Author: Wansteadium

So, erm… what to do with Christmas trees this year?

It’s been Wansteadium’s practice on Twelfth Night to refer readers to the excellent Redbridge-i page where one could – with pretty much a single click – place an order for your Christmas tree to be collected from your front garden. It’s always been a great service, and much appreciated by many households.

This year, extra funding was secured by the council to extend the weekly collection of green garden waste to an all-year-round service. (Wansteadium did wonder privately just how much garden rubbish is produced in January and February.) But it seems the move has had an unintended consequence: you can now only have your Christmas tree collected IF IT IS SMALLER THAN 10cm IN DIAMETER and 122cm LONG. Here are the site’s actual words:

tree

Now these are days of austerity, but just how many Christmas trees fit this bill is open to question. None, one would guess. Which means that to be eligible for Christmas tree collection – following this improvement in service – one must take a saw and chop one’s tree into small chunks. If, heaven forfend, the trunk of your tree has a wider diameter than 10cm, then doorstep collection does not from this year seem to be option for you. Instead the council asks you to bring your tree to Chigwell Road Recycling Centre. (It doesn’t say which bus routes serve it, unfortunately.)

UPDATE 2pm:

newtree

Farewell Nicole’s

photo 1 (5)
photo 2 (6)
Nicole’s, the card and gift shop in Wanstead High Street, is closing down today, Saturday. A notice in the window says the branch is shutting and business will now be carried on from its Woodford Green branch.

It was in the height of the great Wanstead parking wars, which ended last summer, that shopkeepers complained most bitterly about how difficult it was for people to stop and shop in Wanstead High Street. And it was at the Area1 committee last May which discussed the problem at which the potential closure of Nicole’s was first mentioned.

The apparent solution to the parking problems, and Christmas, have evidently not been enough to persuade the shop it can continue – though the Rio shoe shop near Starbucks reversed its closure plan at the 11th hour in the Autumn. Though Nicole’s has been looking tired for a while, it was a good source of greetings cards and presents and as such a useful addition to the High Street.

It is not yet known what if anything will be taking Nicole’s place – there are already a number of vacant shops on the High Street.

* Wanstead News, the newsagent near the Corner House, is apparently for sale. This listing has appeared on Rightmove offering the business with a nine-year lease for sale for £75k. (Credit to reader Mrs Robespierre who spotted it and reported it on Wanstead Talk.)news

 

 

 

Wansteadium’s Most Read in 2013

At this time each year we take a look back at what have been the most read pages on Wansteadium in the past 12 months. Before we do that, though, a word about total audience size. According to Google Analytics, our audience figures from 1 January to 30 December are as follows:
stats2013

This compares to 2012’s totals of 79,063 visits in total, from 28,934 different people (“unique visitors”), and 134,335 pageviews in the year. So all in all, quite satisfactory.

The biggest stories were as follows:

1. Reviews for Sumo Fresh welcome. (August)
2. Inside Wanstead’s new tea shop (November 2011)
3. Wanstead named as one of UK’s top 10 places to live (March)
4. Yes, sushi is on its way to Wanstead (April)
5. Turkish Delight? Reviews welcome (October 2011)
6. Odd sign (July)
7. Announcing the first ever Wanstead Fringe (July)
8. Police ‘foil armed robbery’ on Wanstead High Street (May)
9. A shopping arcade for Wanstead High Street? (October)
10. The Duke lives (November)

Two other things. There is a short video here rounding up which have been the most interesting Wansteadium tweets in the past year – and who are our “golden followers”. The results are that in third place (down from last year’s top spot) is @nick_affleck. In at number two is @redbridgeblue. Which means that this year’s queen of the tweets is the person with the best patter in gory details of the real East End, celebrated local crime novelist @anyalipska. Watch out for her second novel which will be coming out in the New Year.

And while it’s pats on backs all round, what a jolly time to reach our 750th e-mail subscriber. Thank you to everyone who subscribes – it’s the best way of keeping in touch. You can join the select band here. And if you already subscribe, do Wansteadium a favour, and forward the e-mail to any of your friends who might appreciate it. They’ll probably thank you in hard cash.

Happy New Year everyone.