Cradley Village Hall Welcome

CVH Show Report 2024 As some of you may know my wife Gillian is a professional gardener (after 25 years hard labour in Gloucester City Housing department). So I have to get up at 5.20 each weekday morning to prep her packed lunch, flask of soup, flask of tea, plus a cup of tea to wake her up, before I chuck her out of the house at 7 o'clock. To relieve the tedium of food (etc.) prepping, I listen to 'Farming Today' on Radio 4. Here's what I learnt during the week before our Show -- 2024 was the 3rd worst harvest since the1980s (2017 was the worst). This 2024 Summer was referred to by most farmers as 'utterly unpredictable', plus other despairing, angry and not-quite-four-letter words. Crops drowned all over the UK under standing water, and those that survived -- unripened through lack of sun; sweet corn half the height it should be come harvest- time; our Cox's Orange Pippins in mid-September still only a quarter blushing! In short, a damp and cold Winter...a miserable Spring... and a ghastly, sunless Summer. And our climate is supposed to be temporate! And I'm afraid it showed. For the first time in nearly 20 years of our little Show tomatoes were virtually a 'no-show'! A single saucer of cherry tomatoes and absolutely no vine tomatoes at all. The leeks were stringy. No dahlias -- Good Grief, no dahlias!! And whereas in previous years we've always had at least 10 entries for our 'Last Rose of Summer'/'One Perfect Rose' class, this year just three, and none what you'd call robust. Non-produce classes were all well-represented, with a mass of wonderful (and some quite extraordinary) photography and art, as well as a whole slew of splendid handicrafts (thanks, I strongly suspect, to threatening noises to the fortnightly Craft Group -- along the lines of 'Put something in, or else!' -- from my partner-in-crimeon the Show Committee Louise van Vuren) which were uniformly excellent. There was the usual wide range of cup and trophy winners. Some have appeared on our trophy-lists before -- John and Joy Perkins, Pam Moss, Jane Munford; others were newcomers -- Karen Honeywood and Sue Humphreys, e.g. But the startling break-out winner was a complete newcomer to the Show, Helen Fisher, who snapped up four -- count 'em, 4! - - cups, including the prestigious Peter Morgan Cup for the highest female score. Very well done, Helen -- and very well done all of you who took the time, and made a real effort, to compete in the Cradley Village Hall Annual Produce Show. And well done, too, all those who have beavered away mightily in the background, simply to get our Show on the road, whether helping to set up and/or helping on the day -- Sue Humphreys, June Nason, Ian Hyson, Paul and Helen Fisher, Tom and Oscar van Vuren, and Gillian Lowder. And huge thanks and praise to our enormously hard-grafting Judges -- Robert Heigham (who, solo, judges all the flower, fruit and vegetable classes), MargaretBradbury, Oscar van Vuren and Carol Passmore. But, above all else, solid and warm gratitude to Ken Nason and Jane Munford (depping for a hospitalised Louise van Vuren) in the all-important and hugely crucial back room -- without them the CVH Annual Show would truly crash and burn! Next year is our 20th (it would have been 2024 but we lost a year to COVID). I feel a minor celebration coming on... CL