by Admin | 31 Aug 2023 | activities, FRONT PAGE NEWS, gardening
September is a month of golden sun and harvests. A month when the bulbs and perennials planted last year come into their own and cheer up the fading grass. And yet, despite its name, it is not the 7th month of the year. A misconception derived from when the Romans used a solar year which was later converted (not till 1753) into the current Gregorian year – which required the removal of 11 days from September in the year of conversion.
It is the month when grass and wildflowers produce seeds (sticky or blown in the wind often), and is the best time to cut these, and your lawn, to provide food for your wildlife.
Mining bees will often be found in your lawn, and the ants and other grubs will be providing food for birds to stock up for the winter too.In the first talk, I will consider the importance of gardens for wildlife in the UK as so much of our green space has been built on. And how we can support that wildlife in the way that we garden.
In the second talk I will consider the plants we can grow in London and which can be harvested later in the year- now that our climate is changing, and the implications of our changing climate will be considered also in later talks (Feb/Mar 2024). But our last talk of 2023 will look at the plants we use in December to decorate our homes and why we still invest them with myths and religious importance.
by Admin | 30 Aug 2023 | activities, FRONT PAGE NEWS
We’re delighted to welcome local artist Francine to the library, offering a beginners watercolour course, on Mondays at 1500. The classes are suitable for complete beginners and lots of demonstrations will be given. If you’ve always wanted to learn to paint and sketch, here’s your opportunity.
Francine trained as a graphic designer at art college, and has worked in publishing all her life – designing and editing several high profile UK magazines including Country Living. Her idea of relaxation is to sit down in a cafe or a garden and just draw what she sees around her. She says, “I take a small sketchbook wherever I go and use it like a diary to make visual notes almost every day. I love architecture and food – I will often do a quick sketch of my lunch in a restaurant rather than take a photo!”
Places are limited. To avoid disappointment, book yours now by emailing Francine on francine@artsplashlondon.co.uk. Classes cost £15.00 per session.
by Admin | 31 Jul 2023 | activities, children, FRONT PAGE NEWS
Do you help out with weekday childcare for your grandchildren, and take them to Gladstone Park or Cricklewood Library?
If you want to meet other grandparents in the area to arrange play dates in the park and possibly join a regular get-together, please email cricklewood.grandparents@gmail.com, and we’ll email you back with information on how to get involved (don’t worry, you won’t get added to a mailing list).
Great grandparents, nannies, and in fact anyone helping out with daytime childcare who feels part of the Grandparent or older generation are very welcome too.
by Admin | 23 Jul 2023 | Cricklereaders, Cricklereaders Read, FRONT PAGE NEWS
September’s book is Stella Maris, the sequel to July’s The Passenger, by Cormac McCarthy. The two books are the last works by McCarthy before his death aged 89 in June this year.
1972, BLACK RIVER FALLS, WISCONSIN: Alicia Western, twenty years old, with forty thousand dollars in a plastic bag, admits herself to the hospital. A doctoral candidate in mathematics at the University of Chicago, Alicia has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and she does not want to talk about her brother, Bobby. Instead, she contemplates the nature of madness, the human insistence on one common experience of the world; she recalls a childhood where, by the age of seven, her own grandmother feared for her; she surveys the intersection of physics and philosophy; and she introduces her cohorts, her chimeras, the hallucinations that only she can see. All the while, she grieves for Bobby, not quite dead, not quite hers. Told entirely through the transcripts of Alicia’s psychiatric sessions, Stella Maris is a searching, rigorous, intellectually challenging coda to The Passenger, a philosophical inquiry that questions our notions of God, truth, and existence.
by Admin | 23 Jul 2023 | FRONT PAGE NEWS, volunteering
We’ve had to think about reducing our opening hours over the summer holidays to compensate for so many volunteers being away. Until the first week in September, we will now open on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday only. Our Thursday morning story time will resume in September, as will our Friday afternoon 7-11 year old book group, and we’ll be back to normal opening hours at that point. Watch out for signs at the library to keep you updated, or sign up to our newsletter for more details.
If you’d like to sign up as a volunteer, to help us stay open more hours, we’d love to have you. Please see our volunteer page for more details.
