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Alas, Covid saw off our exchange with our French friends once again in 2021.

Here is the exchange between the Chairman of Abbotskerswell Twinning and the President of the French Jumelage for Le Pre D'Auge et les Monceaux

in French in English

13 May 2021

Chères Annick et Denis, Nous vous remercions beaucoup pour votre message.

 Il a fait très froid ici et nous sommes en train d'avoir beaucoup de pluie avec de très mauvaises prévisions pour le week-end.

 Donc même si nous avions pu vous accueillir, il aurait été très humide et froid!

C'est tellement dommage que nous devions attendre la prochaine fois, mais nous pensons à vous tous.

 Nous avons de nouveaux membres avec des enfants qui souhaitent se joindre à nous dans nos échanges avec vous et les enfants sont très enthousiastes à l'idée de se plonger dans la culture française. Peut-être pouvons-nous faire quelque chose pour que les enfants échangent des adresses e-mail afin qu'ils puissent commencer à s'écrire? Que pensez-vous de cette idée?

Liz Clowes, Chairman, Abbotskerswell Twinning Association

Dear Annick and Denis,

 

We thank you so much for your message. It has been very cold here and we are in the middle of having a lot of rain with a very poor forecast for the weekend. So even if we had been able to host you, it would have been very wet and cold!

 

It is such a shame that we have to wait for the next time, but we are thinking of you all. We have new members with children who are keen to join us in our exchanges with you and the children are very excited about getting to immerse themselves into the French culture. Perhaps we can do something about getting the children exchanging email addresses so that they can start to write to each other? What do you think about this idea?

13 May 2021

Hello nos amis,

Denis se joint à moi pour vous transmettre toutes nos amicales pensées en ces jours où nous devrions être ensemble

 C'est encore bien triste de ne pas pouvoir se retrouver cette année mais nous pensons beaucoup à vous qui êtes de l'autre  côté de la Manche mais aussi embêtés que nous par ce "vilain virus".

 Nous espérons que chez vous tout le monde va bien.

 Bien amicalement,

 A bientôt de tes nouvelles

 Annick et Denis

 13 May 2021

Hello our friends,

Denis joins me in sending you all our friendly thoughts on these days when we should be together

 It is still very sad not to be able to meet again this year but we think a lot of you who are on the other side of the Channel but as annoyed as us by this "nasty virus".

We hope everyone is doing well with you.

Sincerely,

See you soon

Hopefully we will soon be able to meet in person, but in order to get us used to grown up conversation, a quiz was held by Zoom on the 14 May 2021 for Twinning members. 

We had distributed drinks and nibbles beforehand and also some sunflower seeds in anticipation of a competition to be judged in September.

Huge thanks to Celia Rose for organising the quiz and congratulations to one of our newest members, Ruth, for winning the quiz. 

 

 

Twinners are not winners this year, but then who is winning? We had to cancel the 2020 visit from the French and have also cancelled it for 2021 because of all the uncertainty. However, we did get together on Zoom for our AGM, having bribed and cajoled members with a (tiny) bottle of wine and an apple pie delivered to their door in order to get them to brave the uncertain world of technology. 
 
One member even went as far as acquiring a new camera / microphone for their PC, another got lost behind the Golden Gate Bridge and the Chairman, Liz Clowes, forgot that Christmas was over and was still wearing her antlers! You can’t say that we don’t know how to enjoy ourselves, but this was a far cry from our usual ebullient and joyful get-togethers. We re-elected the outgoing committee bar one who declined due to ill health. We thank Linda Banks for all the many years of service to Abbotskerswell Twinning - she was one of the founder members and deserves a rest from the committee.
 
New members are always welcome - so please contact us if you are interested.

 

Alas, the visit from the French was postponed as soon as we understood that the virus would prevent us from getting together. We have invited them over for next year.

Here is a little exchange between the French President Annick Dumont and Liz Clowes the Chairman of Abbotskerswell Twinning;

 

From Liz to Annick:
 
chère Annick
 
Ce devrait être le jour le plus heureux de l'année avec notre réveil pour prendre soin de nos amis français à Abbotskerswell. Mais hélas, nous sommes séparés par cet horrible virus.
 
Nous vous envoyons notre amour et nos meilleurs vœux et nous avons hâte de vous parler de vous avoir ici l'année prochaine à cette heure.
Dear Annick
 
It should be the happiest day of the year with our alarm clock (reference to the picture of the cockerel) to take care of our French friends in Abbotskerswell. But alas, we are separated by this horrible virus.
 
We send you our love and best wishes and we look forward to talking to you about having you here next year at this time.
From Annick to Liz;
 
Hello Liz,
 
thank you for your lovely message.
 
Yes, we should have spent this extended weekend together with our English friends, it's very sad not to be able to meet all together.
 
This virus has done a lot of damage. No one has been touched here around me, as far as I know. I hope it is the same with you in the village and in all your families and friends.
 
In our family, everyone went back to work. And how does it work with you? Apparently you are still confined until the beginning of June, it's a long time.
 
Pending some more news from Twinning, take good care of all of you
 
Denis joins me to send you our regards
 
Have a great day to all of you

Bonjour Liz,

merci de ton charmant message.

Eh oui nous devions passer ce week end prolongé ensemble avec nos amis anglais, c'est bien triste de ne pas pouvoir se retrouver tous ensemble.

Ce virus a beaucoup fait de dégâts.

Ici autour de nous personne n'a été touché, à ce que je sache. J'espère qu'il en est de même chez vous au village et dans toutes vos familles et vos amis.

Dans notre famille, tout le monde à repris le travail. Et chez vous comment cela se passe-t-il ?

Apparemment vous êtes encore confinés jusqu'au début du mois de juin, c'est bien long.

En attendant quelques autres nouvelles du Jumelage, prenez bien soin de vous tous

Denis se joint à moi pour t'embrasser

Bonne journée à tous 

Annick

Our next meeting was in Church House on Saturday 4th January 2020 and was our annual general meeting where chairman Julie Arrow reviewed the past year.

A new chairman and committee were elected and plans for 2020 discussed.

With the festive season upon us, the Abbotskerswell Twinning Association held our annual dinner-dance so as not to miss out on any celebrations.

This year, we decided to stay in the village holding the event at our usual meeting location of Church House and laying on a spread of food prepared by members.

We were welcomed with glasses of Prosecco and pre-dinner nibbles.

We then had some superb roast beef and two poached salmon cooked respectively by Gary Wills and Garry Kendall - must be some connection between their names and good food.

Salads, dauphinoise potatoes and a selection of puds and cheeses completed the meal before taking to the dance floor with songs and music from guitarist Tom Beattie making a return visit to us. 

 

Abbotskerswell Twinning presented the Jazz Café on the 22nd November 2019 at Abbotskerswell Village Hall from 7:00pm.

What a success it was, featuring the Devon Youth Jazz Orchestra, the evening included a light supper and a licensed bar.

We were pleased to announce that we raised nearly £1,000 for hosting future visits from our French visitors and our thanks to all the volunteers who helped with the setting up of the village hall, cooking and serving the food and to the wonderful musicians who entertained us so well and to their parents.

The Pictures of the write up in Abbtalk are below

Quite a number of Twinners were away on holiday in July which was a pity because they missed probably the best meeting of the year. We were the guests of two of our members, Lindsey and Gary Wills, and were treated to a do-it-yourself pizza afternoon. Lindsey and Gary have a large outdoor pizza oven which they lit in the morning and by the time of our arrival at noon the log-burning had raised the temperature to over 500 degrees. After Lindsey had rolled out the pizza bases we chose from a huge selection of toppings prepared by members. Gary then slid the pizzas into the oven for a cooking time of around 90 seconds. Time then to tuck in, washed down with some of Gary’s award-winning cider. After puds and cheeses there were garden games to keep us occupied.

We have a break now until September, but anyone interested in finding out more about Twinning give our chairman, Julie Arrow, a call on 01626 356877.

 

£150 raised for Church House with a little je ne sais quoi with Abbotskerswell Twinning on 15 June 2019

Running from 2:00pm until 4:00pm to raise funds for Church House in its Centennial year since it was given on trust for the village, we enjoyed teas, crêpes and cakes in Church House where the launch of a booklet on its history, courtesy of assistance from Abbpast, took place.

The French theme was also enhanced by tasting some cheeses from the Calvados region of France from whence Twinners had recently returned. Folks were able to buy some cheeses too.

 

May's Twinning Association meeting in Church house took the form of a Race night. Not the usual horse racing - ours was Crab Racing!

Firstly the members tucked into a delicious Thai curry made by Jenny Eyles and Julie Arrow, fortunately they had made plenty and second helpings we very much appreciated. this course as followed by the usual selection pf puds made by members and finally cheese and biscuits followed by tea and coffee (all for five pounds including a welcome drink - how good is that?).

Now down to the serious business of the night - the Crab Racing. We must point out that no animals were injured or even involved in the entertainment. The crabs were clockwork. Members placed their bets using the currency of tiddly wink counters and the wound up crabs had to scuttle along a table racecourse lined with shells to make them feel at home. At the end of the evening, Di Reed was declared the winner having accumulated a fortune of 72 counters.

The Beetles were not part of the repast on Saturday the 13 april, instead, we had a lovely lamb moussaka with salad and bread (veggie option of course for those that requested it). But we did have fun with beetles in an unexpectedly hilarious beetle drive, run by andy and Celia Rose. 

It was enormous fun, and those that attended enjoyed a very pleasant evening.

April 2019