Here are a few pics from our Garden Appreciation Group’s April trip out. We went to a lovely Bluebell wood near Whalley, then to the village of Downham which is set in the Ribble Valley District and hailed to be the most beautiful village in Lancashire with its gurgling brook running past the village green and stone built cottages. The village was used as location for Whistle Down The Wind and Born and Bred.

We finished off the day in The Garden Kitchen at Bolton by Bowland for afternoon tea. We managed to dodged the rain and saw lovely blossom and lambs. Gorgeous! 

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We invited a sewing buddie of ours to come along to a meeting to talk to us about India, the food and its people. I think we all know it is a densely populated country but certainly didn’t know it is the seventh largest country by area, the second most populous with more than 1.3 billion people. India has 29 states and its official language is Hindi, however can you believe there are 21 further languages? We were fascinated to hear details first hand of the social caste system Indians are born into, Europeans would probably call it a hierarchical system. The Brahmins (priests), Kshatriyas (military), Vaishyas (merchants and farmers), Shudras (peasants), Dalits (untouchables). Vatsala bought along a case of saris and fabulous jewellery for a dressing up session. Honestly we were like kids in a sweet shop. As a keen sewer and quilter Vatsala told us of Project Linus – an initiative to provide handmade blankets for babies who are seriously ill and wondered if there were sewers amongst us that would like to help. Let’s see how many we Scarlets can make.

Wednesday 27th March – The Kasturi Indian Restaurant.

11 lovely ladies enjoyed another evening of fun, friendship and laughter at what could be called our favourite Indian restaurant. Supper Club evenings are always lively occasions and the news sharing, gossip and ‘have you seen….’ started this week before we even got our popadoms; stalled slightly because somebody didn’t watch Sewing Bee last night. The Kasturi has an excellent range of main courses to satisfy our vegetarian as well as meat eating diners and of course there the are prawns, or Lis wouldn’t stay. Unfortunately the only issue was, we had no room for dessert. So if you need to pick up handy hints with clothes pegs, want to know who or what is unhinged or can work out which sister you need to ask for directions, we would love you to join us at the Legh Arms next month when you too could be as wise as we aren’t!

Our book last month was ‘She’s leaving home’ by Joan Bakewell. 

Preview available on –

https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/She_s_Leaving_Home.html?id=O5p6g5v1M0oC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

We were all looking forward to this read, knowing the author as a journalist, television presenter and Labour Party Peer, and also as an author and playwright, who has been awarded Humanist of the year for services to humanism – according to Wikipedia!

However, we were all disappointed! The story was superficial and the style of writing we felt was almost child-like. This prompted us to check the date of publishing, expecting it to be an early work – but it was published in 2011! Though it was not necessarily written that year of course.

We met in Honora’s log cabin and shared our opinions, followed by a sociable chat, whilst being supplied with refreshments galore. The sweetie tray was well received! Thanks Honora.

This month’s book is ‘The keeper of Forgotten Things’ by Ruth Hogan, so we are all hoping for a good read to take on our holidays. We meet on the third Thursday of April to review it.

Well done to all the ladies – and Max – who braved the awful weather this Saturday (16th March) to pick up litter from around Kew roundabout in the year the WI is re launching its Keep Britain Tidy campaign. 
As well as all the litter we also found a £10 note in the bushes which has been donated to a plastic clean up charity.
We’ll let you know when the next event is and hope to see you there. Thanks to Sue, Lis and Carole for spreading the word – we are so glad you told us about this community group.

Daphne Richardson of Freshfield Fitness teaches Tai Chi and QiGong exercise classes in and around Formby. We learned the history of these arts as she explained it’s literal meaning was ‘Life’s Energy’ an holistic system of coordinated body posture and movement, breathing and meditation used for the purposes of spiritual health and the basis of martial arts. We then moved onto an introduction beginners class. This was a low impact exercise class and incorporated stretch and balance work. We learnt Tai Chi moves as as Cloud Hands, Yang Style Tai Chi Walking and Stroking the Horses Mane as well as some QiGong exercises.

A handful of Scarlet attended a one day Zen embroidery course held at Leyland. They came away full of tea, biscuits and cake and mastered their chain stitch, back stitch, stem stitch and lazy daisy stitch.

In October 2017, we were given the use of an allotment with the proviso that some of the produce had to be given to charity. Some members of the gardening club volunteered to take it on and we are enjoying it very much.
The plot was extremely overgrown and neglected and we spent the winter clearing and having bonfires. We grew a variety of crops, joined in with the Allotment society annual show and Scarecrow competition and donated jars of jam to the Southport Foodbank.
We are in the process of erecting a greenhouse and digging beds for the coming season.
Anybody is very welcome to come and lend a hand or even just to have a look. We meet there every Tuesday (weather permitting) at 10 am. 

Great turn out for this worthy fundraiser. Southport Hesketh’s Round Table annual Mad Dog 10k competitors goodie bag pack and we were amongst the volunteers 3500 plus bags done. Well done everyone.

12 Scarlets had a bit of fun on Tuesday night thrashing the odd bowling ball around. I have to say some of us were much better at it than others. It was Team Janet that ran away with a high score, leaving Team Pauline somewhat in the gutter. Nonetheless we had a laugh and a few aching limbs over a gin afterwards.