Harlow Women's Institute: November

A busy time for Harlow WI - two weeks ago we attended the Cobbin Group Meeting, hosted by Church Langley WI. This proved to be a very pleasant evening with good food, good company and a first class performance by Emily Yarrow who talked about her life as a singer and the other work she does between singing engagements. Her talk was illustrated with plenty of music, some classical, some popular, including a splendid rendition of the theme from the most recent James Bond film, Spectre.

Harlow's contribution to the evening was to run a stall selling 'mystery gifts' - wrapped presents with no indication of the contents. We had an excellent selection of gifts donated by members of all five WIs, and sold the lot during the course of the evening (picture left).

Today brought our monthly meeting and, despite the drear November weather, a good turnout. There was much to discuss as our WI Bazaar is on Saturday so there was the usual appeal for helpers, donations, and patrons.

The speaker today was Miss Joan Francies, talking about European Gardens. The gardens she chose covered a wide area from the north of Scotland, via Jersey, Spain, France, Germany and Sicily to the lovely gardens close to the Italian Lakes. Most of these gardens were on the grand scale and featured a preponderance of green from grass, foliage and trees and nearly all had a wealth of statuary. Only the Moorish gardens of Spain were without lawns or statues. Displays of flowers were usually only in evidence close to a villa or chateau. Such a lot of green is very restful to the eye.

Her talk was much enjoyed and she was warmly thanked. Miss Francies later judged the competition which was for a buttonhole (pictures below).