Local Stuff

I live in Noel Park. This is a designated conservation area in Wood Green, which means that the buildings are protected and shouldn't be allowed to be altered. This means that the area has kept the look that it was given about 100 years ago. The council are supposed to enforce this, and to make it almost impossible to build extensions, pebbledash the front of the houses or change the windows etc (I hope the council are reading this..). It's dead nice and we're lucky to be there.
Each year there's this thing called the Making a Difference Grant, where (I think) certain boroughs are allocated some cash, and local groups/people propose ideas for where the cash should be spent. These ideas should encompass the whole of the area, not just the individuals who make the suggestion, so bang goes our idea to get free cakes at the shop.
This is a brilliant scheme and some examples of where the grants have gone are;

• streets getting hanging baskets for flowers
• a handy person scheme to help senior citizens to get gardening done they can't do themselves
• a scheme to get young people interested in planting and growing vegetables
• more play equipment for children
• and we got some trees planted in our road last year!

Anyway, last year some money was granted to this lovely chap called Padma. He works for (or possibly is) Friendship Global, which is an organization which encourages....wait for it......global friendship. One of things he does is organise for trees to be planted in schools all over the world, called Friendship Trees. The idea of these is that if there's a scuff or an argument between a couple of kids then they get sent to sit under the tree and 'get over themselves'. It sounds a bit hippy dippy, but I love it. He's planted loads of these trees and he's a bit of a legend. He's a local lad too, and he often pops in to cheer my day at the shop.

But I digress... He got some money to light up a tree in the middle of the Noel Park area, and have this tree designated a friendship tree. I'm a bit miffed that I missed the ceremony, but I took this photo so you can see it
Bonkers brilliant and crazy potatoes.
It's like we have a little bit of the South Bank in N22.

I went to a conference yesterday, with my Big Green Bookshop hat on. It was called Haringey Goes Green , and was all about....wait for it... Haringey going green.
The guest speaker was the James Strawbridge, the son of massively moustached man mountain Dick Strawbridge, from the TV show 'It's Not Easy Being Green'. James, was usually seen like this on the show
He was, however sporting a shirt to talk about how a place like Haringey can make a bigger impact, both small scale and big when it comes to going green. I caught his talk, and he was clearly someone who has embraced the idea of green living. He knows about all the issues, both positive and negative, and wasn't afraid to voice his opinions on some controversial issues.
We sold a few books too.
Tim's back at work now. He came back on Friday for a few hours, and was in the shop on Saturday whilst I was going green in Haringey. He makes the odd 'oooh' noise and i've noticed the occasional sharp intake of breath. He tells me that this is the best way of losing weight...having bits removed from his body. It was a varicose vein last week, heaven only know what he has planned for next.
He won't be cycling for a while, that's for sure...