August 2016
There’s a number of activities and places that have caught my interest recently. The Orchard Tea Room have Sarah Madsen back with her beautiful drawings, the portrait of a baby’s face is mesmerising. New to me are her landscapes, a different style, just as beautiful and absorbing. The Orchard does, of course, have lovely food and drink and a beautiful view, but I think the owners also deserve credit for offering their wall space to local artists, and it certainly adds to the pleasure of a visit (Redmoor Lane, just off the A47).
This community spirit – “sharing the love” – is alive and well in Fenland. After chatting to Tesco’s community champion about their fundraising and community support activities, I’m pleased to say I was able to arrange for the Wisbech and Fenland Museum to receive a donation of compost and seeds for the nature garden to the side of the museum. Thank you Mallissa and Amanda at Tesco, the photo is of the garden currently with bugs and a giant spider made of recycled plastic bottles!
An opportunity has been advertised for archaeology enthusiasts to volunteer at Manea, investigating the Manea Colony. This was set up in 1838 to create an alternative way of living, counter to the industrial age of the time. The idea was of great interest to James Hill, a prominent Wisbech man, father of Octavia, so the Octavia Hill Birthplace House has a fantastic model of the colony.
To find out more about volunteering for the dig, go to the volunteer hub section on the Ouse Washes website; and if you want to talk archaeology regularly, join FenArch, see the library for details. Interestingly, FenArch was started after a dig at Wisbech Castle, in 2009, to give local people a chance to do more investigations.
On a different note, if you are an artist or a craftsperson, who also enjoys demonstrating, please get in touch as I am helping with an event in Whittlesey on September 11th, and also of course the Wisbech Christmas Fayre is being planned. I know it’s still Summer, but these things take some time to plan! If you, or someone you know, creates things that are beautiful, useful or both, I would love to hear from you to offer you opportunities to sell your work, meet other artists/makers and work on a couple of projects I have coming up.