Huffin and Puffin

For those that don't know about it (you soon will) there is a scheme to allow parents to park at the Community Centre when dropping off and collecting children from the primary school. This involves widening the pavement opposite and installing a Puffin* crossing to the Community Centre entrance. The work is due to start on Monday November 17th and will take at least three weeks, so expect traffic delays, as they say!

Short-term parking remains a problem, as the existing arrangement in Church Lane is very tight, even with the school numbers as they are now (and they will increase by 50% if the proposed Council reforms go through). This is not helped by the plan to include 'turfing and installing wooden bollards to the area of verge opposite the White Lion to prevent cars parking', according to the Council notice.

This is the area in the photo which, ironically, is where the contractors have parked their gear prior to starting the work. The Council have always had a strange attitude (in my opinion) to this spot, having both objected to cars parking there because they obstruct the view and having themselves placed a far more obstructive billboard there to advertise road safety! They seem blissfully unaware that it is regularly used by visitors to the village, as well as church congregations attending weddings and funerals, not to mention emergency vehicles, the police, tow trucks and anyone needing to pull off the road in a hurry.

The upshot of all this is that they are incurring major expense to reduce the overall number of parking places available, but perhaps I'm missing something...

PLEASE NOTE - The Community Centre car park is NOT intended for school overspill - the crossing is for the benefit of bus passengers or anyone needing to cross the road in either direction. I'm still miffed about the fencing off of the verge, though, which will cause all kinds of problems that the Council seem unable to anticipate.

*(pedestrian user-friendly intelligent crossing), apparently!
More puffin crossing info here

Arreton Heritage Weekend

Make a note in your diary for the last weekend in November (29/30th, 10am-4pm) when Lin Watterson and Pat Phillips will be at the Community Centre, scanning or photographing any parish-related historical items, photographs or documents. These could be old family records, letters, pictures or postcards, the older the better!
Get into that attic and start dusting off the old heirlooms - you might surprise yourself.

There will also be parish maps, burial registers, copy of school admissions register 1866-early 1900s, and old photographs for you to look at.

Contributions of photos or documents from members of the public will be welcomed.

Harvest Festival

The harvest festival service at St George's on Sunday was not quite as well attended as usual, perhaps because some felt that the harvest this year wasn't so well worth celebrating. However, aside from the debatable crop yields, the church was beautifully decorated, and the service provided the right atmosphere to consider what most of us take for granted the rest of the year.

As usual, an excellent supper in the Community Hall followed, and we could only feel sorry for those who were unable to partake of Erica Oulton's delicious beef stew and dumplings, or Venetia Verey's vegetarian risotto. A dazzling array of desserts and puddings, for which seconds were virtually compulsory, was provided by various ladies, including Erica and Venetia, Diana O'Grady, Wendy Urry, Joy Rann, Norma Aston, Jacqui Miller and Isabel Favell.

The church flowers were also done by Venetia, assisted by Erica, Norma and Carolyn Campbell. There are photos of some of the flower arrangements here.

We should also mention Janice, our vicar, who had recently returned from her honeymoon with Andrew. The Blog wishes them every happiness.

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