In this blog Peter writes about how the subject of the condition and general state of the school were discussed at the school reunion.

And how he was delegated to inspect the school and report back to the 'gang'.

In his latest blog Peter recounts the Wooodlands Old Boys reunion at the Walsgrave Hotel in Coventry.

In his latest blog Peter takes a step back in time to his school days and asks whether kids really do have it as hard these days!

After this week's uproar regarding Lola the cat being dumped in the bin, Angie decided to blog about the other injustices involving cats.

In his latest blog Peter writes about the changes in Eastern Green and asks you how well do you know your area!!

The Coventry Cat Group blog is back and kicks off with the tale of Romeo and Juliet and the Capulets.

In this blog Peter writes about the annual Spring fund raising event that helps the 21st Eastern Green Scout Group keep kids active and learning new skills.

By Peter Surtees

At last the election is behind us as well as most of the bad weather, (oh! those late frosts),so now hopefully we'll be able to spend a lot more time in the garden.

Out comes all of the garden furniture that's been stored away during those long cold winter months ready to have a good clean or maybe a coat of varnish. I'm really looking forward to the long summer evenings when we can sit out until tennish or even later and enjoy a barbeque and perhaps a nice bottle of wine, or a beer or two.

On the subject of gardens, The Coventry Telegraph is running a competition to find the nicest garden in Coventry and surrounding districts. During my walks around our area and trips into town on the number 10 bus, I've seen some really nice ones.

After all of the work that goes into them it would be nice to receive some small accolade and appreciation of the effort that it takes to have a really nice looking garden.

The main reward of course is for the family to enjoy it, but to see that little plot that you tend to all year having its picture published in a pull-out in the local paper or even winning a prize would be really great.

According to the flowers in my garden, Spring has finally arrived. When you hear the chimes of the ice-cream vans, the noise of the lawnmowers and the chats between neighbours who haven't wanted to socialise during the cold wet winter months but now feel more at ease to do so, then you know that summer is really on the way.

Saturday really was the day for me. Out came the lawnmower and the rest of the garden tools that have been rusting away in my shed all Winter.

These were followed by the garden chairs, table, sunshade etc. Next it will be the paint brushes, and all the other items needed to get the outside buildings sparkling and looking clean and tidy ready for those lovely months ahead. I wonder what the forecasters have in store for us this year. Will I need to get the barbeque out just yet or leave it a little while longer?

February in Eastern Green, not really much to write about except the disgusting condition of our roads.

Banner Lane and Jobs' Lane get my vote as being the worst in our area, but I'm sure that there are many more in need of repair in our city. It was the subject roads being in need of repair that prompted me to write this blog.

Back in 1993, with the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe and the apparent ease in which we could all travel through these countries, my wife and me decided to spend our holiday there.

We had three weeks and decided to drive as far East as we could in that time, hopefully reaching the Russian Border.

We fell short of that target by about 150 miles as there were many interesting places to visit en route.

By Peter Surtees

Well, all of the festive decorations are down but it still looks more than ever like Christmas out there. Now that the initial snowballing has ceased (due to the coldness of the snow making it less cohesive to turn into missiles I guess), I finally ventured outdoors.

The sun was shining and it was perfect for taking photographs.

I took one or two at the bottom of our street, including that wonderful eight foot snowman, but where I always wanted to take some snowy snaps, and not being too far to drive was Berkswell.

Usually the drive along the lane is quite bad in snowy weather. If the roads are too clear and you can get there easily, it means that there wont be much snow when you get there, which quite defeats the object.

By Peter Surtees

One of the nice things about this time of the year is seeing all of the Christmas lights.

I don't mean the ones in our town centres or shopping malls, but the lovely displays that ordinary people have in their gardens and outside of their houses.

It's great to walk around and see some of these fantastic light shows, and it really puts one in the festive mood.

People go to a lot of trouble and spend a lot of time, and money, in order to put on these attractions and they bring pleasure to many people.

Last year I walked around our little community and saw some really lovely light shows.

Not a lot has changed here in Eastern Green, with virtually the same displays in the same gardens.

Christmas markets are popular, and the Stereoscopic Society (meeting in St Barbara's Hall, Coventry) had a bring and buy sale of equipment, books, viewers and gadgets, as it does every year.

About 50 people and ten stalls, and lots of chattering about whether gadget A is better than Gadget B - it's a very friendly meeting.

Stereoscopy is developing fast at the moment, because although it is as old as photography itself, digital techniques have brought simplification; techniques which have needed an expert hand and eye before are now easy; so the message is the pictures themselves, not the medium.

Whilst this was going on in the main hall, Lance Potter showed a sequence of about a dozen of his cameras in one of the side rooms.

An iconic mahogany and brass square bellows camera started the sequence; it was used to show that a camera is just a light proof box with a method of projecting an image onto a light sensitive plate.

This simple idea has spawned well over 10,000 different cameras. This was followed by the tapering bellows camera shown on road signs indicating photography.

Then the Leica. We all use Leicas. Not literally of course, but Lance explained, and showed, how most camera manufacturers, including modern day giant operations such as Canon and Nikon, who at the end of WWII made direct copies of the Leica and Contax cameras respectively.

Zeiss Ikon stopped making the Contax in the 1950's but Nikon developed the design further to make a very desirable successor.

The twin lens reflex cameras are a different family, and he had a prototype of the design (the Heidoscop stereo camera) which became the immensely influential Rolleiflex line.

To tempt the collector, there are some interesting offshoots from the main development, such as a Contax with an optional back, so that tiny 35 mm ground glass plates could be incorporated as a focusing screen like a normal plate camera, and spy cameras such as the delightfully minute Tessina (made by Concava in Lugano, Switzerland) which James Bond ought to use instead of his Minox.

The Compass is another beautifully tiny camera, a little larger than the Tessina but vastly more sophisticated, made by a master watchmaker, Le Coultre of Geneva.

After a tea break, with seasonal mince pies for which we thank Keith and Kathy Wilson and Moira Heath, we moved on to a series of presentations of stereo images.

Every good presentation needs structure and a theme, and our Chairman Geoff Ogram achieved both very neatly. Gordon Jacob, English composer and friend of Geoff in earlier days, provided the structure in the four movements, with very distinct moods, of his "Four Fancies" for flute and string trio.

By applying the moods to the medium of water, Geoff had his theme.

The movements became Still, Flowing, Dramatic and Ornamental, reflected with added impact in his Geoff's stereo images.

I do not recall where the images were taken, but of course that is the point, they are, in this context, universal.

By Peter Surtees

I took these photographs in December 1990.

They show Sutton Avenue and Lower Eastern Green Lane after one of the worst snowfalls that we've had in this area for many years.

It virtually brought life to a standstill here with not much traffic daring to venture out. The snow started on a Saturday and eventually stopped the next day.

The kids loved it especially as it was the weekend, although the schools would have had to close if the snow came down on a weekday.