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. In 2009, these were reprinted in his “Action Cook Book”. You guessed it – I have a copy, it’s an amazing little book packed with information!

In the film “The Ipcress File” written by Deighton and starring Michael Caine, the main character (Harry Palmer) who is a keen cook, has some of Deighton’s cartoons pinned up in his kitchen – not a lot of people know that!

In the early 1990’s, my IT Director boss at British Steel asked me to attend a symposium in San Francisco – now who would turn that one down. He even gave me a few days extra to get over the jet lag while there! One of my souvenirs from the trip is perhaps the most unusual cookbook that I own called “The Stinking Cookbook”; I bought it in a restaurant called The Stinking Rose. Now I really love garlic and at the time, this restaurant had an Italian styled menu but everything contained garlic. By the end of the meal, I estimated that I had eaten some six bulbs of garlic – I was in heaven. Starting with garlic bread with three roasted bulbs of garlic squeezed over the toasted long roll and ending with garlic ice cream. Thoroughly recommended and the restaurant is still there and with another in Los Angeles. Some of the cookbooks that I have provide more than recipes. “Made in Morocco – a journey of exotic tastes and places” by Julie Le Clerc and John Bougen is as much a photographic travelogue of Morocco as it is a cookbook.

A recent purchase is “Syria – Recipes from Home” by Itab Azzam and Dina Mousawi. The authors travelled throughout Europe and Lebanon collecting the stories of women refugees from Syria and their favourite recipes that reminded them of their lost homes in war-torn Syria. A beautiful and highly recommended book.

The last book I am going to spotlight is “A Ceylon Cookery Book” by Doreen Peiris. In the Queen’s Hotel in Kandy in Sri Lanka is a bookshop and while staying there I was tempted by the selection of cookbooks! Thinking of my baggage allowance, I asked the shop owner to recommend one and this is the one I purchased. The book was first published in 1964 and is on its 15 th edition. Although small in size it has over 300 traditional recipes.

To find the necessary ingredients for recipes from around the world, we are blessed that Manchester has an amazing selection of food shops. The likes of Chinatown and large Chinese supermarkets cover the needs of all of the Far East countries. Venus Supermarket in Longsight is a great source Of Turkish and Middle Eastern ingredients and their bakery’s fresh Simit bread is exquisite! Rusholme and the Curry Mile covers everything Indian and even has a Lebanese bakery! Perhaps my favourite shop for sourcing unusual ingredients is the Appna Continental Supermarket in Longsight. Whether it is exotic vegetables or Jamaican ingredients, this shop is for everyone!

I have to confess that I have a habit of “defacing” my cookbooks, something I would never do with other books. Long ago, I started a trend of annotating recipes with the date I cooked it, who I cooked it for and a rating. Which brings me to Rose Elliot’s “Vegetarian Christmas”, with incredible recipes that I only cook during the Christmas period so that they keep their magic! My annotations in this book has also turned it into a family history book showing all the people that I have cooked for over the years. Strangely, even my two sons (both carnivores) have devoured my Christmas feasts!

My most hilarious recipe rating took place on the 18 th of June 1995. I cooked a Tamarind Kootu from a book called ”DAKSHIN – vegetarian cookery from Southern India”. The meal was a success but the next day when I wrote the rating, I looked at the photos on the page then wrote “but it looks like the Dal Kootu” – a completely different dish!

An old Chinese proverb says “Our lives are not in the laps of the gods but in the laps of our cooks”.

Ian Hamilton gives you the answers to his quiz!

Now is your chance to check your answers to Ian’s quiz. He has promised to provide another quiz for next month’s issue.

1 Question In which county is the RHS garden of Rosemoor? Answer Devon 2 Question In which resort was the first pleasure pier opened in England in 1823? Answer Brighton 3 Question Which Oxfordshire palace is the seat of the Duke of Marlborough? Answer Blenheim 4 Question Which city is at the western end of Hadrian's Wall? Answer Carlisle 5 Question Hardknott Pass is in which county? Answer Cumbria 6 Question Who or what was returned to Piccadilly Circus in 1 947, after being kept in hiding during the Second World War? Answer Statue of Eros 7 Question Which river flows through Glasgow? Answer Clyde 8 Question What is the name of the famous tea rooms based in Harrogate? Answer Betty's 9 Question Which area of London is associated with Jack the Ripper? Answer Whitechapel 10 Question Which town is home to the University of Essex? Answer Colchester 11 Question Which regiment of the British army wears maroon berets? Answer Parachute regiment 12 Question Which children's organisation was first formed in Glasgow in 1908? Answer Boy Scouts 13 Question How old was Edward VI when he inherited the throne of England? Answer Nine 14 Question What British city is associated with St Mungo? Answer Glasgow 15 Question How are Lady day, Midsummer Day, Michaelmas and Christmas Day collectively known in the UK? Answer Quarter Days 16 Question Which prestigious horse race is sometimes referred to as The Blue Riband of the Turf? Answer Epsom Derby 17 Question Which four -legged table with flaps is named after a town in South Wales? Answer Pembroke 18 Question DA is the postcode area code for which town? Answer Dartford 19 Question Which county formerly had Abingdon as its county town? Answer Berkshire 20 Question Whose seat is Eaton Hall in Cheshire? Answer Duke of Westminster 21 Question Which river flows through the Grampian Mountains to the Moray Firth? Answer Spey 22 Question Which British nobleman ranks between a marquis and a viscount? Answer Earl 23 Question In terms of land area, which of the following is the largest county: Gloucestershire, Warwickshire or Wiltshire? Answer Wiltshire 24 Question Which historic London structure has the postcode SE1 2UP? Answer Tower Bridge 25 Question Who was the first Englishman to circumnavigate the world? Answer Sir Francis Drake 26 Question In which decade of the 20th century was Sir Alan Ayckbourn born? Answer 1930s 27 Question Which social security benefit was introduced in 1909? Answer Old Age Pension 28 Question Which West Yorkshire town shares its name with the capital of Nova Scotia? Answer Halifax 29 Question Which shipping forecast area includes the Orkney and Shetland islands? Answer Fair Isle 30 Question Earl's Court and Knightsbridge are linked by which London Underground line? Answer Piccadilly line

Message from the Chair – Judith Lloyd

Hello again,

This is a very difficult time as we hear of people, whether relatives or friends, who have the Covid19 virus. Our thoughts and prayers are with them. It also looks as though the lock down is set to continue after Easter. We still must look after ourselves and stay isolated if you have been advised to. Keep as active as you can, there are plenty of exercises on TV or YOUTUBE including armchair exercises so don’t overdo it! I am still on the early morning walk with my daughter, early because there are less people in the park although the police are now driving slowly past to make sure we all stick to social distancing.

Eat well and if you can’t get out for groceries, shops will deliver if you register you are vulnerable. Test your culinary skills and swap recipes with friends. I have a surfeit of celeriac so some of it will go into a soup today. If you are one of those people who have received the Government letters sent to vulnerable people, make sure you register on-line as directed. One of our friends is now shopping for us, we are grateful to him and he feels he is helping us. Sometimes adverse situations make us realise that the majority of people are really nice and make us feel we are all in this together.

Just a word of caution. Trafford Council are updating those in the scheme about the unscrupulous people who will try to get your bank details or say they are collecting for something. For the latest updates on scams you can register through the Trafford Council website on iCAN.

Stay safe and thanks for the contributions made to this newsletter, any others will be gratefully received.

We would like to hear from you. What are you doing in this time of staying at home? Please send your news to [email protected]

Websites that can be trusted to give you accurate information about Coronavirus are the BBC News website, NHS, U3A and Trafford Council, Please do not rely on Social Media.

COVID Trafford Community Response

Five community hubs have been set up to support people through the COVID-19 outbreak.

The centres are available to those living in the area who are self-isolating or vulnerable.

They have been set up and coordinated by Trafford Council, Trafford Housing Trust, Thrive, Trafford Stronger Communities Board and other local community groups who were already helping to support local residents when social distancing measures were first put in place.

Their exact location in Altrincham, Gorse Hill, Partington, Sale and Urmston will be given to residents who need support or those volunteering to assist when they call the dedicated helpline 0300 3309073 and select option 4 for Trafford . Opening hours are 8.30am to 5.30pm, Monday to Friday.

If you need help with anything such as:

Food shopping, Getting fuel (if you're on a pre-paid meter), Getting essential medication, Looking after pets or need someone to talk to - then get in touch.

Keeping in Touch

We all have the technology to talk to other people – our phones, whether they are landlines or mobiles. I am sure that many of you have friends and family around the world and already use computer technology to talk and see your contacts. Here is a reminder of how to use these systems to have a chat with your group members or just a few friends together.

If you have a smartphone (iPhone, Android or Windows) or a Tablet, Laptop or Desktop computer (with webcam and microphone) then you can have a video call with one or many people at the same time.

Some of the free software available include Skype, Zoom, Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger. You can find out more from our main U3A website by going to the “Keep in Touch links” web page.

Joe Fogg who helps with our own “Computer and Tech Workshop” group emailed with details about Zoom, which is easy to use and free, although if you have a group video call the free version limits you to 40 minutes duration.

Just imagine all of the Guitar Group or a language group getting together on Zoom for a meeting! You have nothing to lose and it will help to break the self-isolation.

To help you out, I will put Joe’s documents on the Sale U3A website on the “Coronavirus Newsletters” page.

Brian Feast

Committee contact details

Chair Judith Lloyd

Vice Chair Colin Ashton

Secretary Carole Barley

Treasurer Margaret Loftus

Kathleen Chirema

Brian Feast (Webmaster)

Louise Glossop (Membership)

Ian Hamilton

Teresa Jarkowska

Charlene Pullan (Groups)

www.u3asites.org.uk/sale