Ye who have a spark in your veins of cockney spirit, smile or mourn acccording as you take things well or ill;— Bold Britons, we are now on Shooter's Hill!
This is quite an odd image, painted from what appears to be the perspective of a flying artist – it was an old picture postcard, and so probably dates from Victorian times. I’m guessing what the buildings are: Christ Church on the right, the old castlewood day hospital bottom left, and the Red Lion top left.
Shooters Hill at Night
Mike, Shooters Hill’s new green grocer has offered to provide some prizes for a Christmas Competition, so if you’d like a chance to win a Christmas Hamper or a £10 Voucher for his new grocery service, here’s what to do:
Please email your favourite cooking recipes, tips, ideas and suggestions for celebrating the Christmas Feast to mike@theverygreengrocer.co.uk, and he will select two winning entries!
All entries should be emailed by Wednesday 22nd of December for delivery on either Thursday the 23rd or Christmas Eve!
The winner will receive the following Hamper:
A further prize of a £10 Voucher for the Very Green Grocer will go to the second place!
I am pleased to share the details of a new service in the local area, here is a message from Mike, the very green grocer now personally selling a range of goods on Shooters Hill, including locally sourced produce. His approach offers a more flexible alternative to the vegetable box schemes as it gives more choice to the buyer. He also sells an additional range of organic products, and can offer advice on cooking with the ingredients he sells:
I am Mike and I have lived on Shooters Hill for over 30 years.
I am starting a Fruit, Vegetable and Organic Grocery delivery called The Very Green Grocer on Thursday 16th December. This is exclusively for those who live on Shooters Hill.I will be selling locally produced vegetables, fruit and produce from farms in Kent and also Organic and fair-trade produce and groceries.
I am offering a service where the customer can shop on the vehicle and choose exactly the products and quantities they want.
- No Minimum order.
- No Delivery Charge.
I have personally delivered over 1000 leaflets to households on Shooters Hill and I take this opportunity to apologise to those who do not like this type of advertising. Unfortunately I could not think of a better way to promote the business to all those households.
I have been in catering for over 36 years and will be able to advise people on how best to use the produce they buy from me.
It is called the Very Green Grocer as I intend to run the business in the most environmentally friendly way I can.
Further details on me and The Very Green Grocer can be found on my website theverygreengrocer.co.uk
Now that school’s almost out, the farm are putting on some Harry Potter themed activities for children in the run up to Christmas.
Christmas activities on 21, 22, 23 and 24 December – come and join in the fun!
Times: 10.00am – 3.30pm daily
Location: Woodlands Farm, 331 Shooters Hill, Welling DA16 3RP
Description: Enjoy Christmas with this magical start to the Christmas holidays at Woodlands Farm. Drop-in children’s activities. No need to book – just turn up!Activities are (£1 per activity per child):
- 10am-11.30am – Care of magical creatures
- 12pm-1.30pm – Wand making
- 2pm-3.30pm – Potions
- All day – treasure hunt running in the Forbidden Forest!
They are also starting a Toddler Club in the new year:
New Toddler Club in 2011
- Meet the animals
- Arts and Crafts
- Toys, Games and Books
- Tea and Biscuits
Every Thursday in January and February from 10 – 12
£2 per adult, children go free!(children must be supervised)
No Need to Book
Please spread the word.
Greenwich Council have been releasing some more cuts information. So far £21430000 have been proposed (based on an anticipated cut of £65000000 pending the arrival of central instructions) and partly scrutinised by some of the local blogs (853 and phantom and itm).
The sheer scale of the cuts in relation to normality (i.e. ignorance) makes them difficult to understand, but I recently watched the joy of stats, and noted the billion-pound-o-gram with interest. I thought a chop-o-gram might help to bring a bit of perspective to bear on this rather unfathomable hatchet job. After scraping data from the newsshopper cuts analysis, here are a few attempts to show the enormity of what’s being done to Greenwich.
Chop-O-Gram #1
Here I plot the newshopper selection of £5633000 worth of cuts/hikes, this acknowledges upfront that 14 posts will go. Hopefully that doesn’t equate to 14 people, but to be honest, all this talk about numbers comes down to people’s livelihoods in the end, the human cost. Whether the private sector chiefs (sainsburys, m&s, next etc) prime the recovery by re-employing the newly unemployed, which they indicate they can thanks to national insurance cuts remains to be seen. Hierarchically speaking, the parking permits stand out most; drivers can get very angry, so we’ll have to see how they respond, actually charging for parking at oxleas could help to maintain the gym…
Chop-O-Gram #2
This chop-o-gram factors in the £15797000 of currently proposed cuts the newshopper didn’t detail:
Chop-O-Gram #3
This chop-o-gram factors in the £43570000 of as yet unallocated cuts.
A new local podcast and blog has arrived in the form of a spin-off from the queen elizabeth hospital radio show, in the meantime. Matt the producer has kindly allowed me to re-host his initial show as it includes several reminiscences relating to the wwii history of Shooters Hill. This finely crafted bit of broadcasting comes complete with atmospheric sound effects and neatly connects together of a series of independent accounts. I have reproduced Matt’s credits below.
These accounts, which are voiced by actors, are from Emily and Florence Hunt, FW Condor and Len Perry.
I would like to thank June Balshaw at the University of Greenwich for her generosity.
Also the BBC historical archives, The Woolwich Firepower museum and Reg Weaver and Roy Wilson.
Finally, the producer stresses that In The Meantime is your voice in your local community so feel free to contact the show to express your views on local issues www.inthemeantime.org.uk As I write the site is covering the work-in at ravensbourne, as students and pupils up and down the country ask david cameron to reconsider his massive cuts to education.
I went to the christmas fayre at woodlands farm on Sunday, and to my eyes numbers were down on last year despite the increase in the amount of stalls. In other events this year, the apple day was well attended, the summer show a bit quieter than last time, and the lambing day was absolutely massive this year. On balance I’d say it was a good year for enjoying festivities at Woodlands.
In other farm news, Bella the pig (saddleback I think) had five babies in November. The piglets are very sweet, and they also remind me of the days when the co-op made bacon there.
The accompanying audio is a short clip of some nice multipart harmonies recorded live at the farm, I’m not familiar with the second song, but it’s an interesting arrangement. The date of the event also marked the advent of Christmas, and I am trying out a new christmas pudding recipe which is mainly beeton #1:
Fever Pitch at Woodlands Farm Christmas Fayre by eshootershill
Well, I wish you well this Christmas.
hilly's christmas pudding (as yet untasted)
4 oz organic fairtrade muscovado (carbon footprint marks coming soon, will probably be shocking for tropical goods.)
4 oz suet (lawson uses butter)
4 oz sultanas
4 oz raisins
2 oz currants (or dried flies as my dad calls them)
2 oz shredded mixed candied peel (some people hate these, and there are less victorian ways to get the taste of oranges and lemons in)
2 oz of plain flour
2 oz breadcrumbs (now possible to buy these in packets from polish shops, very good for fried fish too)
1 oz almonds (ground, flaked, or best of all hand blanched, peeled and shredded)
The grated rind of a 1 lemon (I didn't have a lemon handy so I just hope the mixed peel did the trick)
2 eggs
½ teaspoon of nutmeg grated (if you like nutmeg then put more in)
½ a teaspoon of salt
1⁄8 pint of milk
1 small wine glassful of dark rum
lawson also puts in couple of ounces of cocoa
pack in a heatproof bowl cover with greaseproof paper and tie with string.
steam for 5 hours.
steam it for at least 2 hours on christmas day, and serve with rum butter.