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.
by Admin | 23 Jul 2023 | activities, FRONT PAGE NEWS
We’re super excited to welcome Bow Django, Bow’s finest swing jazz proponents to the library next Friday (28 July) for an evening of latin-infused toe-tapping rhythms.
Bow Django comprises guitarists Ienne and Chris, bassist Casper, clarinettist Jenny, violinist Peter, and vocalist Annie.
The band was formed when a group of friends got together to play gypsy jazz in an African cafe in Bow in about 2018. However, it really got going in the ‘tween and post-Lockdown periods when the group met in Victoria Park each Friday for a couple of hours to play for themselves and a dedicated group of distanced audience.
The natural choice for parks, street parties, cafe culture and libraries, their music – uptempo and infectiously optimistic – can’t fail to get your feet tapping.
Last Fridays will be taking a break in August but will resume again in September. Watch out for details of our new programme shortly.
Tickets on sale now – here. And as ever, pizzas available!
by Admin | 11 Jun 2023 | Cricklereaders, Cricklereaders Read
The group has chosen Tennessee-born author Cormac McCarthy’s The Passenger for their July meeting.
A sunken jet, a missing body, and a salvage diver entering a conspiracy beyond all understanding. The Passenger is a dark, hallucinogenic novel from Cormac McCarthy, the legendary author of Blood Meridian, No Country for Old Men and The Road.
‘What a glorious sunset song . . . It’s rich and it’s strange, mercurial and melancholic’ – Guardian
1980, Mississippi. It is three in the morning when Bobby Western zips the jacket of his wet suit and plunges into the darkness of the ocean. His dive light illuminates a sunken jet, nine bodies still buckled in their seats, hair floating, eyes devoid of speculation. Missing from the crash site are the pilot’s flight bag, the plane’s black box – and the tenth passenger.
Now a collateral witness to this disappearance, Bobby is discouraged from speaking of what he has seen. He is a man haunted: by the ghost of his father, inventor of the bomb that melted glass and flesh in Hiroshima, and by his sister, the love and ruin of his soul.
Traversing the American South, from the bars of New Orleans to an abandoned oil rig off the Florida coast, The Passenger is a breathtaking novel of morality and science, the legacy of sin, and the madness that is human consciousness.
‘The Passenger shows that McCarthy belongs in the company of Melville and Dostoevsky, writers the world will never cease to need’ – New Statesman
by Admin | 9 Jun 2023 | latest
Doors 1900, music starts 1930. Seats are not reserved, so come early!
Barbershop comes to Cricklewood! Experience the sublime close harmonies of the Peridot Quartet.
Peridot is Héctor, Aurélie, Duncan and Matthew, who hail from Spain, France, Australia and Britain respectively, and came together as a quartet in March last year. They sing a capella – that is, with no instrumental accompaniment, and usually without amplification – representing music in its oldest and primeval form. They have more years of chorus and quartet singing experience between us than they care to add up, and share a small but treasured haul of gold, silver and bronze medals from a number of chorus contests.
For this event, Peridot is looking forward to explaining to you how four-part vocal harmony works and demonstrating lock and ring, overtones (and possibly some undertones), illustrated by songs from the quartet’s repertoire, ranging from barbershop settings of popular songs from the 30s up to arrangements of chart toppers from this millennium. And there’ll be an opportunity to learn a “tag” (tags are short phrase of music sung by barbershoppers all over the world) – audience participation not compulsory, but encouraged!
by Admin | 1 May 2023 | cafe, FRONT PAGE NEWS
It’s official! Spring has definitely sprung! By popular demand, the ice machine is leaving its winter hibernation quarters and will be back at the library as of Wednesday 3 May. We’ll have iced coffee and iced chai latte on sale to drink in or takeaway. We also have more patio tables and chairs available for you to sit in the sun and enjoy your drink.
Let us know what you think!
by Admin | 1 May 2023 | library event
Our regular visitors Brent Jazz Orchestra Quartet are back again in May, this time with singer Beverley Stone. Since as long as she can remember Essex born Beverley has been immersed in popular music, starting with the Great American songbook interpreted by the likes of Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole and Billie Holiday. Contemporary artists such as Carol King and Madonna have also had major influences. The key has always been the combination of melody, musical arrangement, emotion, and the story to be told – the more soul searching the better. Her professional adventure started after leaving her 9-5 job and taking on a singing engagement on the high seas. Her deep love of singing and performing was discovered and her future mapped out.
Since then she has travelled to many parts of the world, appeared on British television, and secured long term residencies at prestigious central London venues. More than happy working as a jazz singer with small groups or fronting a swinging big band, Beverley has performed at some of the finest venues in the land including Ronnie Scotts, the 606 Club, Pizza Express Soho, The Hideaway, Bateaux River Cruises, The Wellesley, The Hippodrome and The Forum.
Whilst cultivating her song writing career she has worked with some of the country’s foremost musicians and producers, and her debut album Butterfly Rising is available to buy on iTunes. Her passion for all things singing has in recent years been extended to the field of vocal coaching and guiding individuals who need help in exposing hidden talent.
What to Expect This Evening
There will be a donations bar, and pizzas, served in the interval, can be ordered in advance. If you don’t see the pizza you like on offer, requests are accepted. We order from Basilico. We have listened to your feedback and you can now order large or small pizzas. Pizza sales end the day before the concert to give us time to place the order.
Brent Jazz Orchestra on Facebook
