Editors Welcome Welcome to the second issue of “ Stay Safe Sale U3A” and Happy Easter to you all in these strange times. I am pleased to tell you that Issue 1 is now available on our Sale U3A website via a link from the Welcome page, so please tell your friends to access it there if they did not get an email copy. All future editions will also be on the website as they are published. I have had quite a few emails from you thanking the committee for this newsletter. However, nobody spotted or mentioned the strange article, given that the first newsletter was issued on April Fool’s Day! Yes, if you read Margaret Loftus’s account of her Exotic Rats with admiration then I am sorry to say that I made it all up! She has already had many offers to buy her colourful rat offspring but it is not to be! Margaret is currently wondering whether to start keep rats! Issue 2 has quite a few contributors, which hopefully will encourage you to send your stories or letters for our next issue. So please send them to [email protected] Brian Feast - editor Articles in this issue: Colin Ashton’s fishy tails continues with a fishy quiz The Writing Group sends a letter Bexie’s Holiday Tales - from Louise Glossop Brian Feast cooks the books Ian Hamilton gives answers to his questions Message from the Chair- Judith Lloyd Covid19 - new advice Keeping in touch – video calls Colin Ashton’s fishy tail continues with a quiz In the last issue, Colin told us that he was keeping busy cleaning his fish tank. What he didn’t tell us was that he has the power to shrink himself so that he can do the cleaning from inside the tank while swimming with his pet fish. I think he would make a fortune unblocking drains. His wife took this photo of him enjoying his hobby. After he had finished, he returned to full size, dried himself off and has set this fishy quiz for you. The answers will be in the next issue of this newsletter. Here are twelve pairs of fish names; you have to decide which are real and which are false. For each pair there are four possible answers to choose from: A: the first is real B: the second is real C: both are real D: neither are real 1 Cherry Barb Fork tailed drongo 2 Blini Black ghost knifefish 3 Clementine Platy 4 Sugar fish Brahman 5 Blackbeard Zebra loach 6 Cory catfish Gouda 7 Golden origami Blenny 8 Dottyback Chippendale 9 Hump head Wrasse Suckermouth 10 Basset Horneyhead 11 Irritator Goby 12 Butterflyfish Dandyhorse The Writing Group I really enjoyed the first Newsletter - inspiring for many feeling alone and depressed. We have decided to write a story once a month, on a subject set by each member in turn. This is to keep our brains exercised and not lose our regular input, once a fortnight. When we meet once more (will that be September I wonder?) we should have a good collection of stories to discuss and critique. We will aim to submit the best for publication. We have some talented writers who need to be pro-active about their writing or they will never see daylight! We could even have a paperback book printed and sold for a minimum amount, to donate to U3A funds. To be discussed. We belong to the National Creative Writers' U3A and groups around the country will be running similar schemes as COVID19 stops our usual activities. Stay safe and well, everyone. See you in the autumn! Dilys Burgess PS Brian - if you decide to publish the above in the next Newsletter, it might inspire others to take up a new hobby. Hoping everyone stays fit and healthy. Dilys Bexie’s Holiday Tales from Louise Glossop My name is Bexie and I live in Sale. I am approximately 16 ½ years old, a semi-longhaired, pretty female feline with a feisty mind of my own. Fifteen years ago, I visited a garden in Bracknell, Berkshire and after a sneaky snoop around the house; I decided that I would like to adopt the two people who lived there. I was of no fixed abode and got by on my looks for food and shelter. I am blind in one eye and have a peculiar kink in my tail, which took me two years to trust anyone to touch. As felines do not have owners, I shall proceed to call them ‘My Minders’. My minders were in the process of relocating to Sale, so they took me with them and I never looked back. Every year my minders go on holidays and I had to go to the cattery, which I didn’t enjoy very much. With my age against me, they made a decision in 2018 to take me on all future holidays. In July 2018, we went to Wenhaston, Suffolk for a week in a self-catering cottage. The car was loaded up and we set off at 6am for the seven-hour journey. I was very comfortable in the back of the car, with my harness and lead attached to my female minder and I was encouraged to lie down on the rear parcel shelf. Other drivers on the motorway thought their eyes were deceiving them when they spotted me. We had quite a few comfort breaks and we stopped for a packed lunch in a quiet churchyard on the outskirts of Newmarket where I could stretch my legs before lying down under a shady bench. We arrived at the cottage just after 2pm. It was one of two cottages down a long dead-end lane in the middle of fields, which suited me just fine. It was remote enough to avoid lots of people and more importantly, dogs whom I hate. The ground floor was open-plan with a small conservatory that contained two comfy wicker chairs for the minders to observe the beautiful views but I laid claim to one wicker chair straight away leaving my female minder to sort out other seating arrangements. I indicated to my minders that I wanted to go out and when the door was opened, I was off. Hesitant at first, I got bolder as the days went on. I came and went as if the cottage was my home, waiting for my minders to let me in and out. Over the next week, I had much to discover, as it was so new and different that I got my ‘mojo’ back. The flapping of pigeons wings in a large open barn sent me over to find out what was going on, jumping up onto the roof, which led to my male minder having to get me down. A favourite spot was a large bush which overhung an underground septic tank which I loved to lie under because I could see the local rabbit population and follow them out to tell them ‘who was boss’. Each morning I was fitted with my lead and taken out in the car for a walk around local churchyards where I could snuffle about the gravestones and long grass. My minders went out in the afternoons to various places including Southwold, Beccles, Dunwich, Walberswick and Lowestoft while I found a particularly warm spot on the landing of the cottage to catch the afternoon sun. Other highlights include sightings of a green woodpecker family and a muntjac deer with her fawn. My minders thought they had had some great holidays on their own but I have shown them that they can enjoy much much more if they bring me along. We all had a wonderful time and I can’t wait to do it again! Feast by name, Feast by nature! In the last issue, I mentioned that I have a love of books, which goes as far as having a tall glass-fronted unit in my kitchen holding my cookbooks - over 150 of them at the last count! At this point, I also have to mention that I have been vegetarian for over 30 years, so that influences my cookbook selection. I don’t have any from the likes of Rick Stein, Jamie Oliver or Gordon Ramsay. I do have “Jerusalem” by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi but certainly more from cooks such as Rose Elliot and Linda McCartney and I do have some very unusual ones! I have bought cookbooks on holiday in many places such as America, Sri Lanka, India and Egypt. In fact, many trips to Egypt and other countries along the North African coast has helped me amass a good collection of books covering Morocco to Middle Eastern cookery in Syria. The taste of incredible vegetable tajines with couscous in Morocco and Ful Medames in Egypt started it! I was exposed to world cuisine at an early age when the average British diet was still very traditional. My mother was an excellent cook but it was my father’s extensive travels in the Royal Navy that gave us curries and Chinese meals well before packets of Vesta Curry appeared in shops. Trips to the Pyrenees led me to find a book entitled “The Catalan Country Kitchen”. This book is very meatist (as I call it) containing fishy paellas to quail and rabbit dishes. The thing about being vegetarian is that there are plenty of products that make good substitutes for meat and fish, so my Catalan book has been a source for some interesting dishes. The spy thriller author Len Deighton wrote five cookbooks and in the 1960’s he was the food correspondent for the Observer where he also produced “cookstrip” cartoons.