Merry Christmas

I just wanted to take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all and your families. Thank you also for your continuing support throughout the year, I think it has been one of our best so far and couldn't happen without you, I'm sure you will agree.

David

Belvoir Road Bridge- Mysterious Cobwebs

I was out checking along the old rail path between Sewstern Lane and Longmoor Lane yesterday following the high winds of Storm Desmond (more on that in future posting), on my return home I left via the Belvoir Road Bridge and come across a sight that I have not seen before on the brick underside, hundreds of little white cobweb structures that appear to have a holed centre.

Still intrigued I emailed Bernie Higgins, Sustrans Ecologist who runs the Greener Greenway project and after contacting a the Merseyside BioBank it is though that it could be a spider of the following nature http://srs.britishspiders.org.uk/portal/p/Summary/s/Amaurobius+similis

Ben at the BioBank is suggesting that a tuning fork could see them out or the use of a small twig or long blade of grass against the web.

I'll keep you posted on what is found.

Christmas Tree Festival- Update 3 (On Show)

Tree decorating taking place.

On Monday afternoon of this week Bob and myself took the bicycle wheel Christmas Tree down to St. Wulfram's Church to be placed as part of the tree festival, greeted by volunteers and shown out position and nicely situated next to a well organised electric point for our lighting.

After about 2 hours the tree was dressed and complete and we could admire the final display which had some lovely comments from other exhibitors and volunteers associated with the church.

Tuesday saw the official switch on after a candle light procession from the Market Place and a blessing from Fr Stuart Cradduck. 

The tree festival and ice rink is now open to all at the following times with huge numbers expected at the weekend to coincide with the town's Christmas celebrations. 
If you can do get down to see our group's tree and the other 104 others at the following times.
Thusday 10am- 8pm
Friday 10am- 9pm
Saturday 10am- 9pm (Including local craft and produce market)
Sunday 11am- 4pm (Including town's Christmas activities and celebrations)

A final word of thanks to those of you that had donated, help construct and transport the items to the festival.

P.S. There's talk of another happening next year, so thinking caps on!!!

The completed tree

South side

North side

Christmas Tree Festival- Update 2 (Setting Up & Weeks Events)

Another update with regards our bicycle wheel tree at St Wulfram's Church, Grantham. I have heard from Fr Stuart Cradduck (Rector - St Wulfram's) with regards to timings on setting up the tree, you may remember I originally suggest that the Monday 23 November evening would be a good time, I was going by the church's website calendar which Fr Stuart has recently let me know that there was an error and that Monday's timings would be 9am- 5pm. With this in mind I am suggesting that the tree installation could be as follows: From 2:30pm, Monday 23 November at St Wulfram's Church.
This would give us plenty of time to set up the tree as it will need to be erected and decorated.
If you can help out during this time it would be great to hear from you.

The Christmas Tree Festival will be taking place from the Tuesday 23 November through to the Sunday 29 November, as well as the trees from over a hundred individuals, businesses and community groups there will be an opportunity to skate on the indoor rink in the church, attend a local craft and produce market on the Saturday and see a preview of the trees all lit up on the Tuesday evening with an opportunity to attend a Sip and Slip preview evening.

Full details and timings and ticketing website of the weeks events can be found here.

Christmas Tree Festival- Update

As mentioned in my last post Wayne had delivered some scrap gear sprockets he had from his cycle repair business after repair jobs. I've now got these split down and cleaned up and I'll think you'll agree the different sizes and circular shapes will make interesting "baubles" for the tree.

Please do let me if you can help out next weekend on the pre-build and preparation on or either the Saturday and Sunday, full details given in the blog post, which can be viewed here. And we're still on the look out for any items you could lend for a few weeks for the project.

For those that have been in touch many thanks and for the offer of various items and hep.

I'll also get in touch with the organisers next week to confirm when the installation can take place before the event on 24- 29 November.