The Friends of St. Mary’s are the fund raising arm of The St. Mary’s Hadleigh Church Trust – a charity formed to assist with the benefit and upkeep of the Church building and its surroundings.
Today they hosted the second Hadleigh Open Gardens Day – sixteen gardens were open to the public throughout Hadleigh. We opened our garden last year but this year we stood back and put our focus elsewhere. I had in any case seen some of the gardens as I delivered the “garden pack” to a few exhibitors.
s Lunches (an innovation this s Lunch as well as taking the money.
The food department served over fifty meals, so despite the poor weather and competition from the World Cup, Wimbledon and the Rugby Club Beer Festival I think they did quite well. The event attracts people from outside Hadleigh and last year we even had visitors from Texas. Elsewhere in the Church were the home made cake and plants stalls.
Next week the Deanery are holding the fundraising event Stand Up for Chairs. This is focused on raising funds to purchase the chairs which are to replace the pews. Over thirty thousand pounds has been raised so far but more is required.
The Church currently has a selection of chairs on display and you have the opportunity to vote for your preferences.
So turn up on Saturday and if you can’t find as excuse to spend money on the stalls then just donate it!
I look forward to seeing you there.
Nice Things
Shallow Puddles
We’ve recently taken out a subscription to the Spectator.
One of the joys of this magazine is the weekly competition and at the beginning of the month readers were invited to invent proverbs that sound profound but have no meaning (although if you search hard enough you can find meaning in everything). The best entries contained just the promise of profound meaning. Thus my favourite is “the shallow puddle floods no meadows”. Other enigmatic sayings to commit to memory and use again are:
When you don’t know where you are going , every route is a shortcut.
The overcoat of deceit will not deter the lizard of oblivion.
Beware the bridge that stops halfway across.
A chiropodist will not remember you by the colour of your eyes.
Watch this space for shallow puddle usage
Reusing the Dog and Bone Box
I saw this in Hintlesham on Sunday. It seems a great way to reuse old telephone boxes, recycle previously enjoyed books and promote community togetherness – all at minimal cost.
Women’s Cycling Tour& Hadleigh
On Sunday May 11th, the fifth and final stage of the Women’s Cycle Tour will pass through Hadleigh en route to Angel Hill in Bury St Edmunds.
There will be a programme of rolling road closures along the route as the tour passes through the District. Suffolk County Council has advised that there will be TEMPORARY NO PARKING RESTRICTION areas in Hadleigh along Benton Street, High Street, Bridge Street and Gallows Hill. Vehicles parked in these designated areas between 8.00am-2.00pm on Sunday 11th May 2014 may be towed away.
As soon as the race has passed through the town the parking restrictions will be lifted.
South Suffolk Leisure, working in partnership with Hadleigh Cycling Club will be supporting the Women’s Tour. They will be promoting family health & well-being. There will be lots of FREE healthy tasters and GOLDEN tickets for all the family. There will also be information available on how to get involved in cycling and many other physical/sporting activities as well as a CYCLE 4 Your SWIM which is a family friendly 5K cycle ride starting and finishing at Hadleigh Pool & Leisure. There will be clues to collect at each check point and successful completion of the 5K journey on Sunday 11th May will unlock a free afternoon swim for the family.
Free Compost Giveaway
National Compost Awareness Week runs from Monday 5th to Sunday 11th May.
A variety of events and activities are taking place throughout the county to celebrate the magic of composting!
To celebrate the week and to thank Suffolk residents for supporting green waste recycling services, officers will be giving out free bags of compost, whilst stocks last, to Suffolk residents visiting selected Household Waste Recycling Centres across the county.
Green fingered residents will be able to pick up a 25 litre bag of soil improver together with information on home composting and local authority green waste collection services, at six Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRC). The Hadleigh HWRC will be giving away compost on Wednesday 7th May, 10am – 3pm
Composting is nature’s way of recycling organic materials to make a nutrient-rich soil improver – to help your garden bloom and your vegetables flourish. You don’t have to be green-fingered to feel the benefit – by making use of your garden and organic kitchen you’ll be doing your bit to help the environment by making peat-free composts containing recycled material. When sent to landfill, organic waste breaks down without oxygen, producing methane which contributes to global warming. An average household in Suffolk could divert 150kg of organic waste a year from landfill by home composting and significantly more if you use a composting system which deals with cooked food waste as well!
Compost Advice ‘Clinics’
There will be a number of ‘Compost Clinics’ during the week where Suffolk Master Composter volunteers will be ‘on call’ to show residents how to compost at home and to offer free trouble-shooting advice.
Further details can be found on http://www.suffolk.getcomposting.com or by calling 0844 571 4444 .
Unsafe Consumer Goods Through Felixstowe Port
Suffolk’s Trading Standards have proved their worth once again.
1256 “lethal” chainsaws,35,000 unsafe phone chargers, 400 tool sets and laser pens unfit for consumer use are amongst some of the products being destroyed following successful interventions at Felixstowe Port by Suffolk’s Trading Standards.
The products, shipped by three separate importers, were successfully intercepted as the containers were selected for examination because of their potential to cause serious injury. Following testing the goods were detained with parts earmarked for destruction and recycling. The chainsaws were found to be missing some necessary parts for safe use. Although laser pens are not illegal in the UK these are deemed too powerful for non-professional use and therefore not appropriate for their destination.
In 2012, 3.75 million consignments or 42% of UK container traffic came through Felixstowe, making it one of the largest points of entry in the UK. Most unsafe products that arrive at this port are toys, electrical appliances, smoke alarms, LED lights, chainsaws and dental equipment. Currently, of the goods being sampled, 78% are identified as unsafe.
Border controls are a far more effective way of identifying non-compliant and unsafe products than once they are available on the market. It’s good news that the National Trading Standards Board continues to fund this critical work, carried out by Trading Standards Officers working at the UK’s largest container port.”
Suffolk residents comcerned about the safety of any product should immediately stop using the product and seek advice from Citizens Advice. For further advice and information regarding possible fake or sub standard products please visit http://www.adviceguide.org.uk or call 08454 04 05 06
The Assassins Have Failed
The blog post “Barking Up The Wrong Tree” suggests having this Post-it Note on your fridge door as a good way of starting the day
ANZAC Day
This afternoon I attended an Anzac Day service at St. Mary’s, Hadleigh to commemorate the Australians and New Zealanders “who served and died in all wars, conflicts, and peacekeeping operations” and “the contribution and suffering of all those who have served.
Originally 25th April every year was to honour the members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) who fought at Gallipoli in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. The Gallipoli Campaign also took the lives of fifteen Hadleigh soldiers which added to the poignancy of the occasion. The idea of the campaign was to capture the Gallipoli Peninsula and open the way to the Black Sea for the Allied navies. The Allied forces landed at Gallipoli on 25 April, meeting fierce resistance from the Ottoman Army commanded by Mustafa Kemal (later known as Atatürk). What had been planned as a bold strike to knock the Ottomans out of the war quickly became a stalemate, and the campaign dragged on for eight months. At the end of 1915, the Allied forces were evacuated after both sides had suffered heavy casualties and endured great hardships. In 1934, Kemal Atatürk delivered the following words to the first Australians, New Zealanders and British to visit the Gallipoli battlefields.
“Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives. You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours. You, the mothers, who sent their sons from far away countries, wipe away your tears. Your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace, after having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well”.
I Fagiolini
On Monday we went to the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse in London to see “The Boat from Venice to Padua” which featured I Fagiolini in concert. The first part of evening was devoted to a musical comedy in Italian but with the linkage in English. The second half of the evening was devoted to madrigals some tracking Monteverdi’s development. (linking the transition between the heritage of Renaissance polyphony and the basso continuo technique of the Baroque). Apart from the linkages, everything was in Italian and although my Italian is based upon what I have picked up from watching the Montelbano series, I nevertheless could stay with the flow and enjoyed the evening very much. We also dined (quite reasonably) in the Swan Restaurant before the show.
The Globe Theatre is based on the Elizabethan original and the roof of the stage and all galleries are held up by pillars and there is no seat in the theatre from which the action is not obscured at some point. The seats are cushioned but hard. I subsequently discovered that we could hire extra cushions. We got ours (as fish box cushions) from Snowy’s Bait And Tackle, 1-3 Long Bessels in Hadleigh (Tel: 07766 140624).
I Fagiolini have been performing since 1986. At New College, Oxford (the group’s home), their music was known as ‘beany’ music because most of the musicians that seemed to be interested in it (both amateur and professional) seemed to have an alternative lifestyle of knitted yoghurt and wholefood pullovers, living on a diet of nothing but pulses and beans. Stuck for a name at short notice, countertenor Richard Wyn Roberts proposed ‘the beans’; Robert Hollingworth suggested translating this into Italian as the first concert involved Monteverdi and it sounded nicer like that. This worked well until I Fagiolini first went to Italy and discovered the various slang connotations it has there. Different dictionaries tell you that fagiolini are ‘string beans’, ‘French beans’ or ‘little beans’. The last was the one intended.
I Fagiolini’s core repertoire is Renaissance and contemporary solo-voice ensemble repertoire. I’m looking forward to next year when they perform their new show Betrayal”. A Polyphonic Crime Drama based upon the life of Prince Carlo Gesualdo who was one of the more intriguing composers of the late Renaissance. His private life, bizarre behaviour and the planned double-murder of his wife and her lover have added to this allure. It promises to be a site-specific evening of love, intrigue and chilling secrets
Marriage of Figaro
Every now and then, we enjoy a complete surprise. So it was on Sunday when we went to the New Wolsey Theatre to see The Marriage of Figaro. It is an opera full of intrigue and continues the plot of The Barber of Seville several years later, and recounts a single “day of madness” (la folle giornata) in the palace of Count Almaviva near Seville, Spain. Rosina is now the Countess; Dr. Bartolo is seeking revenge against Figaro for thwarting his plans to marry Rosina himself; and Count Almaviva has degenerated from the romantic youth of Barber into a scheming, bullying, skirt-chasing baritone. Having gratefully given Figaro a job as head of his servant-staff, he is now persistently trying to obtain the favours of Figaro’s bride-to-be, Susanna. He keeps finding excuses to delay the civil part of the wedding of his two servants, which is arranged for this very day. Figaro, Susanna, and the Countess conspire to embarrass the Count and expose his scheming. He responds by trying to compel Figaro legally to marry a woman old enough to be his mother, but it turns out at the last minute that she really is his mother. Through Figaro’s and Susanna’s clever manipulations, the Count’s love for his Countess is finally restored. The nine performers were from the Swansea City Opera. It was a fantastic evening. The theatre was full and as far as I am aware no one fell asleep.
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