Following lunch at The Anchor in Diglis, a number of members visited the Diglis Island and Fish Pass. Fortunately the weather was kind to us as we took a walking guided tour around Diglis Island. It is a fascinating place to visit with lots of industrial heritage to both hear about and see. The tour finished with a visit to the Fish Pass at Diglis Weir. Built to help fish migrate and move upstream, this important project has helped endangered fish such as shad. Our guide was excellent in explaining how the fish pass works and entertained us whilst we waited for the elusive fish to show themselves at the viewing. A dace did eventually show itself so we could happily say we had seen a live fish at the Pass! It was a great afternoon and I am sure some of us will return to the Pass when the shad and salmon begin their migratory travels. 

Delights indeed if you like a quiz or two. As promised in our earlier blog, the cheese anagrams and the cheese quiz. The questions will be on the first page and the answers on the second page of each document. Have fun! 

As promised, here are our members’ favourite recipes with cheese, including of course, the winning entry Golden Topped Cod. Details for the home made halloumi are also attached (from Gerard Baker). Enjoy ….

Question: how do you approach an angry cheese? Caerphilly!!!
Now the cheesy joke is out the way, what about the meeting? Well it was full of all sorts of cheesy delights. First, we travelled around the UK with a cheese taste test trying to guess from which UK counties, various cheeses were from. This was followed with a cheese making demonstration of halloumi cheese, followed of course by a taste of this home-made halloumi (from a Blue Peter style, here’s one made earlier halloumi cheese) - delicious. As well as our taste buds, our brains were put to the test with a cheese quiz and some cheese anagrams. 
The President’s Challenge for this month was ‘Your favourite cheese based recipe’; the winner by popular vote was Golden Topped Cod. 
This recipe together with the other entries and the home made halloumi cheese will follow on a later blog, along with the cheesy quiz and anagrams. 
Overall it was a ‘Brie-lliant’ night….. 

Back in 2020, during the first lockdown, the villagers of Eckington were invited to help build Ecki the Snake. Based in the village churchyard, Ecki grew as villagers added their own decorated stone. Ecki is now several meters long and we hope that at some stage, he will find a home in a community space and be a permanent resident of the village! Whilst members may have added their own stone, we knew we couldn’t let Ecki go without a designated WI stone. So with many thanks to our talented Jo, there is now a WI stone with Ecki…..

Our July meeting was an enthusiastic romp through the lows and highs of antique buying. Chris O’Grady gave an entertaining insight into this world and excelled with his stories of some fascinating finds. He finished the evening giving advice to those members who had brought personal items for him to assess.

Following a tasty lunch at Revills, several WI ladies continued onto Showborough Garden to see the latest Sculpture Trail.

As we were celebrating the Coronation in May, we deferred our Annual Meeting to June. Members received reports from the President, Treasurer and the Committee on the previous 12 months. The Committee Report took the form of a powerpoint presentation of our activities; it was fun to look back at all the many different things we got up too. 
As is usual at the Annual Meeting, the Committee stood down so a new Committee could be elected. Unsurprising all previous Committee members were re-elected and Jenny was voted our President for another year; we have encouraged members to come and visit our meetings in the hopes more may be encouraged to join.