ABIGAIL Langston-Wring will be giving a reflexology demonstration to the Stratton and Bradford Peverell Women’s Institute on Thursday, April 16. For more information please contact the WI President on 01305 262649.

  • THE LIBRARY van will visit the lay-by in Dorchester Road, Stratton (opposite Furbers Paddock) between 10.05 and 10.20am on Monday April 27 and Monday, May 11.
  • KNOB Throwing is on the agenda again for Cattistock’s second Dorset Knob Throwing & Frome Valley Food Festival. The event takes place in the Savill Hall and Cattistock Playing Field between 10am and 4pm on Sunday, May 3. Admission is £2 (under 12’s free). Car parking is free. Activities will include knob throwing, a knob and spoon race, paint a knob and many others. There will also be a food festival and stalls, demonstrations and sampling, supporting the local environment and local businesses, and encouraging the reduction of food miles. Mat Folas (recently declared BBC’s Masterchef Champion 2009) will be attending the event. Top celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal is donating a signed copy of his Big Fat Duck Cookbook for the prize draw and his right-hand man and head chef at the Fat Duck in Bray, Ashley Palmer-Watts, will also be attending the event. Ashley, who is a local boy, hailing as he does from Maiden Newton, was in the limelight recently in Heston’s Channel 4 series ‘making over’ the Little Chef at Popham. Most of the excellent range of producers and suppliers who supported the event last year will be returning to be at the festival – along with a number of new ones. Once again Moores (the producers of the famous Dorset Knob biscuit) in association with Direct from Dorset and the Dorset Area of Outstanding Beauty (AONB) partnership have agreed to give their assistance in supporting the event. Apart from supporting local food producers and having fun, the aim is to raise much needed funds for 4 village organisations – the Cricket Club, the Football Club, the Playing Fields and the Savill Hall. For more information, please contact Nigel or Shelley Collins on 01300 320404 or by email on collins.cattistock@virgin.net . You can also find out more by going to www.dorsetknobthrowing.com
  • FOLLOWING the success of last year’s event, Children of Fiji is holding another ‘regressive’ meal (ie moving from house to house for each course, but working backwards through the meal - starting with coffees and ending with the starters!) on Saturday, May 9 in the village of Cattistock. Tickets cost £12 each. Numbers are restricted, so please call us as soon as possible on 01300 320433 if you would like tickets for the meal.
  • THE MELBURY Osmond Garden & Show Society has organised a plant swap for Saturday, May 2 on the corner between the church and the Old Rectory. You can bring and buy, or barter those spare seedlings and saplings. 50% of the value of all transactions will be donated to the Society.
  • THIS is a reminder for members of the Ivy Club in Maiden Newton about the outing to Longleat on Tuesday, May 5. Please note that the time for departure is 9.30am.
  • FOR members of the Stratton & District Home and Garden Club there is a visit to Minterne Gardens at 2.30pm on Thursday, May 7. For this visit you need to organise your own transport or get together with other club members to arrange car share.