Bulletin September 2020

Your Committee:

Alan Keith Chair Richard Barlow Treasurer

Sue Gibson Secretary Pam Davis Groups Co-ordinator

Nigel Dodd Assistant Treasurer Myrtle Moreton-Cox Welfare & Bulletin Carol Green Speaker Secretary Luke Wilson Membership Secretary Linda Bettridge Assistant Groups Co-ordinator

Membership: [email protected] - Chair: [email protected] Website

: https://u3asites.org.uk/cam-dursley - Beacon:

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Bulletin:

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WE SHALL OVERCOME THE VIRUS

Unfortunately there has been another set back to the ease in regulations which will affect us all in many ways. However, we must persevere, take advantage of the things we can do and hope that it will not be too long before it is safe to curtail the necessary restrictions. Stay safe and keep smiling.

Why not use the time to compose something for your Bulletin! Without the input of Mike Hadley and a view other stalwarts it would not be possible to produce a monthly Bulletin, which some people do value, during this difficult period in our lives so please put on your thinking caps and send in a few words or some photos. All contributions gratefully received. Myrtle Moreton-Cox

CAM, DURSLEY & DISTRICT A

Bulletin September 2020

Bulletins are published a few days after each General Meeting- these are normally held

at 10.30am on the third Thursday of each month at Dursley Methodist Church.

ADVANCED FRENCH GROUP

My French group remains active during Coronavirus restrictions. I have continued to supply the members with French script weekly by e-mail (and in the case of two members by post). We have been able to cover a wide range of subjects from the Lascaux cave to the Folies Bergère, including képis, Angkor Wat and René Lalique. It is not the same as discussing and translating the scripts with each other and, of course, we miss the social

aspects of our meetings.

John Morton

WRITING FOR PLEASURE GROUP

So Alan, as I say, I refer to Mr Harrison as a guest rather than a lodger. Violet will insist on calling him a lodger, but to me that’s a term which went out with “digs” and “commercial travellers”. He very much keeps himself to himself and he’s no trouble. I once asked him what his “line” was. What he did. “Insurance collector”, he said - Just that, no elaboration. I tried to imagine him calling door to door collecting premiums for the Prudential, but he didn’t look that type at all. Far too assertive. More a managerial type.

Last week, I lost my secateurs. Most unlike me because I always remember where I put things and I know that I left them on the back step after doing the roses, but when I came to use them again, they’d gone. The following morning I went to put the food waste out and lo and behold, there were my secateurs on the back step where I’d left them. Thought I was going barmy, but I’m sure they weren’t there when I looked the previous evening.

Mr Harrison has Greg’s old room ‘cause it’s the biggest. Not really a bed-sit, but he has a microwave and his own little fridge in there. Now I’ve never been the nosey type, but while I was giving his room a quick once over with a duster, I happened to open the fridge and take a look inside. There was a Sainsbury’s Cornish pasty and a small Tupperware box. Why I looked inside the box I don’t know, but I was a bit taken aback by what I found. It was wrapped in tissue paper and, as I unwrapped it, there was no mistaking that it was a big toe, complete with toenail! No nail varnish and too big to belong to a lady. Needless to say, I wrapped it up again and put it back in the fridge. The best explanation I could come up with was that it was to do with a compensation claim on behalf of one of his clients who had had an accident. The following day I wondered whether I had imagined it, so I had another look in Mr. Harrisons fridge and there it was, gone. Perhaps I am going barmy.

It’s since occurred to me that there may be a link between the temporary absence of my secateurs and the temporary presence of a big toe, but I’m not one to jump to conclusions. I thought I’d tell you this because I know you’ve said in the past that you find my little everyday tales something of an inspiration, though I can’t think why, Mr Bennett? Alan? Are you still there Mr. Bennett? Dave Wilkinson

La Pierre des Marmettes

by John Morton

15 miles south of the eastern end of Lake Geneva stands a geological phenomenon. It is a huge granite boulder in the grounds of the hospital in the hills above Monthey.

The boulder is 60 feet long, 30 feet wide and just under 30 feet high. Early nineteenth century geologists were astounded and perplexed because there is no other granite for miles. How did it get there? It is what is known as an erratic. Granite is an igneous rock, the magma of a volcano, and this enormous piece sits on sedimentary rock. The geologists identified it as the same as a granite outcrop at Val Ferret near Mont Blanc, 25 miles away on the other side of two valleys! In fact it was brought to its present position as part of the lateral moraine of a glacier. In the early nineteenth century they didn’t know about the ice age and had no idea that something this size could be carried along by slowly moving ice. It was the geologist Jean de Charpentier who, in 1841, first put forward the theory that it was brought down by a glacier. It has since been established that it was transported here 18,000 years ago.

During the nineteenth century it was mined for building materials for road and railway construction. In order to protect the boulder, the Swiss Nature Research Company bought it in 1906, after lengthy negotiations with the owner. It was the threat to The Pierre des Marmettes, that triggered the foundation of the Swiss Nature Conservation Commission.

There is, on the left of the picture, a flight of steps to the garden on the summit. The hut was used as a watch tower to keep an eye on the vineyards below.

The name may derive from the marmots, which lived on and around it. However, it is more likely a corruption of the name of a previous owner.

Monthey, 15 miles south of Montreux, underlined in red in the centre of the map

and now for something completely different...

I accidentally handed my wife a glue

stick instead of a chapstick. She still

isn’t talking to me.

More mad signs….

My wife just found out I

replaced our bed with a

trampoline; she hit the roof.

I got a new pair of gloves

today, but they’re both ‘lefts’

which, on the one hand, is

great, but on the other, it’s

just not right.

I went to a pub quiz in

Liverpool, had a few

drinks so wasn’t much

use. Just for a laugh I

wrote The Beatles or

Steven Gerrard for every

answer … came second.

“

Why is it old people say ‘there’s

no place like home’, yet when you

put them in one …”

Apparently one in three

Britons are conceived in an

IKEA bed which is mad

because those places are really

well lit

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