The best news of September is that at last, the Lease for the Stovehouse has been agreed and signed and we can start our Repair Project - very exciting! 

We welcomed the Finance Team from the NAAFI based in Darlington on a Team Building Day at Gardening Leave in the pouring rain and they very kindly helped Stevie McAulay and his team to shift the last of the staging from the Stovehouse.  We are now ready for the arrival of the glaziers next week who will begin the task of removing all the glass (over3,500 panes!) so that we can get the scaffolding up and the cover on quick before the winter weather sets in.

You can follow our progress by going to News and Events, where there is a dedicated Stovehouse section.  A Big, Big thank-you to all the veterans, 2 SCOTS, volunteers and funders who have helped us to get to this landmark and to Jim and John who put so much work into the Lease - it was all worth it!

Pamela has been very busy in the garden - all the leeks are in and the winter bedding plants on the terrace give a welcome splash of colour.  The Victoria Cross poppy has still to set her seeds which we will of course be saving for veterans to take home and sow in their own gardens.

On the river the first Gardening Leave-caught salmon still eludes us but several brown trout have been landed and we keep trying….!!!

 I went to the AGM of the Sir Oswald Stoll Foundation in London (www.oswaldstoll.org.uk) and had more meetings about setting up the next Gardening Leave at the Royal Hospital Chelsea so the show goes on. 

 Now it feels like autumn and at our Volunteers Training Day on Wednesday, as we sat outside in the sunshine, we started talking about Christmas…….

 Happy Days,

Anna BC.