TRADESMAN LIST:<\/strong> Over the past years several people have requested a trusted trademan register and I have always been reluctant because they only work if they are maintained and updated. The trading standards run a similar scheme as do \u2018Which\u2019 magazine (free at the library).<\/p>\nHowever Diana Richmond has recently made a suggestion which may work. \u2018Suppose you told me about the wonderful plumber you had found – I would ask if you would give his name and details to another U3A member who wanted a plumber. We don\u2019t actually give out the names of the tradeperson but put our members in touch with the person who recommended them. We could soon build up a list. We are not saying that they are infallible \u2013 only that we have found them competent for the job they did for us.<\/p>\n
I would be happy to run it. People would \u2018phone me to get the name of the relevant U3A person (and would also contact me with the name of the plumber, painter etc that they recommend).\u2019 Please contact Diana Richmond on 01296 489812 or email diana@richx2izus.plus.com if you would be interested in this scheme.<\/p>\n
LETTER FROM JOHN COWLING:
We had a very enjoyable trip to Batsford Arboretum yesterday despite the colour not being quite what we all hoped for. This was due to the season running two\/two three weeks late all year. Nevertheless Batsford was a lovely place to be and there was plenty to see. We were so lucky to have very mild weather and at times the sun was warm.<\/span>
This was my last organised trip and I now hand over the reins of Garden Visits group leader to Gaynor Edwards who, with the help of others on her team is going to arrange very interesting trips for 2014. I mentioned to those on the trip yesterday that the first trip will during March and will be a visit to the Snowdrops at Magnolia House between Woburn and Bourn End, so please look out for the information.<\/span>
I have really enjoyed organising trips over the past 4 years and looking back these have numbered 24 in total, plus a couple of years when we ran the round robin visits to members gardens. In this time we also enjoyed 13 speakers and two Christmas Quizzes and one Christmas lunch at Frosts Garden Centre. Hilary and I have enjoyed them all, although those which took place in pouring rain and freezing cold, which seemed the norm last year, were testing! This year we have been really fortunate and I don’t remember seeing much rain.<\/span>
When David Coleman presented me with cards and a present from the garden group, just before we left for Batsford yesterday, I was almost struck speechless; an unusual state for me! My thanks to all of you for your kind words and super gift of a generous garden voucher. This will be put to excellent use. My thanks to David and Margaret for organising the task of getting the card signed, goodness knows how they managed to get so many signatures.<\/span>
Finally, thank you all for supporting the Garden Visits group. With best regards and see you on the next trip.<\/span>
John<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was gardening in my veg plot the other day and dug up my remaining carrots. Because I am not a good gardener I had accidentally fertilised the carrot bed prior to planting. As a result my remaining carrots were very funny shapes. I took some photos on my new (ish) mobile phone of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[17,85,28],"class_list":["post-3288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newsletter","tag-craft","tag-extreme-visits","tag-garden-visits"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-22 14:28:50","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wtu3a.org.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wtu3a.org.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wtu3a.org.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wtu3a.org.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wtu3a.org.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3288"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.wtu3a.org.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3291,"href":"https:\/\/www.wtu3a.org.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3288\/revisions\/3291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wtu3a.org.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wtu3a.org.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wtu3a.org.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"censored](\"http:\/\/www.wtu3a.org.uk\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/censored-carrots-300x214.jpg\")
I was gardening in my veg plot the other day and dug up my remaining carrots. Because I am not a good gardener I had accidentally fertilised the carrot bed prior to planting. As a result my remaining carrots were very funny shapes. I took some photos on my new (ish) mobile phone of the deformed specimens and discovered that my mobile has a puritanical streak and suffers from veggie-ism. It censored my carrots \u2026 see left! ![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.wtu3a.org.uk\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/lg-gallery\/extreme-visits\/street-art\/Cranio.jpg\")
<\/p>\n