Author: Wansteadium

The traditional Good Friday ecumenical procession of churches through Wanstead will start from Wanstead Methodist Church on Hermon Hill at 10.30am. Just so you know. Pictures welcome at wansteadium@gmail.com.

Hard to go wrong photographing the bluebells in Wanstead Park. But ace snapsman Clive Power has definitely done something right. More of his pictures here. Click the image to have a really close look.

Wansteadium reader Rebecca, a resident of the Counties, writes:

As a subscriber to your news and updates I thought a quick email might be of value…
We were disturbed at about 4am when someone was (we think) attempting to ‘fish’ through our letter box and take car keys.

Luckily we don’t leave them near the door but this doesn’t mean that we weren’t pretty frightened at the thought of our security being compromised.

I just thought it might be handy to give the residents of Wanstead a gentle reminder about letterbox crimes. It’s certainly made us re-evaluate our home security. Keep keys away from the door, even consider getting something to obstruct anything other than letters coming through, for example this. More info here.

@RedbridgeLive what's being done about the Eagle pond. #disgraceful @Wansteadium any idea on who looks after this? pic.twitter.com/Hu5WvvWbUk

— MMSmith (@macatsmith09) April 13, 2014

Answers on a postcard please.

UPDATE: Answer came there like this:

@macatsmith09 @RedbridgeLive @Wansteadium It's wind-blown litter people have left. Repeatedly cleaned up, will be again. @CoLEppingForest

— City of London (@cityoflondon) April 15, 2014

Marian Temple, guerrilla gardener, who invited Wansteadium readers to join her in sorting out the garden areas around Wanstead Station last Sunday morning, writes:

Obviously this was the place to see and be seen. Unfortunately, quite a few people were going off to see a crowd of people running 26 miles. Not a brilliant piece of organisation on the part of M. Temple! However – five of us met at the station for a “clean up sad patches of soil” session.

Amazing how much we got done. Masses of weeding, and it’s the right time to do it as the weeds are not yet at the point where they shed seeds as you yank ‘em out. Masses of litter removing, a whole green bag full of recyclables. Station staff happy to fill our watering can. Geraniums planted on the outer patches where they should delight Wansteadians later on in the season and bits of other plantery happened.

We need another session to clean up – maybe three more patches and start a bit of serious planting. Also, I’ve got loads of wild flower seeds which can be scattered around. Suggest this Sunday 20th 11.00 at the station. Hopefully, nobody will be running 26miles but I expect there’ll be some other unmissable event to give us competition. Never mind. All welcome, kids especially. No gardening experience at all necessary but might be useful to bring any garden tools and gloves if you have ‘em.

See you at the station. Marian Temple.

UPDATE: Ouf! I see that the 20th is actually Easter Sunday. Why do these events keep getting in the way of serious Wanstead plantery? Nevertheless, we’ll stick to this date and hope that a few people can come along. My thinking is that the weekend is the best time for many people but at this time of year, it’s wise to get rid of weeds as soon as poss. Another week of glorious sunshine and they’ll be joyously shedding seeds as we pull them out. I expect there will be another session after this one so watch this space.

Suki Orange, Wansteadium’s food blogger, writes about something other than food…

I know I’m not alone in sometimes, once in a while, needing somewhere in Wanstead to do a bit of work.  I mean I have a regular place of work (beautiful walnut roll-edged desk, naturally) but sometimes I  need somewhere in or around the High Street to concentrate for an hour or two.

My needs are simple. A table, a chair, solid wifi, and some access to a power socket. It’s not a lot, and I’ve often thought that I might even be prepared to pay a little bit for it. But there’s only one place in Wanstead, apart from dear old Starbucks,  which really fits the bill, and that’s the library, which gets chockablock by mid-morning.

The other day I was unsuccessfully looking for a spot among the audiobooks and old copies of the Sunday Times there, and wandered to the ladies’, when I noticed a rather unhelpful note on the door of the Churchill Room. That’s the hall by the side, where they have arty fairs. This note read: “This room is not for study or work.” It made it sound rather like there were gangs of youths flitting round Wanstead, taking advantage of any spare room to swarm in and stage an impromptu discussion of the parallels of social discontent in Lord of the Flies.

So it was interesting to see, on a recent trip to the delightful Rivington Bar and Grill in Shoreditch (the restaurant’s setting is wonderful, feeling almost like a shady bit of New York or even Paris somehow) that I stumbled on this little place in the picture.  Probably not too much money to be made of an idea like this in Wanstead, but it’s not like the High Street doesn’t have any vacant properties, is it? The Painted House pop-up office space, anyone?