Chairmans Chat 2026

Hello all Country Linkers,

A Happy New Year to Everyone.

I hope you have all had a good festive season, and enjoyed a Christmas Dinner or Dinner dance.

At Oxford I managed to get six former members to come along and meet up with old friends. I also went along to the Worcester dinner dance where everyone had a good time, dancing away until late. A few of us are off to an Adult Pantomime in Chipping Norton on Friday.

Well, the new year has brought in snow and freezing conditions for a lot of us, although much worse in Scotland and the Northern Counties I understand. Last night we had a thaw and the ground has gone from very hard to mush, and is very slippery underfoot. Do be careful on your walks and carry a stick, taught my granddaughter as you are never too young to learn. Walking Daisy today I saw a Red Kite for the first time this winter, then I disturbed a covey of partridge as well as a cock pheasant. I think they are a bit optimistic of an early spring. This reminded me to top-up the bird feeders in the garden. With a lot more snow on the way those of you with oil fired central heating do make sure your tank is topped up as my daughter ran out last year. I'm waiting for a chimney sweep due to a lack of planning here. I also had an Osprey hovering over the buildings one day, before you all say 'no way' this was a V22 Osprey VTOL, or a drone with the same configuration. Bad enough with the pair of Chinooks that sneaked up on me and Daisy last week.

I gave the sheep extra hay on Christmas Day, and again when it snowed, from my very limited supply along with extra hard feed. Sadly, I have not put the ewes to the ram this year, and due to the future loss of my hay field I'm just going to take them to market as they get fit. I will just purchase store lambs in the future.

So far as I can see as I travel around, and locally, the crops in the ground look an awful lot better than the disaster that was last year's harvest for most of us. Only time will tell. I need to get some fencing done on a three acre paddock, having relied on an electric one until now. When I first came here over twenty years ago none of the fields were stock proof, after a couple of years of haymaking on it all decided to stock fence most of it, only to find out that a lot of the wooden stakes I used rotted away very quickly. Some have been replaced three times and a lot more still need doing. So, I now have to decide whether to replace them with the same cheap ones, use creosoted ones, or something else. If I was younger I think I would splash out on concrete or oak posts. I have some concrete ones dotted about which have been since the nineteen twenties, and some oak ones that are rotting away after only seventy years or so.

I'm planning to go up to Ayrshire in February for their 40th Anniversary, and then down to Cornwall soon to pay them a visit. I will then fit in the Cheshire and Yorkshire groups when I can.

Finally, congratulations to long time stalwart of the committee Phil Charles for being awarded the BEM in the New Years Honours List.

Hope you all take care in the snow and winter weather in the next few weeks and are looking forward to an early spring.

Dick Stephens - Chairman