Didsbury Park's Week of Remembrance and Revival: A Community Effort
For the first time ever we are going to divide this week’s update into two parts. Part 1 will be a shortened version of my regular report, and part 2 will be sent out at 9:00am tomorrow morning.
Please do not miss part 2 - it is important! You will not be disappointed!
SATURDAY 11TH NOVEMBER - ACT OF REMEMBRANCE
I am pleased to report that we had an excellent turnout of over 50 park users and local people at the Poppy Path Act of Remembrance on Saturday where, in wall-to-wall blue skies and sunshine, many participants planted crosses containing personal messages and everybody sowed poppy seeds.
Thank you to Allan for (completely on his own initiative on Friday), preparing the wreath site (see picture 1) and to Pauline for arranging for the poppy mural on the bridge to be repainted on Friday also. On Saturday special thanks must go to the buglers Daniel and Callum, and to readers Father Patrick Thom, Mike and myself, and to the cafe staff who hosted our teas and coffees afterwards.
TODAY
We had an amazing turnout of 54 volunteers in the park this morning. This was a really good number especially as the weather forecast for this morning was not very good. As it turned out, we were very lucky and it stayed dry throughout.
Today our volunteers included 14 volunteers from NatWest (see picture 2), Steve and Bill who arrived with a rescued oak tree for us to replant (see picture 3), Jeff and a tree specialist who arrived to plant a new Nyssa Sylvatica tree with assistance from everyone in picture 4, and new volunteer Stephani. Everybody was made very welcome.
Special thanks also to Grace who today treated us once again to some of her wonderful baking at the coffee break time. Thank you Grace!
SPRING BULB PLANTING
We made phenomenal strides today in planting spring bulbs throughout the park. We planted all the daffodil bulbs, a large number of snowdrops and bluebells and we now only have about 5,000 more bulbs to plant before we have completely planted all of this year's supply. This is amazing progress compared with last year when we were still planting bulbs in January.
Picture 5 shows the daffodil planting team behind the 3 dogs carving. Picture 6 shows the bluebell planting team in the woodland area. Roger and Tristan planted a variety of bulbs in the flower bed near the Bird Garden, the Flower Walk team planted muscari, winter aconite and fritillaria in the Flower Walk and Joyce, Gill B, Carl M, Ian and Sandra worked hard to clear nettles and plant the remaining daffodils in the bed leading to the children's playground.
Overall about 20 volunteers were just dedicated to bulb planting today and they all made some great progress - Thank you all.
A DAY FOR CLEANING UP
There were a number of initiatives today to clean & tidy up parts of the park.
Picture 7 shows David all geared up with the leaf blower ready to clear some of the paths - a task which was going so well until the wind really got up and covered them all up again. Picture 8 shows the team on the Poppy Path who gave the newly painted Poppy Bridge a thoroughly good cleaning - it looked splendid afterwards. A new team including our new volunteer Stephani, was set up after coffee and cleaned and tidied up every lectern in the park - thank you all.
POPPY PATH
Once the Poppy Bridge was cleaned, the team went on to do lots of excellent weeding work with Robin on the Poppy Path - thank you
FLOWER WALK
Thanks to some significant plant donations from Ilma and Diane this morning, the Flower Walk team in picture 9 had plenty to do, stocking up the new flower bed with the new plants and bulbs. Well done everyone and thank you.
MUDDY PATH TO CAFE
For the 3rd (and final time) today we tackled the muddy path which has been created by the public between the roundabout and the cafe. We decided to try once again to re-seed it. Fingers crossed - but we are considering alternative solutions as well!!
Please accept my apologies if I have not specifically mentioned your name in this 'update' today - I hope you will understand when you read tomorrow's blog!
Thank you once again for your amazing support.