Published at 11:04, Thursday, 02 August 2012

IT’S been a busy few months for Bootle WI. On a cold March evening the ladies enjoyed a visit to Chelsea Flower Show with Christine Fawcett.

garden planner: Egremont woman Christine Fawcett

In 2008 Christine and her team were invited to plan a courtyard garden for the 2009 show and their theme was “Pottering in North Cumbria”. Plans were made and the plants were grown at Newton Rigg in polytunnels. Three thousand plants were taken to Chelsea with the colour scheme of black, cream, white and green. They used 1,000 and after the show they were able to sell the remainder.

Their entry was awarded a silver medal and, despite all the hard work, she would like to enter again. Denise Dunn thanked Christine for sharing her experience at Chelsea.

In April we welcomed Jeremy and Tricia Jackson who are cheese producers from near Shap. We all enjoyed samples of the delicious selection they had brought with them. Jeremy thanked the WI movement for their support to dairy farmers in difficult times.

Both his mother and grandmother had been WI members. There are around 700 British cheeses and 60 per cent of cheese sold is cheddar. In Cumbria we buy mostly mature cheddar. Sheep and goats cheeses are becoming popular as these are suitable for people with various allergies. Butter is now being produced using sheep and goats milk.

Cumbria has some wonderful cheese makers and our speaker encouraged us to use the local farmers markets and bring food shopping back as an experience.

Mary Hogg gave a vote of thanks and Jeremy judged the competition for a cheese knife. The winners were Winifred Craghill, Irene Irving and Dorothy Godfrey. Our darts team was congratulated for winning the team darts competition. Sally Titmas and Lavinia Tray gave a good report of the spring council meeting.

On April 17 we welcomed The Amethyst Singers for a concert in aid of the older peoples’ party fund. We all enjoyed their selection of songs old and new. Refreshments followed and £191 was raised. A very enjoyable evening.

May is our birthday month and as usual we welcomed guests from other WI clubs in the Esk group along with a few local friends. The evening began with musical entertainment from Billy Bowman of Cockermouth.

In June, James Turtle of Wiltshire Farm Foods talked about nutritious convenience meals provided by his firm for disabled and housebound people.

The meals are as near to home cooking as possible and are low in salt and artificial additives. The hot samples he prepared were delicious.

James Turtle judged the competition for a royal souvenir and the winners were Mary Hogg, Peggy Stubbs and Gillian George.

We all congratulated a long-standing member, Sheila Holland, who had recently celebrated her 90th birthday.

Helen Mrowicki of Eskdale WI gave an excellent and interesting report of the AGM at the Albert Hall which she attended as our representative.

The evening concluded with supper served by the hostesses.

Published by http://www.whitehavennews.co.uk