KIT - September 2025

Today was a little special as it was my 70th birthday!  What better way to enjoy it than to play tennis with some lovely people in bright sunshine (though actually the bright sunshine proved to be a bit of a problem!).

To help celebrate I made a crostata - and the relevant numbers actually almost coincided, as this was the 67th time we have played for the trophy!

The competitors today were:

Rosie, Emma, Gill & Carey + David, Ken, Martin & Andy

..... and after the round robin matches, the final ended up as:

 David & Emma v Martin & Gill

The final itself was of a very high quality with Martin & Gill winning by a score of 7-5

(it was only afterwards that Martin admitted to the fact that he got back yesterday from a tennis coaching holiday in Portugal!)

The finalists today - Martin, Gill, David & Emma

The winners - Martin & Gill

WIT - 15th September 2025

This afternoon marked the 11th time we had played for the little padel trophy!

It was a very blustery day with short, sharp showers at the start of the competition.

The 8 people playing today were:

Greg, David, Ken and Kish + Annie, Tess, Carey and Caryl

with the final ending up as being:

Annie & David v Carey & Kish

Here are a selection of some of photos from the one set final, 

which was eventually won by Annie & David with a score of 6-2

The finalists - David, Annie, Carey & Kish

The winners - David & Annie

.... and now for some action shots from the 4 finalists!

.... and here are a few from today's winners!

The autumn will see work being done to continue to improve the padel courts at Worldham, so there will be a bigger gap than usual before we have our next padel competition!  However, before then, we will have the inaugural mixed 8 pickleball one - once enough people have learnt how to play!

Kindness - August 2025

 "Once more unto the breech, dear friends"

This is it - the last (and possibly the trickiest) topic!

Ken - I had a wander through Alton one evening in August and took photos of all the charity shops that I could spot.  You will need to bear with me, as there were quite a lot!

.... and while these photographs themselves would never make it through to any photographic exhibition I think that collectively, the various organisations represented in the images, demonstrate practical examples of kindness in action from a very large number of people:

Sue - what kindness this person showed to me xxx

Steve - Kinda Kindness!

My son Jonathan kindly spirited away my pre-loved Roller and had it professionally renovated. 

.... and to give you an idea of what it looked like before, here are a couple of images of another specimen in need of some TLC.

Here are couple of "kindness via cake" images from Don:

Don - from our decorators - beetroot (from their garden) & chocolate brownies

Don - from some neighbours - pear (from their garden) & chocolate cake

Kate - a kindness heart seen in a charity shop (not bought as I have enough stuff!)

Kate - sharing the bounty of the garden

Kate - free to visit installation at Southwark Cathedral of Peace Doves. 

(15,000 origami doves with prayers and messages of love and peace)

Gaynor - kindness - community

Gaynor - kindness - leadership

Gaynor - kindness - inclusivity

.... and that really is finally the end folks!  

Thank you for all your photographs every month since October 2018 - almost 7 years!

.... but how to end it all off?  

Perhaps with the moral from Aesop's tale of "The Lion and the Mouse"

"No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted"