Autumn is here

5th September
Throughout the best part of 2010 BFWI to celebrate its 90 year history has been granted a room in the High Wycombe Museum.It is a lovely display and many people have commented favourably on it.Also during the summer holidays the WI has held small craft groups for children in the same room and on the first Sunday of the summer months there have been craft demonstrations too.Today the subject was the gentle art of crochet and two BFWI committee members and a couple of WI members went down to demonstrate their skills.Surrounded by lots of items of crochet we immediately found ourselves with nine visitors who wanted to learn to crochet. It was great fun because several of them had never held a hook in their lives and others could do a bit or had forgotten how to start.These people had picked up the notice in the local press and were not WI members. However I shouldn't be surprised if they don't become members in the future. They all said how much they had enjoyed themselves and thought it a pleasant way to spend a Sunday afternoon.They all went home proudly clutching mis-shapen pieces of work! I felt a bit guilty about the ordinary museum visitors who followed the sound of chatter and walked into a room full of people trailing wool and wielding hooks but curiosity usually got the better of them and they completed their tour.

1st September
It was agreed to write to suggest that BFWI makes a contribution to the discussions on the new High Speed Railway and that members should keep an eye on labelling of country of origin on meat, fish and poultry in supermarkets following the mandate at the AGM in June.We also want to make ourselves heard in defence of the cheque which is threatened with extinction.Although we had not done very well with our exhibit at the County Show, one of our members had come first in the county competition for a piece of original writing for the Lady Denman Cup. The sound in our new premises goes up to somewhere in the ceiling so some of us suggested we should enquire into buying a small microphone system. Our speaker spoke clearly but her tone was rather expressionless and became lost in the roof.It is difficult for the officers as well sometimes.Perhaps we could put some of our funds towards a lapel mike or apply for a grant.All the group activities which the WI hold are up and running for the autumn so we should be out of mischief for at least 3 months.

31st August
What a lot of reading has been going on this month! We started with discussion about Katharine McMahon's novel The Crimson Rooms which everyone had enjoyed.The plot was good, the location fairly local, the period within our parents' memory and the writing was atmospheric.We are still not sure of the endings of this author's novels as we tend to interpret them in different ways so we shall have to ask her about them when she comes to speak at the BFWI Literary Lunch next June.We also resumed talk about Wolf Hall which is so long that it takes everyone time to read but I think our group deserve praise for completing the book: an article in the Telegraph reported that only two out of 35 readers questioned had managed to do this! I don't know how they could stop reading and now we hear there is to be a sequel. Obviously the author is planning to kill Thomas Cromwell off after all. I thought she would never be able to release him. The book which we had all been supposed to have been reading was the Olive Readers by Aziz which is one of these post Armageddon sort of novels.Here opinion was divided between those who were fascinated by it and those that thought it was absolutely ridiculous. The general theme was that the possession or lack of water would define the world of the future which is probably true but all the submarine rocket ships and bubbly globes and flashing lights was too much for some of us. We had also read The Glass Room by Simon Mawer which was about a house in Czechoslovakia built for an artistic rich family with Jewish connections and what befell the building and the family through the World Wars up to the present day. It was beautifully written and well researched.Another recent publication was The Angel's Game by Zafon which is a Gothic novel, very dark and powerful and complicated but a real page-turner of a novel.

26th August
No wonder this county is famous for ducks! The County Show suffered the same fate as the BFWI did for the Stowe Garden Party except the mud was worse. The WI had a reasonable amount of room this year and the competition for a Celebration entry was eye-catching. There was plenty to see and do in the marquee. Our WI won no prizes but at least we did better than the 100 other WIs who never even tried. Unfortunately for the organising committee the attendance was only half that of last year but one presumes the losses can be set against other years.The Bucks County Show is said to be one of the best nationally so it would be a pity to lose it.