Fairlight

MOPPs in action: Today, Friday July 17, there’s a talk entitled ‘100 Years of the Women’s Institute’, and there is also a visit by the free toe-nail cutting service. Today’s food is to be roast turkey, with Angel Delight and fruit to follow. On Friday next, July 24, the entertainment will be Keith Osbourne’s Music for Health, together with some Pirate’s Day Celebrations. Let’s hope the weather is back to summery warmth, so your timbers don’t get shivered! Lunch next week starts with cottage pie, and then it’s banana and custard.

Gardening Club Summer Show: It’s tomorrow, Saturday, July 18, with public viewing from 2 to 3.30 pm in the village hall. It’s far too late, I suppose, to remind those wishing to enter, be it for flower, fruit, vegetable, cakes or anything else that could be judged, that all entries must be in, at the Post Office, today. Entries, of course, refers to the completed forms that tell the organisers who you are and what produce you wish to have considered – not the actual produce itself, or the Post Office would be overwhelmed. Those who go along are promised an impressive display, if previous shows are remembered, and will be able to partake of refreshments, and having a go on the raffle and at the auction. 813006 is the number to call if you require more details than are available here.

Activate Walk or Run: Is happening this Sunday from 11 am. Even if you’re not taking part, why not talk a walk up to the Activate HQ during the afternoon and see participants arriving back, fighting fit? Enjoy something from the BBQ, or simply support the event, the proceeds from which will help to swell the Cliff Preservation Stage 3 kitty.

The Tuesday Ladies Club: Their July meeting will be on Tuesday next, in the village hall with a 2.15 pm start. Popular and accomplished local speaker Andy Dinsdale will be telling of ‘Australian Wildlife’. Guests, including men, are welcome on payment of a paltry £2, which gets you a cake or biscuit and a cuppa, too.

Bangers and Bash: At last, the Fairfest Summer Bash will be with us on Sunday week. In some ways, it’s been a bit of a calm before the storm, with the main event creeping up on us during the countdown. It’s on Wood Field Rec., as if you didn’t know, commencing at 4 pm with fun and games, and the live music section starting at 6 pm. Dorey the Wise, the Rye Ukulele experiment and the Kytes will all be there to entertain you. A BBQ, a bouncy castle, tea, and a bar will all be awaiting your patronage.

If you’d care to help out with organisation of the day, either before with some setting up and what-have-you, or by helping with a bit of car parking, say, then do please contact Jennifer Annetts on 812476 to join with the team in the running of the event.

Bowls Club Open Tournament: As a result of this year’s very successful tournament, a cheque for some £1,500 will be ready for presentation at a later date to St Michael’s Hospice, Club Captain Colin Yellop’s choice of recipient for 2015. It is understood that, additionally, the Hospice raised around £200 from a separate stall which they manned throughout the day’s event. An excellent outcome from a great day’s bowling.

Anyone for tennis?: The village is fortunate in having two varieties of Tennis Club available for residents. First, bearing in mind the supposed summer season and the recent completion of this year’s Wimbledon, is the full scale, outdoor type which may not be on grass, but is played on the club’s all-weather surface court at the bottom of Wood Field recreation ground, on the edge of Knowle Wood. Membership costs only £30 a year, with juniors a mere £10, though guests can have up to three trial sessions for only £1 each before they are obliged to join. If you fancy yourself as the next Novak, Roger, Serena or Garbine, or you just want to play for fun and exercise, give either Terry Jay, on 812146, or Andrew Mier, on 814178, a call. Newcomers, especially supervised youngsters, are welcome.

And for those who prefer their tennis on a table, then Tuesday evenings in the village hall sees the Table Tennis Club meeting from about 7.30 pm. They have four new tables, and generally play doubles, with ladies and gents equally welcome. They can lend you a bat to start you off, should your old favourite be long lost in the attic, and now play each week of the year rather than taking a few months off in the hottest part of the summer. Just turn up on a Tuesday, be you tyro or County class, and you’ll be made welcome. More detail may be had from Carol Ardley on 814178.

Hearing Dogs for Deaf People: Word comes from Sally Watson, who had been starting to promote a garden party in aid of Hearing Dogs for Deaf People which was to take place on July 30, that this event, to which many were looking forward, has, unfortunately, been cancelled. Never mind – some other time perhaps.

A night on the Thai-les: What a great evening was had by all at the Wine and Social Club’s Thai Evening on Monday, when Chris, with three of the young Thai ladies from Siam 2 Thai in George Street, masterminded an educative session on Thai wines – not the oxymoron you might think – and then how to make a Thai green curry, followed by actually eating it. Then, replete and well wined, the large crowd (by then a little larger!) enjoyed a demonstration of Thai dancing, with some of the braver, or more foolhardy, joining in.

The evening followed the success of the pattern set by a series of similarly themed events. What next, one wonders? One prominent member would like to see a Polish evening, with Polish food, Polish wine and, of course, pole dancing!

Done job?: Yes, but only part done. That’s the Waites Lane pot holes. Four of them, and especially the three axle-crunchers at the north end of the road have been done, but one 200 yards away just to the north of Farley Way, white-line marked along with the others, was left.

You mast recall the late night working, three years ago next month, when much road surface improvement to Fairlight Road was effected. In the event, the work on Waites Lane consisted in the main of using what was rumoured to be a special machine which, though noisy, hot and dragon-like, to weld together the two sides of the carriageway. Which it did, in exemplary fashion, from Farley Way to Meadow Way, making a join that has not appreciably deteriorated in those three years. What a pity they couldn’t run strips across the entire width of the road! Meanwhile, Waites Lane continues to be a disgrace, as does the south, ‘up’, side, particularly, of Battery Hill. Add the hazards of the two drains in Broadway by the village hall car park, one of which has been ‘smoothed’ ineffectually, and the other has markings indicating BT, which probably makes it a multi-agency problem, which no doubt make sit all the more difficult (not to mention the domestic water meter adjacent to the collapsing kerb and road. This is more than one man with a bucket of stuff could easily rectify.

Rubbish bin: The bin at the Bus Stop opposite the Estate Agent and the Hairdressing Salon is over-full once again. There’s something about this location that seems to urge people to treat it as if it were a public skip. It isn’t, and that is why it so soon gets full to overflowing. Is it on a very regular emptying schedule, one wonders?

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