It’s hard to remember a wetter Christmas, rather marring the hopes of a crisp bright Boxing Day walk on Wanstead Park. But it was still beautiful.
Further upriver, the gauge where the Roding meets the A12 showed things were indeed very wet.
We rather like the growing trend for people to decorate the trees in their streets. Langley Drive (above) , for instance, has little solar lights wrapped around its street tree trunks, which looks very festive.
But Mansfield Road, (below), has displayed some bold oneupmanship.
Any other roads joining the fray are welcome to send pictures to info@wansteadium.com.
Clinics in Redbridge will continue offering vaccination jabs over Christmas without a break. It is hoped that residents who do not celebrate Christmas and haven’t yet had their boosters (or indeed first or second shots) will take advantage of things being quieter than usual.
Details of clinic venues and times can be found below.
When the Christmas trees sellers landed on Christchurch Green in November, one of people’s worries was that the grass would be damaged.
Now that the sellers have departed, a superficial examination shows some bare patches on the grass, but no more than would be expected. Otherwise the sellers (who, reports agree, seemed like nice people) seem to have left the Green pretty much as they found it. The grass will no doubt recover – it’s hardy stuff.
But many readers will be wondering if this was an experiment which will be repeated. Anecdotally we hear there were not huge numbers of sales, though we have no actual evidence for that. There are also reports that the sellers suffered some vandalism.
Wanstead councillor Jo Blackman said the impact on high street retailers would be examined – it will be interesting to see if residents followed through on pledges to support their traditional sources for trees.
The venture was a part of the approach being taken by Vision, the charity which manages parks and libraries for Redbridge Borough Council, to generate income to fund its services. At least as far as Wanstead is concerned, this is not proving to be an uncontroversial effort.
We’ve been wondering what D’Vine Nature, soon to open next door to Wanstead Pharmacy, might be. We hoped against hope that the name might indicate a shop selling natural products, organic wine, perhaps even eco refills. Well well. The game is afoot.
A correspondent writes:
Today, a good number of older Redbridge residents enjoyed a hearty Christmas Lunch with all of the trimmings, at Age Concern (Corner House). Christmas Pudding, After Eights, and even wine was included. After lunch, everybody was informed that there was no charge today, because Daisy’s Florist was covering the cost, including a Terry’s Chocolate Orange each, for everybody to take home. It was such a generous thing for Daisy’s to do – especially after such a difficult year for traders. I would love the people of Wanstead to know about their kind gesture towards older people in the Community.
