Apologies for the lateness of this newsletter- should have been December. The best laid plans of mice and men…..We hope the delay didn’t spoil your Christmas. Anyway, (belated) happy new year! Re the above picture, sometimes you’ve just got a few minutes, or a few days to capture something. Just pot luck whether you’re at the right place at the right time. A few more of these later.
Amphitheatre
Back in the summer (remember that?), there was a short, ad hoc, but pleasurable event. A visiting ladies choir from Dublin, being hosted, we believe, by the village of Ashton Keynes, came to the amphitheatre and performed a piece from their repertoire. It was a very windy day but, nevertheless, we were taken aback by the clarity and quality of the acoustics. 15 minutes either way and we would have missed it but it added to the enjoyment of the day.
On a further positive note, the AQIVA video of everything within our patch and around town has been completed and you can now watch it here! It’s been a long time in the making, but well worth the wait.
Querns Wood
Usually gets very little mention in our newsletters, but a couple of photos below illustrate our previous “right place, right time” comment.
Four Acre Field
It doesn’t seem long ago that you were hard put to find a single blade of green grass on the field – just a parched, brown wasteland. By contrast, more recently parts of it have borne more resemblance to a paddy field.
Once again we are immensely grateful to a team of volunteers from St James’s Place who worked with us at the end of October to trim the hedgerow and clear a year’s worth of rubbish and unwanted growth. It would be nice to think that this might become an annual event.
Obelisk
You may recall that in our previous newsletter we advised of the sad passing of one of our founder members, Les Stapley. We wanted to mark this in some lasting way and decided that the planting of a tree in his memory would be appropriate. We checked with Glenys, his wife, whether she would approve, and her reply was that he would be “honoured and tickled pink”. A rowan (mountain ash) was selected and a tree planting ceremony was held on 22nd November. Several members of his family came along, spanning 4 generations. Even the rain subsided to a light drizzle while we were there and the gathering was informal and relaxed – just what we believe Les would have wanted.
The tree is within sight of the scout hut where we all started out and where Les had been caretaker for many years. A great deal of our work is carried out in the obelisk area which means that we can keep an eye on the tree and Les can keep an eye on us to make sure we’re doing a decent job.
Our final work party of the year was held in October, general weeding, tidying up and giving the hedging along the back of the car park it’s annual trim.
Our work parties are held on the first Tuesday of every month (April to October) 6pm to 8pm (April & October sessions 5 – 7 due to fading light). We’d love for you to join us sometimes – for more information, please contact: Alison at aqivasec@gmail.com
And as always…
More photos and other info on Facebook:
We continue our committee meetings by Zoom on the 4th Thursday of every month, except December. You are very welcome to join us if you wish and our next meeting will be on 26 February- all are welcome. If you would like to attend, please contact Alison on aqivasec@gmail.com who will forward the agenda and zoom link.
And if you have friends, family, neighbours or anyone who might be interested in learning more about what is going on, please pass on our contact details.
