index of magazines
Gaydon with Chadshunt Parish Magazine November 2007
This Month's Diary
Parish Council Tues 6th 8pm Village Hall
Village Hall Committee Mon12th 8pm Village Hall
Men's Supper Club Thurs 15th 7pm Village Hall
Christmas Market Sat 17th 2pm Village Hall
Friendship Club Tues 20th 2.30pm Trevose
Pilates Tuesdays 8pm Village Hall
Toddler Group Thursdays 10-11.30am Village Hall
Mobile Library Thursdays 1st, 15th, 29th
Harvest Supper
A tasty fish and chip supper was served in the Village Hall on 13 October to celebrate the Harvest of the Sea.
The takeaways were supplied by the Kineton fish and chip shop and delivered by John Davies of St Giles Road.
The hunger pangs of waiting for the food to arrive were alleviated by entertainment, masterminded by Andy Corner and including a lively Name that Tune session, with Alastair Hotchkiss at the keyboard. The hall was decorated with a fishy theme and the tables were laid with newspaper instead of cloths. Many thanks to all those who helped organise an unusual and very sociable occasion!
Seasonal Recipe
Pumpkin Pie, introduced to the New World by early colonists and adapted as an American national dish.
Ingredients:
1lb of pumpkin flesh, deseeded and cubed / can of ready pumpkin
½ tsp each of ground cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg
1oz butter pinch of salt
8oz shortcrust pastry a few pecan nuts / walnuts
3 eggs 3oz light brown sugar
3tsp plain flour 6oz single cream / can evaporated milk
1. Place fresh pumpkin in a pan with the butter and heat gently, shaking the pan occasionally, until tender.
2. Mash or process until smooth, add salt and leave to cool.
3. Meanwhile, line a 10" flan tin with the pastry and bake blind for 15 mins at
200°C/400°F/Gas 6. Remove from oven and lower the temperature to 190°C/375°F/Gas 5.
4. Beat the eggs and sugar together in a bowl and add the cooked pumpkin or the can of pumpkin.
5. Sift in the flour and spices and stir in the evap. milk or cream.
6. Pour into the flan case and return to the oven for about 45mins or until set.
7. Decorate with the nuts and serve warm or cold with cream.
Parish Council News
The Parish Council has been involved in ongoing discussions about the In-Vessel Composting proposals. A site visit is being arranged and we will keep people informed of developments.
We are also exploring new ways of keeping the village informed about Parish Council activities and events that affect the village. An e-mail chain has been suggested, so if you are happy to be part of this please let Jonathan Crowe or Corinne Hill know.
However, this magazine remains the best way of regular information being spread through the village, supplemented by the notice board outside the Village Hall.
Please check both regularly - and inform your neighbours that this is the best and most immediate way, if they don't already read the magazine or aren't aware of the notice board.
The next Parish Council meeting is on Tuesday November 6th at 8.00pm in the Village Hall.
Mobile Library
The van will be visiting the village on Thursdays 1st, 15th and 29th of the month.
Friendship Club
The November meeting will be at Trevose, Kineton Road, on Tuesday 20th at 2.30pm by kind invitation of Mrs Pauline Layton. If you are interested in joining us ring 640549 or 641834 for further details.
Gaydon Men's Supper Club
On Thursday 15th November at 7pm Martin Houghton Brown, Policy Adviser to the Children's Society, will speak on the size of the problems which the Society is trying to solve and how it seeks Government involvement.
To cover costs, a donation of £5 is requested and those wishing to attend should inform Rev. Philip Francis, tel.01295 770400 or John Goldsmith, tel. 642571 before 12th November.
Over 60s Christmas Lunch
The Lunch will be held this year on Sunday 9 December at 12.45pm in the Village Hall. Invitations will be sent out this month and cooks and helpers will be contacted shortly.
If you have not received and invitation and would like to come - or would like to join the team of cooks and helpers -
please contact:
Liz Thomas at Ashley House, Upper Farm Meadow, 641144; or Julie Rickman at the Old Bakehouse, 640349.
Farewell to the Villagers of Gaydon
First let me thank you all for helping me over my sad time of losing Rex. I've lived in Gaydon for fifty-eight years, after being in the Land Army and meeting and marrying Rex. We delivered the milk for twenty-three years.
I am sorry to say that my house and garden have got too much for me to look after, so I'm moving to a bungalow at Northend to be near my son Steven and his wife Janet. So I'm not very far away and will still be in touch with the village. Many thanks for the happy life I have lived in Gaydon! Marg White, Hillside
We wish Marg all the best for her new life in Northend. Ed.
Livewire
A sad demise: Livewire Electrical Services ceased trading on 31 August 2007, exactly 32 years after its start on 1st September in 1975. The proprietors, Olive and Graham White, are moving to Scotland to be near their son and his family. We are sorry to see them go but wish them every happiness in their new home.
Christmas Market
Saturday 17 November
at 2pm in the Village Hall
Please support your Parish Church by donating gifts, bottles, raffle prizes, cakes, bric-a-brac, books etc. to the stalls.
You can also help by coming along to the Village Hall on the 17th and having fun on the various stalls, buying your Christmas presents and winning prizes on the Tombolas and Raffles.
We shall be calling round the village as usual a few days before the event to collect your contributions - thank you!
Nature Notes
The Casualties of Summer
In this period of pleasant autumnal weather we can enjoy the leaves changing hue under clear blue skies, unlike last year when they stayed green into November and we had virtually no frosts.
This cool summer has been disastrous for most species and even wasps are thin on the ground, though Hornets - the rarer and larger version - are more in evidence. There have even been questions asked in the Commons about the potential danger of their stings. They are about four times the size of wasps, so if you encounter one on your window it is best let out rather than swiped at!
We have several continental Wasp species in Warwickshire, too, which I have not seen this year. They are like many other species, which have not coped with the cool temperatures.
The local Lapwings have not bred this year. Grey Partridges are only in small coveys and all species of butterflies have been scarce. Grasshoppers and Crickets, beetles and even song birds have declined.
Winter visitors should fare better, as huge crops of berries are already available to them in our hedgerows: Sloes, Blackberries and Haws are exceptionally prolific, with early flocks of Redwings from the Boreal forests of Northern Europe arriving here in hundreds a few days ago by rule of thumb; treefulls roosting in Watery Lane and Chadshunt.
A large hawk, possibly an escapee Harris Hawk, was also seen in this area, its presence marked by a trail of plucked woodpigeons and dismembered Rabbits. A much more messy eater than our local Sparrow Hawk! A trio of Buzzards are now a daily sight over Gaydon Village; listen for their piercing whistling calls as they soar in the thermals, then look up to see them perform acrobatics in the air....
Goldcrests seem to also be permanent residents in village gardens: they must be the one species that like Leyland Conifers. They have a cheeping call like a Blue Tit but more intense. Green in colour, with a vivid yellow and russet crest and black eyestripe, they are very small in size and often in a small group.
Some respite from this depressing scenario: I'm busy harvesting a huge crop of Figs and Walnuts in my garden. Quinces and Medlars also grow well here and do not seem to have the pests of conventional fruit trees.
Like many other villagers, we are still living in a building site as the builders repair flood damage from July, whilst at work I encounter the finale of Foot and Mouth disease and Blue Tongue to contend with (midges are still around and it takes five good frosts to eliminate them, I'm told!).
I shall not be taking students around local farms for a while and it's hard for our diminishing rural community to make a living when stock have so many movement restrictions. This is perhaps a summer to forget, for many villagers and local wildlife alike. Bernard Price
Gaydon with Chadshunt Services for November 2007 AD
4
8.00 Eucharist Burton Dassett
10.00 Family Eucharist Fenny Compton
11.15 Morning Service Gaydon
11.30 Eucharist Farnborough
3.00pm Baptism Burton Dassett
11
9.00 Eucharist Fenny Compton
10.00 Morning Service Farnborough
10.00 Eucharist Northend
11.00 Remembrance Day Service Gaydon
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8.00 Eucharist Farnborough
9.00 Eucharist Gaydon
10.30 United Service Chapel Fenny Compton
10.30 Village Communion Northend
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9.30 Eucharist Northend
10.30 Family Service Fenny Compton
11.30 Eucharist and Baptism Gaydon
6.00pm Evening Prayer Northend
Weekday Services
Eucharist will be celebrated at 7pm at Burton Dassett for All Saints' Day on Thursday 1st November.
There will be a Requiem Eucharist for All Souls at Fenny Compton at 7pm on Friday 2nd November.
Eucharist will be celebrated at St Giles' Church, Gaydon, on Wednesday 21 November at 11am.
Pastoral Ministry
To arrange baptisms, marriages, visits at home or in hospital, the Sacrament of Reconciliation or for any other pastoral matter, please contact the Vicar on 01295 770400 or email philip.francis@regents.ox.ac.uk
The Vicar's Letter
Soon, after the memorial days of All Souls and All Saints, we shall be commemorating the war dead on Remembrance Sunday.
A recent visit to the Somme salient and the Vimy memorial and Thiepval memorial brought home to me, yet again, the enormous sacrifice of the First World War; and the pitiful stories of numerous soldiers whose lives were ended on the 1st July 1916 as the Battle of the Somme began.
One of the areas I visited was the Serre Road memorials where the Accrington Pals and the Barnsley Pals are commemorated, men who joined up from close-knit communities and who now lie together, where they fell.
I have recently spent some time with a Signal Regiment which has lost three soldiers killed in Afganistan: yet more sacrifices and more sad stories of precious lives lost and lives broken in grief.
To remember is necessary and to support the living - especially those injured as a result of war - is very important.
So please be generous this year in the support you give to the Poppy Appeal; and think too about turning out on Remembrance Sunday to stand in silence and remember, reflect upon and support those still grieving the loss of loved ones.
Christening
Molly May, daughter of Debbie and Steve Grimsley and grand-daughter of Sue and Anthony Haydon, will be baptised at the Sunday morning service at St Giles Church on 25th November.
Flood Report
Last month we surveyed two potential sites where earth could be banked up to control the rate of water flow into the Village.
Jonathan Bidwell took and recorded the measurements while I moved the measuring stick from place to place. Jonathan then drew up the figures which I passed on to the River Engineer from Malvern Wells.
On the Banbury Road there are several places where similar banks could be used to control the release of flood water. A bank in the field at the end of the gardens is one obvious candidate and another is a bank at right angles to the road just beyond the boundary hedge of Last Cottage. This is the lowest point on the Banbury Road in Gaydon and water runs back off the field into the village from the South here.
This still leaves a large volume of water which comes down the Banbury Road. This has two main sources. Water from the field behind the garage runs into and down Pimple lane, turns the corner and meets another stream of water coming down from the roundabout. Together, this water runs down the Banbury Road and enters gardens via the lowered curbs of the vehicle exits. I believe that most of this water could be diverted by re-profiling a stretch of the Banbury Road and persuading it to cross over and run into the large ditch on the Western side of the road.
I discussed this option with Dave Tiley, the Stratford Flood Defence Officer, who thought it was feasible and would not be very expensive. It means scraping the camber off the road for a stretch and repairing the surface. He thought that this would be allowable now because the road had been downgraded and was no longer a trunk route. He agreed to speak to Nigel Chetwynd, who has repsonsibility for highway schemes for WCC, and ask him to talk to me. JR