26th August.

Nine of us today on a sunny morning but we decided to stay inside. Rosemary an unfortunate dog that was run over after being too snooty.  Sheila, Daisy walked up the ladder to success.  Brian one tree chopped down too many. John cheating book-keeper. Ann sick child gets wish. Joan pony training. I wrote about a fierce teacher starting a new school.

Next month "large  spring" 23 Sept at John's

Joan and Pat tied

This is Joans

Her reputation

Evelyn Grant was 65 years old and had been a widow for 10 years the first two years were the worst but with the help of friends and family she felt she now had a good life and a reputation for getting things done this was down to her mother who had told her when she was very young not to say she would do some thing unless she was sure she could do it and up until last year she had lived by this rule. It was a Tuesday and she was out to lunch with friends from the U3 A group she belonged to listening to every thing they had been doing such as yoga, tennis, golf, walking ect now she considered herself fairly fit but she did not do much exercise she was quite lazy in that respect. There was a pause in the conversation and she heard herself saying "I am thinking of running the London Marathon next year" every one looked at her in amazement, so she quickly added "That's if I get a place". Mary one of the group then said "perhaps if you apply on U3 A headed paper it will give you an advantage" so it was decided that this is what she would do and against all odds and to her dismay back came the number she would have 4462.

Since then she had been getting up at 6am to go running at the start she could not jog to the end of the road, let alone run, with out getting puffed and the stitch in her side but gradually as the months progressed it became easier she was now running twice a day morning and evening.

But unfortunately she was still only able to run fifteen and a half miles far short of what she needed. One of the ladies she sometimes ran with said she had heard if you run 15 miles in the forest that is like 20 on the road because of the uneven ground. So this particular Saturday morning she decided that's what she would do it was a beautiful morning there had been a slight shower the night before so every thing smelt fresh. She was jogging along very happily and was just going down an incline when out of no where a deer ran across her path it gave her such a fright that she stumbled, fell and rolled the rest of the way down landing in a small stream at the bottom. She lay there for a while getting her breath back, as she tried to move she had a terrible pain in her left leg she looked down and saw that a bone was protruding through the skin just under her knee. She went to get her cell phone then remembered it was on the kitchen table all she had was a letter from her sister that she was going to read later she realised that she had to get out of the stream so she tried once again but the pain made her pass out. Evelyn thought she felt something cold on her cheek and rustling then talking "Evelyn wake up, open your eyes" as she opened her eyes the nurse was saying "Do you remember you had a fall a dog found you and his owner called for an ambulance" As she fell back to sleep she thought at least her reputation was still good as she could not run the marathon now could she?

This is Pat's

HER REPUTATION

It was 'bake a cake' competition time again. I groaned inwardly as not being especially creative at cooking, I felt that I had to have a go.

After all, I belonged to the local Women's group who were very enthusiastic.

1. First, choose a recipe and make sure that I had all the ingredients. No improvising which is what I usually do, which probably accounts for my many disasters.

The cake was duly baked and I carefully carried it across the road to the

hall. Looking at the other entries I placed mine between two lavish designs hoping to go unnoticed. Some people just seem to go overboard at these things don't they.

Along came the judges, pens and pads aloft. They carefully examined each entrant, then proceeded to cut a small slice which was minutely inspected and notes were takes. It was all very tense and I stifled a giggle. Mine was checked, cut and tasted in turn, notes were duly written and they moved on.

Finally the serious business of deciding a winner was over, The ladies all sat down to tea and cake of course. We all knew who the winner was, indeed, she had outdone herself with a wonderful chocolate creation., and we ooo'd and aaahd. Her reputation was intact.

As no one had taken had bothered to take a piece of mine, I picked it up to take home to my other half or the birds. Looking back, I was just in time to see the winner trip over the step and the beautiful cake went flying through the air to a stunned silence.