Celebrating Gold Success, Carol Singing, and a Year of Volunteering in Didsbury Park
THIS WEEK - WEDNESDAY 4TH DECEMBER - GOLD AWARD
I am proud to report that on Wednesday last week I had the honour of collecting yet another award for the Friends of Didsbury Park. On Wednesday we received the prestigious 'gold' award (see picture 1) for the small parks category of the Britain in Bloom Competition. I understand that we were one of only six gold awards presented in the whole of the North West of England. Picture 2 shows a picture of me holding the award earlier today.
This is an amazing achievement by all our volunteers and a fitting climax to another fabulous year of volunteering in Didsbury Park - Brilliant!! Well done and thank you everyone!!
THIS WEEK - THURSDAY 5TH DECEMBER - GEOFF TO THE RESCUE
For many years we have stored lots of autumn leaves in our carefully constructed leaf pen, out of sight behind the bowls hut. However what we have learned from experience is that the longer you leave the leaves to rot in a leaf pen, then the more compact the whole area becomes, and after several years it reaches the point where it is so solid that it is almost impossible to dig by hand. So on Thursday, once again, Geoff came to our rescue when he brought his mechanical digger to the park to turn over the whole leaf pen area.
The resultant easily diggable, weed free mulch was just amazing, and Geoff left it ready for some serious spreading work on the flower beds to be done by our volunteers today. A huge thank you Geoff!
TODAY
Without any doubt the pinnacle of our volunteering in the park this morning was the wonderful carol singing by the Didsbury CoE Primary School choir. As we enjoyed our mince pies and mulled wine we were treated to some beautiful singing from the 15 members of the choir. It was great to see that everyone joined in with some of the more well known carols and Christmas songs. A great time was had by all.
A huge thank you to Ms Victoria Rippon, Headteacher, and the two teachers who accompanied the children. Thank you to Sandra for donating the tiramasu style panettone and to Jamie for allowing us to use the marquee in the DNC garden for the event and a huge thank you also to Ruth and the ladies in the cafe who ensured that the choir received their hot chocolate treats afterwards. The whole carol singing event with mince pies, panettone, mulled wine, coffees and hot chocolate went like clockwork thanks to some great organisation by Gill N, Sonia and Sonia's grand-daughter Millie. Thank you.
On a brisk, dry winter's day there were 40 of us in attendance on this last morning of volunteering before we return again on Monday 6th January 2025. Included in this number was Tim Pharo from Booking.com who was returning after previously volunteering with us. Picture 3 shows a picture of most of our volunteers after the carol singing. Rather amusingly picture 4 reflects some of the challenges of organising a group of our size to get ready for a photograph! Thank you to Cath, for having the patience to finally take a decent picture!
TODAY - JUST A FEW EXTRA BULBS
Just when we thought they had all been planted, this morning, we found about another 400 spring bulbs in boxes which we had missed. Picture 5 shows Grace, Christine, Sandra and Gill having some fun taking the tete-a-tete bulbs out of their packaging. Picture 6 shows Charlie, Grace and Sandra in the process of preparing the holes ready to plant the bulbs in the Bird Garden.
They were also helped by Christine and Gill N to achieve the ultimate challenge of completing the last of the 25,000 new bulbs we have planted this year!! With this year's additional bulbs added to the bulbs planted in the previous 10 years we must now be approaching the park containing nearly 200,000 spring bulbs - I cannot wait to see how beautiful the park will look in Spring when all these flowers emerge. Thank you to everyone who has been involved in this year's bulb planting!!
TODAY - LET'S MULCH
There was a large group of volunteers spreading mulch on the flower beds around the park this morning. The key target areas were the flower beds at the Wilmslow Road entrance and along the Flower Walk.
Picture 7 shows Jude with a wheelbarrow full of mulch and Lucy and Julie preparing the flower bed before the mulch could be spread. Elsewhere we had a very busy mulching team of Kevin, Tim, Adrian, Steve, Tristan, Lorna, Carl N, John and Murray. Thank you all. This was a great job.
TODAY - COULD THESE BE THE FINAL LEAVES FOR 2024 - AGAIN!!
It looks like, during the last few days, Storm Darragh has managed to bring down the last of this year's leaves in the park. (Let's hope so!!). In order to remove the danger of the leaves becoming a slip hazard, our team of Gill B, Joyce, Wendy, Bettina, Anne and Sonia worked with Allan in the area around Buddy and Lucy where the leaves were the heaviest.
Picture 8 shows Allan all geared up with the leaf blower ready to clear the paths around the Sandhurst Road entrance. Thank you everyone - this area looked fantastic afterwards.
TODAY - LITTER PICKING
It was great to see Aristhote and his job coach Lesha working with us today and once again doing a superb litter pick throughout the park. Well done and thank you.
HAPPY CHRISTMAS
We have now officially broken up for Christmas and we will return on Monday 6th January.
I would like to wish everybody a very Happy Christmas and to say a huge thank you for your amazing support throughout this very successful year.