Sunshine, Royal Recognition and Horticultural Hard Work
TUESDAY - BUCKINGHAM PALACE GARDEN PARTY
I am delighted to report that Tuesday's Buckingham Palace Garden Party, in the sunshine, was an amazing event. It was a complete contrast to the torrential rain of last year's event. It was truly an honour to be there, and to have the chance to meet and chat to some lovely fellow guests who were all doing amazing things for their communities throughout the country. I felt immensely proud to be able to describe everything we have achieved in Didsbury Park too.
This year we also managed to have some garden party food which included royal sandwiches (without crusts) and cakes with chocolate crowns on top! I even had a royal conversation too! Thank you to everyone who put my name forward and supported the application for my British Empire Medal award. PIcture 1 shows Margaret and me in the gardens of the palace before the Royal Party arrived.
THE HISTORY OF DIDSBURY PARK - 1907
We have been having some discussions with the Friends of Fog Lane Park who think that they are approaching the centenary of the opening of their park. This got us thinking that maybe Didsbury Park was opened about the same time and were we also approaching our centenary too? So Louise volunteered to do some research into the archives of the park and has already come up with some interesting facts. Louise has already discovered many old photographs. I will try and share one of these each coming week in the update.
The first of these, Picture 2 above, shows the Wilmslow Road park entrance in 1907!!!! So it looks like Didsbury Park was in existence long before Fog Lane Park. How much more we still do not know. This picture is fascinating for a number of reasons. Here are a few:
Firstly all the large railings no longer exist. I wonder when they were taken away? We have of course now funded and installed new kick fencing in their place.
Secondly the large tree on the left of the path is still growing strong today - 118 years later. We have Roger to thank for the on going health of this tree, because he spent months in 2015 removing huge amounts of ivy which was embedded in the main trunk of this beautiful tree. Thank you Roger.
Thirdly, the building located along the wall on the right hand side, is in the grounds of Broome House. The remnants of this building are now incorporated into the garden wall of number 7 / 9 Heritage Gardens. This was a "squash court". Squash became popular in the UK following its take up at Harrow School in the I830's.
Fourthly just look how beautifully the path is constructed in 1907 - this certainly puts our pot holed path of today to shame.
Finally, this is definitely an amazingly atmospheric black and white picture, with the well dressed lady just reaching the top of the path in the distance. I wonder who she was and who she might be related to in Didsbury today?
A huge thank you to Louise for all her research to date! There are more pictures to come over the next few weeks BUT if you know anything about the history of the park (especially if you know when it was opened as a park) can you please let me or Louise know and we will collate it?
TODAY
Considering that rain was forecast and many of our regular volunteers were on holiday, we had a very credible turnout of 34 volunteers in the park on this Bank Holiday morning today. We were pleased to welcome newcomers Georg (originally from Basel in Switzerland) and his son Francis for the first time, and Malahima for the second time. It was also great to welcome some of our regular young volunteers who always come along when they are not at school. Picture 3 shows Xin, Zihas, Jeremy, Cyrus and Freeman about to undertake some litter picking and picture 4 shows Claire and Talia all kitted out to help with the litter picking too. Everybody was made very welcome.
We were also very spoilt at our break today when Grace treated us all to some beautiful home made cup cakes. They were delicious Grace and soon disappeared. Thank you!!
TODAY - CLEANING UP AFTER THE PARTIES IN THE PARK
There is no doubt that as we have improved the quality of the park then it is becoming more and more popular with the public. Whilst on the one hand this is a great achievement, we also need to recognise that this brings with it additional challenges. Picture 5 is an amazing photo of huge piles of litter taken yesterday by Pam, one of our volunteers, after a sunny day in the park over the weekend. It is great to see that in the photo the party goers in the park have bagged their rubbish but this only appears to have happened once the old fashioned open bins we have in the park are filled to overflowing.
Because we do not have the modern bins with lids, our open bins not only attract vermin but are a target for all our wildlife (squirrels and large birds mainly) who then spread the food etc from the open bins onto the surrounding areas. This open bin design has been in existence in Didsbury Park for at least the last 10 years and we would be very grateful if MCC would bring our bins up to modern day standards with lids.
Consequently today we had to employ both Xin and his family, Claire and her daughter, and Sandra (see picture 6) to do a thorough litter pick right across the park.
However we cannot leave the subject of litter without mentioning the superb job which our MCC colleagues do every morning in emptying our rubbish bins. Despite having to work with these open bins, Brian and his colleagues remove the bulk of the rubbish every morning and transform the park enabling us to do a more detailed litter pick afterwards. A huge thank you from us!!
TODAY - HORTICULTURAL PROGRESS
A lot of our work today was targeted once more on weeding areas of the park where the warm weather has produced an abundance of weeds. Picture 6 also shows one of the rose beds where Denise (in the picture with Sandra) worked really hard to weed it throughout. Thank you Denise. This looked great after your work.
A much larger team of volunteers worked in the area near the Wilmslow Road gate. Picture 7 shows the team of Francis, Shashvat, Georg, Christine, Katie, Jane, Myra and Chris. Tristan and Wendy were also part of this team but were out of camera shot. With this large number of people the impact on the flower beds near the Wilmslow Road gate were amazing. Thank you everyone.
Chris and Shashvat then went on to clean up the bases of several trees in the grassed area of the park. Picture 8 shows the results of their work on one of the amelanchiers near the cafe? Great work! Thank you.
Picture 9 shows not only some great work being undertaken on tidying the edging of the wild flower meadow by Allan and Carl M but encouragingly although we can see the dominance of the ox-eye daises on the wild flower meadow we are also seeing the yellow rattle starting to emerge to stifle the rogue grasses. Fingers crossed - at the moment we are seeing new wild flowers emerging every week on the wild flower meadow. Well done Allan and Carl!
Thanks to Lucy for doing some dedicated weeding on the Flower Walk. Well done Lucy.
Thanks also to Alan for his work around the rockery area. Great job Alan.
TODAY - OUR WICKET GETS BETTER AND BETTER EVERY WEEK
PIcture 10 shows the amazing results which can be achieved when somebody like Gary (pictured with the line marker) dedicates himself to creating an amazing cricket pitch. Every week Gary makes sure that this season's wicket gets a good cut and it is then meticulously marked out, ready for any enthusiastic young cricketers to experience 'time in the middle' on an excellent wicket. Well done Gary!!
TODAY - VANDALISM RAISING ITS UGLY HEAD AGAIN
I am really sorry to report that during the last week we have had instances of young boys climbing onto the roof of the volunteers shelter as well as smashing bottles in the Bird Garden (the dog free area where we encourage babies and toddlers to picnic and play). Denise and Louise, who first spotted the broken bottles this weekend, immediately went home to collect brushes and shovels and cleared it up. As a precaution Shasvat also did another inspection first thing this morning. A big thank you to Denise, Louise and Shasvat.
Today we also added anti climbing paint to the volunteers shelter roof along with a warning sign. Hopefully this will improve matters but can everybody please be vigilant for any vandalism during the next few days of half term.
ELSEWHERE IN THE PARK
Tom did some excellent maintenance work on the Poppy Path today - thank you Tom
Brenda did a super tidy up around the Gillbrook Road entrance - well done Brenda
We were delighted that Emma could make a special guest appearance today and was also able to join forces with Gill to not only refill all the dog bag dispensers at all 5 gates but also was also able to update every lectern and notice board in the park with the latest information. Thank you both for this amazing work.
Last but not least was the continued building progress made today on the new bug hotel. Thanks first of all to Denise and to Carol from Dalston Drive for donating terracotta pots to be used in the build. I understand from Kevin ad Greg who were hard at work on the build today that we are now at the roof building stage and the completion date is now estimated to be only a couple of weeks away. Thank you guys we had better start planning the opening ceremony!
Thank you also to Sandra who did some more construction work on the natural fence building activities in the woodland.
Finally thank you all once again for your continued fantastic support.