From the Parish Council Chairman - September 2022

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I think it’s been a great summer but I know embarrassingly little about crops and food supply.

Further abroad it’s heart-warming news that Ukraine were able to get some grain out of their ports as they would otherwise have been unable to store this year’s harvest. Closer to home I hope that all our farmers have had a good yield. I think I mean a great summer means different things to different people – farmers, sunbathers, children on holiday….

Meanwhile all our gardens are totally parched and I believe I was just 6 years old when this last happened. A strange conundrum in that warm weather is when we all feel so alive and positive but then we are told there’s a drought on and a hose-pipe ban. It would be great if the water companies could plug a few more of their leaks. I’ve noticed a few of the springs on the hills in our parish are back in full flow! We’ll need to manage our water much more carefully in the future, starting now.

I was lucky enough to go to Edinburgh in August for the Fringe Festival to watch my daughter sing with her acapella group. Whilst there, the bin men decided to go on strike to embarrass Nicola Sturgeon and turn the Scottish capital into one massive dustbin, in front of an international audience. Edinburgh was a proper mess and it made me appreciate how great it is that our own bin team continue to pick up all our stuff. But I would have swapped our bin collection for Edinburgh just to help them out. A great festival – a victim of politics, very sad.

However my greatest sadness of the summer was missing John Paxton’s Coffee Morning. TV doesn’t do bank holidays and I rarely get to go. This is the single-most focused event on our Parish calendar. Raise some money on the August Bank Holiday and our Senior Citizens do lunch. Together. In the Pub. Perfect. I hope enough money was raised for Puddings! I apologise for missing it – (the Coffee Morning not the Lunch – I’m not yet eligible!)

Finally, as we head into the winter months, please contact the Parish Council with anything you’d like addressed. We will do our best to support. And please come to the monthly meetings if you have time. It’s always better when Parishioners come along. We meet at 7.30pm on the first Tuesday of every month (as on the Parish Notice Board) and everyone is welcome.

I mean it, everyone is welcome. It’s your Parish Council. We serve you.

Ohana,

Chris