Holiday from Home - summer 2025
This year’s HfH was a week earlier than last year which may explain the slightly lower numbers attending, but those that did come expressed their delight and grateful thanks.
We started with a wonderful talk by one of our regular speakers, Chris Davies, who led us around the Spitalfields area with Silks, Spooks and Soup Kitchens. Once populated by the Huguenots escaping persecution in France, it then became a centre for the Jewish rag trade. As always with Chris’ talks one needs to look up to the tops of the building to get clues to the past. We then attempted to make Suffolk puffs – they didn’t work but we tried!
The afternoon brought us into the church whereby Malcolm took us on holiday with music and film clips from the movies. We flew with those 
Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines and danced the Cancan in Paris, Liza Minnelli took us to a Cabaret in Berlin and Sinatra sailed us down the Mississippi in Ol’ Man River. Armchair traveller
Thursday was a St Mary’s church-led day with Melita and other crafters from the church getting us to stitch patchwork hexagons, crochet, and knit. Some folk struggled physically but were quite happy to sit and chat, and Audrey entertained us, draping some very old family silk cloths around herself.
After lunch Alan, who plays the piano at St Mary’s, joined us and entertained us with a huge variety of songs from the past which we could, and did, sing along to. He set us a challenge to name that flower from the tune he was playing – Yellow Rose of Texas was easy, as was Edelweiss and I think we got most of them right.
Our final day on Friday had our friend Monica helping us to create a summer flower decoration from popcorn containers, small enough to sit on a windowsill. The final results were fantastic.
When we moved back into the large hall we learned that a murder was about to be committed and that we would have to decide ‘who dunnit’! Bridget and a group of friends read an amdram script and we had to pay attention and then vote on who had committed the dastardly crime, and why. By a narrow vote a number of us got it right but for a variety of different reasons. I don’t think the Met police are going to be calling on the HfH folk to help with too many crimes!
Throughout the week we had been brilliantly fed by Alistair and his sous chef Bruce. We had poached salmon one day, quiches the next and on Friday beautifully cooked stuffed chicken wrapped in bacon.
Oh - and the puddings and the a
fternoon cake – delicious!!
In fact Alistair and Bruce were so relaxed about all the catering they even found time to attempt the ongoing jigsaw.
As folk left or were dropped home in the minibus they all expressed their delight and thanks for a fabulous three days and asked the question – when is the next one?
Our thanks go to everyone who ran any of the sessions, you were all fantastic.
Teresa and the Team
And it’s a huge thank you to the amazing HfH team – those looking after transport, the catering, the money, first aid, tables and chairs – none of the above could have happened without your input.
THANK YOU
Teresa