Category: Wansteadium

Letter to Wansteadium: Trim, Trim, Trim

20110708-055909.jpgWansteadium reader Carole Edrich writes:

Hi there,

It’s 19 months since I finished six months of intravenous chemotherapy for aggressive breast cancer and I’m going to cycle solo to Trim in Ireland in aid of a lovely little charity that gives adapted bikes and trikes to kids whose lives have been affected by the disease (cyclistsfc.org.uk)

Depending on how fit I am (40 miles was hard two weeks ago but I’m getting stronger every day) and the extent I get lost (a normal occurrence – a 60-mile ride to Cambridge ended up as 85 because I accidentally circled a village instead of going through it) I’ll be cycling 500-900 miles in two weeks.

Bike Trax has been great and it would be great if Wansteadium readers could sponsor me; for the whole trip, per mile I manage (there’s no guarantee I’ll be able to do it all) or by the millimetres I lose from my waist. The donation site is www.justgiving.com/CyclistOnChemo or you can text a donation to 70070 with the code IRLC99 and the amount they want to donate ie “IRLC99 £1”

I will tweet about the trip from my account @CyclistOnChemo and if I have the energy will post blogs on it wherever I can. Please consider donating – these children have suffered enough.

Thank you

Carole

CCTV on Wanstead High Street

Rumours that installation of CCTV cameras on Wanstead High Street was imminent appear not to be true.

The organisers of the campaign against the proposed parking regulation changes told Wansteadium that the rumours were circulating, and that there were fears the cameras would be a precursor to the introduction of Pay and Display parking.

However, a spokeswoman for Redbridge Borough Council told Wansteadium that the council had no knowledge of any such plans.

Hedgehog update: Good news, bad news

Wansteadium’s hedgehog hunt is now into its third week, and we have built up several sightings around Wanstead.

 

• Spotted in Wanstead Park Avenue, Aldersbrook, Wansteadium reader Nick says: “Further proof as if it were needed that Aldersbrook is the Galapagos Islands of East London.”

Untitled from Tiggy Winkle on Vimeo.

• Deep e-mails from his house on The Green to say : “There is a hedgehog – I call him Harry – who comes to my garden every evening at around 10.30pm. The first time we met I was doing my Bob Marley impressions (badly) and the little dude came and scared the life out of me….  Do you intend to microchip them?”

• Sadly, though, Shiobhain tweeted us to say: “Found the hedgehog I saw last week dead outside this morning 🙁  It looked OK to me, so not sure what happened. I saw two foxes around it last week so maybe they were playing with it.”

• The updated map of sightings is below. The Wanstead Hedgehog Hunt goes on, though: please report any sightings, dead or alive, to hedgehogs@wansteadium.com


View Hedgehogs in Wanstead in a larger map

Wanstead property update, 1.7.11; Tennis, modern tastes, and WOW that’s a bedroom

George C Parker, Wansteadium’s property blogger, writes:

Anyone for Tennis?Like everyone else in summertime, I do love watching the tennis. Every June I like to dust off my Fred Perrys, mow the lawn, and then sit down with a refreshing barley water in front of the ladies doubles. And when game, set and match are won at either the Warren Italian Tennis Club, the Drummon Lawn Tennis club, or the Aldersbrook Tennis Club then I sometimes pop the telly on to watch a bit of Sir Cliff in the rain at Wimbledon.

Near to the Lawn Tennis establishment is this charming Arts and Crafts property. The rear garden is small, but with enough space for a Pimms and strawberry break between matches, and there is a glorious greensward to the front of the house.

Closer to the clay club is this well-situated Overton Drive property. The price looks good – as dear McEnroe would say – you cannot be serious!

The festival season: Wanstead Park hosts some wonderful summer events in its beautiful grounds. Coming up on 9 July is Music in Wanstead Park, an all-day festival of music and community. Later in the summer Illyria will stage Fantastic Mr Fox for kids, and I will be enjoying an al-fresco G&T in front of their G&S – the Pirates of Penzance come August.

I’ve heard it said that Wanstead folk do not often venture south of the park into neighbouring Aldersbrook, but from time to time, perhaps they should. The houses are mostly elegant Edwardian and quite a few of the tree-lined turnings are almost traffic free.

Besides the park, Aldersbrook offers a friendly local primary school, a library and a medical practice. Outdoors there are stables, the Flats, allotments, a bowls club for adrenaline junkies… What’s more it even gets dark at night-time, being insulated from urban glare by the surrounding green space. It’s positively rural compared to its neighbours. House prices tend to be lower on average than Wanstead proper, due to the lack of Tube. However, Manor Park rail connects with Stratford (will we call it Westfield in future?) in six minutes, giving easy onward access to Canary Wharf, the City, so it’s not exactly isolated. And at the time of writing, there are no plans to introduce controlled parking…

George’s mailbag: A couple of weeks I wrote about a bungalow on St Mary’s Ave which was up for sale, reckoning as I did that its future did not look too rosy, being too prime a spot for a mere bungalow. Wansteadium reader Trevor writes in reply:

“While I would certainly demolish the staggeringly unremarkable bungalow on the St Marys Ave plot were I in a position to fund both land and re-build, I have a foreboding about what will indeed arise from the ashes. There is currently another rebuild under way in the road, and a predictably naff pastiche is emerging, constructed in horribly low rent materials. I’m not against the replacement of undistinguished houses on such a road, if the replacement is an improvement. The bungalow plot allows the perfect opportunity to build something genuinely elegant, ingenious and MODERN. Something that will show folks in 2111 that we were capable of designing houses 100 years previously, rather than copy what was fashionable a further century into history, but get wrong every time.”

On an unrelated matter, polite fellow reader Catherine writes:

Dear Mr. George C Parker
I was perusing Rightmove as one normally does on a Tuesday evening and came across this property for sale on the Aldersbrook Estate. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bedroom like it! (Look at the images) What do you think? It’s a corker isn’t it? My boudoir is also being shown on Rightmove at the moment ( a casual peruse of the site a few months back led to me putting in a offer on a property) but I can assure you mine is nothing like the one photographed above.

I would hope not, my dear.


You can contact George with delicious titbits of property news concerning Wanstead, Snaresbrook or Aldersbrook via georgecparker@wansteadium.com

Wanstead, the Marylebone of the east?

An interesting article in Saturday’s FT about the future of high streets, points out that the pressures from out-of-town stores and internet shopping are happening to high streets all over the world. But drawing on the experience of Marylebone High Street, right, which has been completely reinvented over the past decade, the paper says it has become “the model of an innovative, independent and successfully varied community-orientated street”, and has four art galleries alongside its restaurants, cafes and clothes shops. It concludes: “Ironically, the lack of choice facing most high street businesses could, eventually, improve choice for customers. Certainly, the high streets that do succeed will become far more interesting and community-orientated than they currently are.” More lessons for Wanstead here.