ALL SAINTS CHURCH DATCHWORTH

All Saints Church Datchworth

Just a small selection of photographs of our beloved All Saints Church in Datchworth, taken during the Open Gardens weekend.

As you can see the flower arrangements were quite spectacular.

'I am the light of the World'

Millennium Window

'I am the vine you are the branches'

This window designed by Maria Glenn has only recently been installed. It commemorates the foundation, in 2005, of the Welwyn Team Ministry, which incorporates the parishes of St Mary’s Welwyn, St Michael’s Woolmer Green, St Peter’s Tewin, Ayot St Peters’ and All Saints’ Datchworth.

OPEN GARDENS

Just one of the many beautiful houses in Datchworth Village

Having only been back to the UK a few times since we moved to Spain over 3 years ago, we found ourselves going back again as many times in the space of a few weeks!

Originally, I went over for a long weekend to visit my daughters; I then went back a fortnight later for the 50th Anniversary Dinner and Dance of my old football club, Potters Bar Town (formerly Mount Grace Old Scholars) which was held at The Royal Chace Hotel in Enfield and was a truly memorable occasion that I will tell you all about at a later date!

Lin, along with her close friend Karen, then arranged a holiday in Cyprus to visit her daughter Lisa and her grandson Alex. Upon their return to the UK I met up with Lin for the weekend, so that we could attend a friend’s wedding in Central London. Our good friend Ed made this all possible by coming over to us and to look after the house and animals whilst we were away.

We stayed with June and Roger, our dear friends and old neighbours in Bragbury End and we had the most wonderful time. We had a great time at the wedding on the Saturday, but what we didn’t know, was that our old village of Datchworth were holding their Open Gardens and Scarecrow Festival on the Sunday, which was an unexpected treat for us.

Having been on the All Saints fundraising committee for many years, we thought how wonderful it would be to enjoy the Open Gardens as a visitor for once. However, following the Eucharist service at our beloved All Saints church, which is probably the one thing that is irreplaceable in our new life in Spain, we all gathered in the churchyard in preparation for the afternoon’s events. After 5 minutes, it felt like we had never been away, as we were coerced into manning the bric-a-brac stall, which we did for the next 3 hours!!

We did eventually manage to slip away, which gave us the opportunity of visiting a number of the gardens and meeting so many of our old friends from the church and village, who welcomed us back with so much warmth and love that it became a very emotional time for us.

After the Open Gardens we attended a Songs of Praise back at the church, led by our old vicar Coralie, which was the most perfect end to a perfect day.

On the Bank Holiday Monday we met up with Lin’s son Guy, an expectant Amanda and Grandson Ollie and we had a pub lunch at The Horns Pub in Bulls Green, where we had been the previous night with a few of our closest friends. The Horns Pub has quite an interesting history, of which full details can be found on their website by taking the following link:- www.thehornsdatchworth.co.uk

Although we were only in the UK for a short time, we managed to fit in most of the things that we miss the most…namely fish and chips, a good curry and a pint of real ale!!

Anne, Tony, Andree and Paul working hard...

Our dear friends from church Clive, Doreen and June

Two of the entries in the Scarecrow Competition...

Very British.... Cricket on Datchworth Green

DONKEY UPDATE

Lin and Sophie get to grips with the grooming!!

Since Jote’s traumatic arrival here at the end of last year, he was extremely nervous and frightened of us and very stand-offish and it took us many months to gain his confidence.

Linda has done a remarkable job on him and Hector, through hard work and perseverance. She is now able to halter both of them easily and grooms them virtually every day. She clearly loves working with them and they have given both of us so much pleasure and enjoyment since they have been with us.

They live quite happily with the alpaca boys and quite often we will find them all eating together, although if there is any disagreement it’s the donkeys that wear the trousers.

We noticed recently that both needed their hooves trimmed and balanced, so we had to call in a farrier. We contacted Klaus Stadler, a young German farrier who lives in the white village of Villa Martin, who had been highly recommended and who I have to say, did an excellent job and clearly loves his work.

Lin was awfully worried how Jote and Hector would behave for the farrier, but they both did so impeccably and were a real credit her. All of her efforts and hard work had paid off.

A SPECIAL MOMENT

This wonderful shot was captured by our dear friend Lorna of Alpacas del Sol, taken during a recent alpaca meeting at David and Di’s beautiful farmhouse ‘Cortijo la Solana’ in Villanueva de la Concepcion, near Antequera.

The Alpaca in the photograph is young Paco that was bred by Torcal Alpacas and is considered to be the best alpaca in Spain. He has all the qualities of a show winning alpaca with the potential to become a valued stud male. He has a fabulous personality, full of character and really is a very nice boy.

ANDALUCIAN BLUES

After much deliberation we finally decided to have chickens.

Although we had always wanted chickens we were reluctant to do so, as we had heard that they would attract the local red foxes, which are known to carry Tuberculosis (TB) and therefore potentially harmful to the welfare of our alpacas.

However, we came to the realization that all of our neighbours have chickens, so a few more are obviously not going to make much of a difference.

We bought 4 Andalucian Blues from the Agricentro, all of which are around a month old. We have named them Carmen, Maria, Dolores and Juanita, but at this moment in time we have no idea who is who, but no doubt we will be able to identify them in time.

We are so pleased that we got them now, as we are having so much fun with them. They are quite amazing; they appear to have no fear of us and very little of the dogs and when we are up in the top paddock feeding the alpacas, they just follow us around.

We are also hoping for a Cockerel, which was promised to us by a Spanish family, who we met recently at a party at our friends Norman and Viv’s house in Algodonales.

We understand that they will start producing eggs when they are 5-6 months old, so if our calculations are correct that should be around October time. We’ll keep you posted on both counts!

Wherever you go...we go!!!

The Hilton of Chicken Coops....

UNWELCOME GUEST

Ladder Snake........

Last night we were all getting ready to go to a performance of Flamenco in the Patio Convento de Santo Domingo’ when my daughter Sophie, who is spending a couple of weeks with us, calmly reported a snake in her bathroom.

As the so called man of the house, the onus was on me to get it out and as I am not totally comfortable with snakes I was a real wuss about it…..

Having failed miserably to encourage it to leave with the use of the barbecue utensils, Lin suggested that we use a pillowcase. The moment we laid the pillowcase in the bath the snake, to my relief, slithered into it and I managed to get it out into the garden…..

….with my ‘roughie toughie’ reputation in tatters!!!

The ‘Cuadro de Baile de paqui de Ronda’ was absolutely fantastic and probably the best performance of Flamenco we have seen to date.


Late night drinks in local Ronda Bar...

JACK

I would like to tell you the story of Jack a Golden Labrador. He was a rescue dog that was originally owned by an ex-pat that lived in Ronda La Vieja. When she suddenly decided to move back to the UK, she had to try and re-house her SEVEN dogs, failing which they would have had to have been destroyed.

Alvaro, who was the builder of our house, heard of her plight and agreed to have Jack. To put your minds at rest, she was successful in finding good homes for the other six. At that time Alvaro already had three dogs, two German Shepherds, Gorky and Kira and Sally, a spirited Jack Russell.

Although Alvaro owned the house next to ours, he didn’t take up residency, so all four dogs lived together in the grounds of the house and whilst this wasn’t an ideal situation, it was better than being chained to a post 24 hours a day, which sadly is the case for many dogs here in Spain.

Anyway, within a year Gorky passed away and as you will probably remember from a previous blog, Sally decided to adopt us one day last year and has been living with us ever since, which just left Jack and Kira.

During the summer of last year Alvaro moved down to Malaga and only came to the house at weekends, so we agreed to feed the dogs for him during the week.

We had noticed that Kira had become quite poorly over recent months and Jack proved to be a wonderful companion to her; he was never far from Kira’s side and was clearly concerned for her. Every day I would put out two bowls of food for them, but due to her deteriorating condition, Kira would hardly eat anything, but Jack would never eat from her bowl, which is quite amazing.

We feared the worst and sadly, last Wednesday when we went up to feed them, we found that she had died at the back of the house, but thankfully it looked as if she had passed away peacefully in her sleep.

Poor Jack was now left on his own and he looked so upset and was obviously grieving the death of Kira. The next morning we heard him howling from first light, which was heartbreaking, so needless to say he spent the day with us.

We have since spoken to Alvaro and have agreed to have Jack with us every day while he is not there and take him back for the night and feed him at the same time.

Jack is such a loyal and loving dog; he never leaves your side and when we are in the house, he just waits outside on the patio until we come out! We have become so attached to him over the past week and if I am to be honest, I don't think it will be very long before we have another member of our ever-growing family.... Watch this space!!

Can I stay please...........