Romeo & Juliet at the Victoria Baths, 29 September 2014

Last night ten of us went to Manchester’s beautiful and iconic Victoria Baths for a unique promenade performance of the greatest love story ever told, Romeo & Juliet.  The three atmospheric Edwardian swimming pools were transformed into a world where family loyalties, pride, faith and passion result in bitter tragedy.

Photos from HOME Manchester website

The poor acoustics and Shakespearean English made the dialogue very difficult to follow but I think we all knew the story anyway.  It was a very unusual production and pleasing to see the Baths used in such a creative way.

Styal Wood Fair on Sunday 28th Sept 2014

The day dawned bright and sunny, we loaded the car with deck chairs and gazebo and headed for Quarry Bank Mill, the time for meeting was the usual 9.30. Upon arrival 7 of us went down into the mill meadow to meet our man in charge for the day Matt, he had arrived earlier to set up the table with photo albums and our leaflets, also helping was Tim. We put down our rucksacks and deck chairs and put up the gazebo which we did relatively  quickly with so many people, after this was done, the deckchairs went up and in some cases the coffee came out. Matt decided the photos on the information stand needed a bit of rejigging so set about doing that with a bit of help from other members of the group, it was also decided that it was time we got some new pictures done for these boards but that's another story! By 10am opening time we were ready for all those visitors, we had one or two come and see us who had been emailing us about joining, so they could meet us person and ask any more questions they had. 

Our stall

We had a number of people stop by and ask us about our group. We hope that those who took leaflets and stopped to chat to us, will email and ask to join us on one of our workdays - only time will tell. We took it in turns in groups of two or three to man the stall as others had breaks in the deckchairs or went to visit the rest of the outoor fair and the craft fair that was up at the mill. The day stayed dry, sunny and really quite warm and, as the picture below shows, the deck chairs became very useful.

During the afternoon some of the group took the advantage of the warm weather and had an ice cream. Again during the afternoon we took turns to man the stall and when 4pm came we worked as a team to get everything tidied away very quickly.

My thanks again must go to Sue for her hospitality and to Matt for organising the day so well and the tasty cookies, let's see if we get any new members from this day. Here's to next time

Ally :)

 

 

 

 

Rhody bashing at Hare Hill on Sunday 21st Sept 2014

It was beautiful sunshine for a day's rhodybashing at Hare Hill woodland gardens today. Eight volunteers turned out and continued the task of clearing Rhododendron ponticum from the parkland, working in a small copse and burning the rhody as we went. A warm, enjoyable day made hotter by the fire, which took well after the dry weather. Several of the volunteers took the opportunity of a stroll round the gardens after the workday finished, spotting the carved hares dotted around in between the ornamental trees.
Thanks to Mick for the text. and Adrian and Mick for photo's. 

Snowdrop planting in Manchester City Centre on Sun 14th Sept 2014

This was certainly a 'workday with a difference'.

We were invited by Sean Harkin, the 'NT Gardener in Residence' in Manchester to be part of the Snowdrop planting experience throughout the City Centre to commemorate the centenary of WW1.

Sean had ordered 100,000 snowdrops and had planned to plant them at different City Centre locations throughout the week:
Sat 13/9 - Manchester Cathedral
Sun 14/9 - St John's Gardens (near MOSI)
Mon 15/9 - Parsonage Gardens
Weds 17/9 - Sackville Gardens
Fri 19/9 - Manchester Science Park
Sat 20/9 - The Northern Quarter
Sun 21/9 - Manchester University

We met Sean at 10.45am in time to help set everything up then we were shown how best to plant the snowdrops and asked to encourage anyone walking by to either dig a hole for snowdrops, or place 4 bulbs into a hole, so they were part of the commemoration. There were stickers for the children and booklets '50 things to do ...' to hand out and encourage children to enjoy the outdoors either in their own back garden, on days out with their family or at NT properties.

It was a lovely day, the sun shone for most of it and, as well as 8 MNTVers (including 2 'newbies'), plus Sean and Ellie who are NT staff, there were other volunteers who had heard about the day (either work-of-mouth or via the NT website), and wanted to take part. Most put on high-viz jackets so that the public knew who to speak to.

It was lovely to have a special visit from Scarlett, who used to be a member of MNTV, and her 4 year old son Yao. Scarlett and Yao stayed for about an hour helping to dig holes and plant the bulbs:-)

Although it wasn't one of our usual conservation days, it was really enjoyable and lovely to see most of the people walking through the gardens, becoming involved and taking part in the planting snowdrops experience.

Well done Sean for organising it and inviting us along!

Sapling Clearance at Dunham Massey on Sunday 7th September 2014

We were cutting and burning saplings near the car park to allow for the establishment of an Oak and Beech woodland.

The weather was fine.

After the task we went to the new visitors centre for a coffee and cake.