She says 'enjoy the summer' and sends good wishes to the 'friends'.
Susan and Earl have agreed to open their garden for our group especially, on Thursday 1st September 2016 for viewing and afternoon tea. They will expect us around 2pm (though not set in stone) and the whole afternoon will be devoted to our group. The cost will be £7.50 per person to include tea/coffee and a piece of Earl's cake. Susan says if anyone is gluten intolerant to let them know and they'll make sure they have gluten free cake.
She says 'enjoy the summer' and sends good wishes to the 'friends'.
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Our May meeting got off to a slightly chaotic start, with our speaker Susan Bennett and her partner Earl Hyde getting temporarily lost (Susan thought we were in the Green Lanes Sainsbury's car park!) and our members seemed in particularly chatty mode, but eventually we got under way and what an interesting and lively talk it was!
Susan Bennett is the Assistant County Organiser for the northwest London region of the National Garden Scheme and she and her partner Earl Hyde are both creative artists working in ceramics. They open their garden in Muswell Hill three times a year. They were discovered by Maureen Lipman, who lived locally at the time. She came to order a special pot from Susan and then saw their excitingly original garden. Following that they went on to join the National Garden Scheme, showing their garden every year and Susan has become the Assistant County Organiser for NW London. They have also appeared on TV in Alan Titchmarsh’s program about best back gardens (see link at side to Ham & High article about his visit to their garden). Susan told us some of the background to the formation of the NGS, which apparently was started originally by a Liverpool businessman to raise money for community nurses after he employed a nurse to care for his sick wife. Nowadays the proceeds of the NGS Open Garden days go to a variety of charities, among them are Macmillan Nurses and Marie Curie, which I think came as a surprise to many of us. (see link at side to Origins of NGS) Despite the amount of work involved in developing and maintaining their garden (and Earl makes all the cakes for their open days), Susan and Earl have obviously derived great enjoyment from their involvement in the NGS. Their knowledge and enthusiasm made this a really enjoyable afternoon and by popular demand a visit to see their garden (and to sample Earl's cakes) will be organised for later in the year! Click on the links at the side to see Susan & Earl's NGS Site with lots of slides of their garden. Also see the link to the main NGS site for a list of all the 2016 Open Garden dates and locations. You may remember that Lindy Hunt from the Haven House Children's Hospice came to our April meeting and told us about their Open Gardens Launch in May. A friend and I went along to Haven House at South Woodford on 7th May to see the gardens. Haven House seems mainly to provide respite care for children with life limiting conditions and will take the children for up to 20 days and nights a year. The hospice itself is a beautiful building, though we didn't look inside, but did talk to parents of one of the children using the facilities, and they were very enthusiastic about the standard of care their child receives there. There is a nice woodland area with lots of bluebells and a wonderful playground with special rubberised chippings on the ground which makes it safer for children and, as one of the mothers told us, makes it much easier to push wheelchairs. There was also a special swing large enough to take a whole wheelchair. The helpers were very welcoming and there were raffles and plant sales and tea and sandwiches to purchase. The sun was shining so we sat and had our refreshments and enjoyed the friendly, relaxed atmosphere. |
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