From Chandler’s Ford Parish Council:
Fryern Funtasia 2019 is only just over a month away so put the date in your diary – 6th May Bank Holiday Monday. 12.00pm – 4.30pm. Take a look at the fun we had in last years video and please share with your friends. See you in May.
It’s going to be a great afternoon out.
See a video below:
[Read more…] about 6th May 2019 – Bank Holiday Monday – Fryern Funtasia in Chandler’s Ford
Dear cycle thief,
Hope you are enjoying my bike or parts of it that you couldn’t sell. If you’ve sold it in the nether market, the money must have bought you a few pleasures. But, I am straying from the point now, digressing, if you understand the word. That was no aspersion on your education, but just a thought that occurred to me. In your profession, you cannot afford to digress. You cannot head for the bike shed with your chain cutters and suddenly entertain an alternative thought, like “Let me check out the Magnolia tree. Its blossoms are so overwhelmingly beautiful this time of the year”. No. You will be the master of concentration, one-track minded, a Zen of bicycle thievery.
I am being given a replacement bike, having won long and tedious arguments with the insurance company. I really wished I had your phone number because the insurance wanted a photograph of the stolen bicycle and I could have asked you to text me one. You could have been part of the photograph, complete with your hoodie masking your ugly face. I am assuming you have an ugly face because your hoodie would be doing you a double favour then, wouldn’t it? Granted, some thieves are good looking. But they are way above your league. They wear ill-fitting Saville Row suits, crocodile skin shoes and millstone necklaces. They don’t steal small things like bicycles, they steal an entire nation.
[Read more…] about An Open Letter to My Cycle Thief
[Read more…] about Chandler’s Ford Saturday Guessing Game (27)
There will rightly be many tributes to the late Barbara Large, who founded what is now known as the Winchester Writers’ Festival. She will be much missed by many writers, including me.
Barbara’s gift was the knack of knowing how to encourage writers. As for her drive in getting the Winchester Writers’ Conference (as it was first known) up and running and then keeping it going for so many years, that was simply incredible. The Winchester Writers’ Festival is one of the most renowned writing conferences and it is all thanks to Barbara’s drive and vision. In my view, it is her finest legacy but what exactly does that mean?
July 10th 1956. “Just before two o’clock”, Gran writes:
…Alan Hill, the young naturalist from Ireland, who is again in England on holiday, came over to see me, and we took our tea to Farley Mount. Alan was on a motorbike, so he went on and waited for me there.
Among the commoner plants and other wildlife they note there, Gran describes passing a “flowery corner, teeming with butterflies, among them several lovely Silver-washed Fritillaries”.
“This was the area”, Dad reminds me, “which was known to the family as Pa’s Corner, strictly in Crab Wood. It is now an overgrown picnic area, and there are very few butterflies to be seen”.
Gran, in her journal, adds:
I picked a spray of Deadly Nightshade Atropa belladonna since I had promised to paint it for Maureen Toole… We enjoyed our tea among the downland flowers before climbing up to the monument, from which we had an excellent view of the Isle of Wight, bathed in brilliant sunshine, and Fawley.
[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 81)
What are your favourite types of fictional characters? Mine include:-
1. The deserving hero/heroine. (This is one reason why I love fairytales, they’re full of these!).
2. Those who ensure justice is meted out to those meriting it but in the right way. Sam Vimes, Terry Pratchett’s wonderful creation in Discworld, is a great example of this kind of character.
3. Characters who develop over several books so you can see their progress (or lack of it). Vimes, again, is a classic example. Over a few books he goes from a drunk to a hero and there is much more to his development than that but I would happily urge you to check the Vimes novels out. (Good place to start is Men at Arms where Vimes really begins to get into his stride).
[Read more…] about Character Types – and Why It Matters to Get Them Right
Eastleigh Police are NOT leaving Eastleigh. They have just moved to a new location – at Eastleigh town’s Shakespeare Business Centre (Shakespeare Road, Hathaway Close SO50 4SR).
![Officers serving the Eastleigh area are today [5 March 2019] moving into their new police office at the town’s Shakespeare Business Centre.](http://chandlersfordtoday.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Eastleigh-Police-move-into-new-base.jpg)
[Read more…] about Eastleigh Police Move into New Base
On June 20th 1956, having first checked her Blackbirds’ nest, the progress of which she is following in the garden, Gran says:
Later I went to Southampton, where it was Visitors’ Day on board the “Winchester Castle”, and I was shewn over the ship by an official of the Union Castle Line, who entertained a small party to lunch in the dining room afterwards. I have, of course, been over several Castle boats before, when delivering flowers for Fowlers’, but today I saw the lounge, swimming pool and smoke-room, and enjoyed an excellent lunch on board as well.
The woodwork throughout is of a delightful golden-yellow, and the furnishings in pastel shades, which tone together beautifully. The pictures are in good taste also, and in one suite there hung one by Russell Flint, R.A. depicting a mountain scene of great charm and colour. All the draperies, such as bedspreads, cushions and eiderdowns, are of different colour in each cabin, but all are in keeping with the golden woodwork. An orchestra was playing during lunch.
Samples of the chef’s art, in the way of dressed and decorated meats, were arranged on a table outside the dining-room, and the sight of them made the mouth water in advance! The sun was shining and the gulls constantly circled round the ship.
[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 80)
[Read more…] about Chandler’s Ford Saturday Guessing Game (26)
Dead head spring bulbs. Prune hydrangeas by cutting back old flowerheads to first pair of strong buds, and cut up to a third of oldest stems back to their base.
Cornus and Salix grown for winter colour can be cut back hard now. Apply general purpose fertiliser and mulch to beds and borders. Start putting supports in place for herbaceous perennials. [Read more…] about 2019 March Gardening Tips by Wellie
Update from the police: Thomas Wolfe was has been found safe and well. (3.02pm; (Friday 1st March 2019) [Read more…] about Update: FOUND (Missing: Thomas Wolfe from Chandler’s Ford)
Do you like adaptations of your favourite stories? I guess the answer to that is “yes, if it works” and then it is up to us to decide whether it does or not.
Famously The Birds by Alfred Hitchcock is an adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s short story of the same name so it isn’t just about novels being “translated” to a different media. [Read more…] about Adaptations
On May 19th 1956 Gran tells us: “As always at Whitsun I recorded the evening chorus for the Glanton Bird Research Station, and, for the purpose, went down to the Lake.” She notes the times of the day’s last songs and calls of a total of nineteen species, including Cuckoo and Wood Warbler, the only two species on her list unlikely to be heard there nowadays. No Nightingale is heard, nor a Nightjar, so it appears that these summer visitors no longer find the habitats suitable in their old Hiltingbury haunts. [Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 79)
Image credit: Stuart Roberts [Read more…] about Chandler’s Ford Saturday Guessing Game (25)
Why is the weather always a topic of conversation in Britain? I think this is due to:-
1. We have such a variety of weather (and often in the space of one day), it simply has to be talked about. I’ve experienced a wide range of weather in the space of an hour especially when I’ve been in Scotland. They’re hardy souls there for a reason! [Read more…] about The Weather and Its Uses in Fiction
Sequel story to: Doctor’s father makes second epic journey in daughter’s memory after snapping wrong penguin on 8,000-mile trip (The Telegraph), and Trip of a Lifetime – My Antarctic Trip on Chandler’s Ford today.
Lisa loved to travel and her extreme joy of being abroad was expressed in several of her diaries. She wrote about the places she visited, whom she met and how she felt on the journey. People and places were often recorded in her photo album. [Read more…] about Travelling for Lisa
Last weekend I bought some minced pork and local eggs from Charles Baynham, our finest butchers in Chandler’s ford.
I used the minced pork to make some Chinese dumplings for the Chinese New Year (yes it’s the Year of the Pig, as I heard you asked!)
Charles Baynham has run this friendly, traditional butcher for 40 years in Chandler’s Ford. [Read more…] about Charles Baynham in Chandler’s Ford
[Read more…] about Chandler’s Ford Saturday Guessing Game (24)
