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Parkinson’s Park
I wandered lonely as a cloud ……
Well, we haven’t quite reached Wordsworth’s standards but over the years the Friends have planted many daffodil bulbs in the Park courtesy of the charity Groundwork who work to provide ‘green places’ with the aim that People who live in places that are greener, cleaner and safer are healthier and happier.
On this St David’s Day here are some of the photos of the work that has been done .
Dydd Gwyl Dewi ‘Hapus i bawb. Happy St David’s Day to All.
Enhancing the gate at ‘Old Man’s Corner.
Brightening up Jubilee Walk
Hillside Entrance – photo Vikki Clayton
Posted in Ecology
Winter Work
The New Year has seen a number of maintenance jobs completed around the Park. Firstly, woodchip has been laid on the bottom path to help making walking easier. Thanks to Shaun Smith and helper from Elite Garden Maintenance for this.
Next, we have had work done to fix the broken gates, and to replace the vandalised gate on the Kelcliffe Lane entrance. Thanks to Ian Walker for this.
Finally, we have started renovating some of the old apple trees; this one is the one that is thought to be a cider apple tree, and was rather a thicket. We had the hawthorn tree growing too close removed, and have then pruned the apple tree back by around the recommended 25% to start forming an ‘open goblet’ shape. We’ll continue the work on the shape in future years. Hopefully, this will help improve the quality of the fruit – if we have done it right.
Apple Tree Before Pruning
Apple Tree After Pruning
Posted in Ecology, Facilities, Regeneration
Lunar Eclipse Over Parkinson’s Park
Super Blood Wolf Moon 21st January 2019
Lunar eclipse over Parkinson’s Park around 4.40am, this is nearly total eclipse. Across the moon are some tree branches. As the eclipse became almost total, some birds began to sing. This is as close as I can get it to what it looked like with the naked eye.
This type of occurance is called a Super Blood Wolf Moon and is a rare phenomenon, caused in part when a lunar eclipse makes the surface of a full moon appear a reddish hue while seeming brighter and closer to earth than normal. Astronomers are particularly interested in this year’s blood moon as it is the last of its kind for two years.
Tomorrow, a conjunction of Venus and Jupiter will appear in the east sky before sunrise on January 22, showing the two bright planets 2.4 degrees from each other.
(Super Moon information taken from the Sunday Telegraph.)
Posted in Uncategorized
Learning to Wassail
To get the Community Orchard into good shape and renovate some of the old apple trees in the Park some of the Friends are attending pruning courses run by the Orchard Project. We are also lucky to have people from the Northen Fruit Growers Association in the area to advise us, as well as the RHS at Harlow Carr.
So, on a cold (-2 degrees) January morning we set off to Tingley to learn how to renovate apple trees and also how to do an Orchard Wassail, an old Anglo Saxon customer to encourage healthy orchards: ‘waes hael’ means ‘good health’.
For us the Wassail involved, soaking the tree roots in rough cider, singing a Wassail folk tune, hanging cider soaked toast on the pruned trees, and eating ‘cake and ale’ (or in our case, as we were driving, warm, spiced apple juice). You can also 
process through the orchard making a noise with pots and pans to drive away ‘bad spirits’, and dress up as mummers.
An Orchard Wassail is done on ‘Twelfth Night’ – although this could be the modern calendar date of 6th January or the old calendar of 17th January. We thought that next year we’d give it a go and have our own Parkinson’s Park wassail event.
If anyone would like to help organize it let us know – parkinsonspark@gmail.com.
2019 Parkinson’s Park Events
Our 2019 Events will be as follows: over the year we may well add in new events and confirm dates when we know them. We’ve also added several significant local and national anniversaries.
EVENTS
24th March – 10.30am Great British Spring Clean
Spring – Wildflower Planting (date to be confirmed)
June – Christmas Lights Summer Market Continue reading
Posted in Events
New Year In The Planning
The Friends of Parkinson’s Park would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year. Planning is now underway for the 2019 maintenance and event schedule for the Park and now is the time for ideas for Park improvements or events you would like to get involved in – email us on parkinsonspark@gmail.com with suggestions.
Work on trees safety has already been done by Meadfleet, and we are planning on putting more woodchip paths down just as soon as we’ve sourced supplies and funds. The Farmgate is in need of repair, along with the latches on two other gates, and that is in hand. We will also be installing a new gate near the top bench to replace the one that got vandalised Continue reading
Posted in Friends
