main claim to fame is that it is the terminus of "Puffing Billy": a preserved steam railway train that chuffs its way through the picturesque forests and fern gullies of the Ranges carrying throngs of enthusiastic tourists. The railway was constructed in 1900, which makes it a near contemporary of the late Wrington Vale Light Railway. The difference is, of course, that whereas the WVLR is a fading memory,"Puffing Billy" thrives as a perennial favourite in a country where revived steam railways are not as thick on the ground as they are in the U.K. (hence-the photograph).

                                 

The name "Belgrave" was taken from the village of Belgrave in Leicestershire, original home of a leading pioneering family: the Bensons. This practice occurred throughout the "New World" countries, of course. Nostalgic settlers commemorated their origins in the naming of local settlements. Thus, in fairly close proximity there is a Selby (Yorkshire), an Upwey (Dorset), a Macclesfield (Cheshire) and a Berwick (Northumberland/Scotland).

Not to be outdone, together with the "Waratah Roads," and "Kurrajong Streets" we have a "Winscombe Avenue". Sure enough, it celebrates the birthplace in North Somerset of an early settler, one Charlie Hammond who was a noted artist and photographer hereabouts. (The actual name of the house was "Springfield", I discovered, owned by the Fry family in the 1860s. I wonder if it still exists).

STOP PRESS: England wins 25-14. Excuses? - well, the Wallabies sadly missed key playmaker Steve Larkham, while the return of Matt Burke and Andrew Walker will add more experience and bite to the back line for the World Cup.

And the Ghosts- who knows?