Thankfully Yours

Well, so endeth my 2013 entries in the blog. One thing BFWI has achieved this year has been a fully working website which has been kept up-to-date throughout. I just wish more members would use it! I went through a very frustrating patch at the end of November-the beginning of December when for some reason I became persona non grata and my password in to the website wouldn't work or, having given me access, it wouldn't let me add anything. I spent about 5 days wandering round the house alternating between muttering every swearword I knew, weeping internally with frustration or wishing I had something to kick until the BFWI Digital Champion came round to sort me out.She said she didn't actually do anything but I know my computer saw her sitting at my elbow and decided to go quietly and stop playing me up. If you need help, I do recommend that you contact one of the county team even if your helper just has to sit there to achieve miracles!

Happy Christmas to all my readers and WI members in Bucks and I wish you a prosperous and interesting New Year ---or as one christmas card wished me "an encouraging new year". I am trying to work out whether this is to be something different or to struggle on in the face of difficult odds. I have tried encouraging people to comment on the blog but they rarely do, in spite of my trying to stir up opposition to some of my views.Let's organise a march in favour of HS2...that should do the trick.

Travel safely and enjoy a break from WI.

18th December
The Bletchley Belles held their Christmas concert this evening and the hall was full to bursting. I always enjoy this event and cannot remember how many years I have been attending. The group has raised thousands of ££s for Willen Hospice. There are always also two items in the programme from a young local musician.This year it was a 13 year old trumpeter at Stage 8 level who must be destined to equal the achievements of past solo-ists.We exit-ed feeling all warm and full of Christmas well-being into the father and mother of a rain storm that gave us shoes full of icy water and skirts wet through before we reached our cars to drive home.It was a good evening all the same.
Did you see in the press that Maggie Aderin-Pocock, the space scientist is to be the new host of the astronomy series The Sky at Night? She came to speak to the NFWI at the AGM a couple of years ago to encourage us to motivate our daughters and grand-daughters to study science.Then Maggie gave her presentation with a baby on her hip throughout. Would you believe that in the photo of her at the Women in Film and TV Awards she was still carrying that child on her hip! So we can expect to see the youngster present on TV 's Sky at Night!

9th December
Tonight the local WI met at a nearby restaurant for its social Christmas dinner. There were more than ever present and the community bus was hired to ferry the members there and back. The meal was lovely and the level of noise quite high so everyone must have been enjoying themselves.This gathering used to be the opportunity to invite guests and partners along to say thank you for their support during the year but this time there was only one male present which I thought a pity.If any member is involved in committee or outside monthly meeting events she has at best either had to inconvenience the folks at home or enjoy their active support making screens , moving chairs or taxi-ing, so why not treat them to a dinner? Long ago WI Enterprises used to sell a china mug called a "WISH mug" which was for WI Supporting Husbands which became prized possessions. Perhaps in these days of equal opportunities we think it our due to ask them to carry our clutter about the county and to vacate the sittingroom for meetings even when there is an international match on the TV. Perhaps now it isn't just the female in the household who is taken for granted.