Month: October 2016

Vale Village Fun Day

games1It had to had to happen. After 3 years with sunny weather this year we were greeted by torrential downpours as we surveyed Grange park on the morning of the event. Contingency plans were quickly oct-vc-img_1619put in place and we transferred as many activities as possible to the Village Hall. The lingering question was, with the weather being so unpleasant, would anyone come?

At 2pm a steady stream of people headed towards the hall. Whether attracted by the smell of the free barbecue or the desire to get out of the house with active children they came! As people arrived in the car park they were greeted by a petting farm, donkey rides and games. The rain was no barrier to people meeting the animals or queuing for a burger or hot dog. Once inside bouncy castles, soft play, face painting, cakes, a nail bar, oct-vc-img_1627crafts, games and so much more added to the hive of activity. Our aim has always been to bless the village by giving a place where friends could gather, kids play safely and fun could be had in abundance, seemed to be a reality. One of the keys for us as a church is that we pay for everything so families can just relax and enjoy themselves without worrying about the cost. Freely we have received, freely we want to give.

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Plans are already in place for next year’s Vale Village Fun Day. We know it can be great in the rain but we really do want it to be sunny! Maybe we should all start praying now? 🙂

 

 

 

Goldsland Farm Charity Scheme

squirrelIf you find yourself in Tescos up till around 9th October you will have an opportunity to vote for us under the Bags of Help scheme. We were delighted to have been one of the three charities to be supported in the latest round and our project involves the development of wildlife habitats and education at Goldsland Farm near the Golf Course. So you are looking for the charity that is likely to include ‘Goldsland’ in the title. The scheme works by offering you a token at the check-out and you can then vote for the charity of your choice. There should be containers normally near the exit.

If you have not been to Goldsland Farm (the annual open day has attracted thousands of visitors), it is a working dairy and arable farm with a lot of history. One of the barns is a Grade 2 listed building datOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAing back to mid- Victorian times and the ponds which extend to just under an acre are referred to as watercress beds on old maps. There is a viewing area where visitors such as school parties can watch the cows being milked. Our project will involve putting up a notice board and bee hotel like the one on the Community Orchard, installing benches, creating a nature trail and planting wildflower areas and an orchard. We hope to put in a nest-cam and install equipment to monitor the local bats. Much of our conservation work will focus on clearing the undergrowth that is covering the watercress beds.

If we come last in the voting we will still receive £8,000 making it the biggest grant we have received. Second is worth £10,000 and first is £12,000. If we are lucky enough to be first or second the additional money will be used for visiting school parties and special needs groups of both children and adults who we are already working with.

In a separate project, Abi Reader, who farms Goldsland is working with the Welsh Government on a project which hopes to install reed-beds to process the slurry from the farm-yard – an initiative with potential major ecological significance. This provides an opportunity to tell a fascinating story starting with the pollinators who ensure our crops grow and wildlife prosper, through the dairy herd which provides the milk and ending with how the waste products are safely disposed of and the processed waste put to good use. As with all the Wildlife Group’s activities if you would like to get involved in any way (no knowledge or experience is necessary) do get in touch. You can follow us on Facebook (Wenvoe Wildlife Group), check our notice boards of which we have 5 or look at our website wenvoewildlifegroup.co.uk

 

 

Children’s Corner

Autumn Leaf Hedgehog

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This is an easy craft make when the autumn leaves begin to fall.
Draw a hedgehog outline on a piece of paper. Collect different coloured autumn leaves, spiky shaped ones work best. Starting at the top, glue a layer of leaves across the body, making sure the points of the leaves are pointing upwards. Then add a second layer of leaves which slightly overlap the base of the first row. Continue to add layers of leaves until your hedgehog’s body is covered. Add a face and your hedgehog is complete.

 

 

The Children Act by Ian McKewan, and other Reads

Fiobooks3na Maye is a successful, middle aged, High Court Judge in the Family Court, requiring her to make decisions about children and families in crisis.

Fiona and Jack have been married for 39 years when she is confronted with his revelation that he is about to embark on an affair with a younger woman, even though he says he still loves her and wishes to remain within the marriage.

Whilst dealing with this emotional turmoil within her private life she becomes involved with a court case involving a 17 year old boy, Adam, who is a Jehovah’s Witness and is suffering with aggressive Leukaemia. The Consultant treating him in hospital wishes to administer an emergency blood transfusion which the boy and his family are refusing due to their religious beliefs. Her subsequent ruling has far reaching unforeseen consequences.

The following opinions were unanimous::-

 Concise but extremely well written by one of our leading authors.

 Thought provoking yet poignant.

 Highlights the power that Family Court Judges have over the lives of children and their families where decisions can have far reaching consequences.

 Interesting insight into the religious beliefs of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

 Two strong story lines, one concerning the law and the other about personal relationships.

 A very good read enjoyed by all with a score of 9.

 

Additionally this month it was decided that each of The Page Turners would read a book of their choice. The chosen books are listed below, together with a brief review:

Where My Heart Used to Beat by Sebastia Faulks. – Tedious and uninspiring. Would not recommend.

My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises: by Fredrik Backman, Henning Koch. – A pleasant holiday read but would not particularly recommend.

The Fishing Fleet. Husband-Hunting in the Raj by Anne de Courcy. – Historically well researched with some interesting parts but mostly boring. Would not recommend.

Oliver Kitteridge: A Novel in Stories by Elizabeth Strout. (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction) – Interesting, funny and enjoyable. Would recommend.

Me Before You by JoJo Moyes. (New York Times no.1.bestselling novel.) – Very well written, intense but an easy and enjoyable read. Would recommend.

Eagles by Cynthia Harrod – Well written but a light and easy read. Would recommend.

The Past by Tessa Hadley – A good summer read. Would recommend.

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd. – Historically well researched and paired with a good fictional story line. A good read. Would recommend

 

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Florentine Brownies

 Ingredients

150g soft butter, + extra for greasing

150g dark brown chocolate [about 70% coca solids ] broken in pieces

300g light muscovado sugarchef01

3 large eggs, lightly beaten

150g plain flour

Topping

40g butter

40g demerara sugar

1 x 100 pkt flaked almonds

50g currants

50g glace cherries halved

50g mixed peel

Preheat oven 180 C, Grease and line a 20cm square loose bottomed tin. Melt the chocolate in a bowl over simmering water. Set aside to cool. Beat the butter and sugar together in a mixer until combined. Next add the eggs, little by little, until all combined. Add the flour and the melted chocolate and a pinch of salt. Mix to combine. Transfer to the tin and smooth the top. For the topping, melt the butter and sugar together in a small pan, then add the almonds, currants, cherries and candid peel, mix well. Scatter the florentine mixture over the top of the brownie mixture, spreading out evenly. Bake for about 45 mins for a slightly squidgier brownie, or 50 mins for more of a cakey brownie. Leave to cool, turn out and slice into squares.

  

 

Blondie Cappuccino Squares with Coffee Cream

Ingchef02redients

250g softened butter,+ extra for greasing

1 x 200g pkt pecan halves

500g light muscovado sugar

4 large eggs, lightly beaten

2tbsp coffee extract

300g plain flour

50g white chocolate, in pieces

Coffee Cream

300ml double crean

3 tbsp icing sugar

1 tbsp coffee extract

Preheat oven to 180 C. Grease and line a 20cm x 30cm, 5cm deep baking tray. Scatter the pecan halves on a baking tray and toast in the oven for about 8 – 10 min, set aside to cool, Beat the butter and sugar in a mixer until combined, add the eggs a little at a time, continue beating, then the coffee extract, Next add the flour and a pinch of salt, roughly chop the pecans and add to the mixture. Mix to combine. Pour the mixture into the tin, smooth the top, bake in the oven for about 35 – 40 mins. (35 mins will be squidgy, 40 mins more cakey blondie.) For the coffee cream, whisk all ingredients together in a bowl until thickened, chill in fridge. Melt the white chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. Using a spoon drizzle the melted chocolate over the top of the cooked cake while still slightly warm. Serve warm with the cream or leave to go cold. YUMMY

 

 

 

 

Ancient Trees

 

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Possibly the oldest in Wales? Recently we wrote about Citizen Science – how anyone can contribute to what we know about our world by recording what they see. One example is the Ancient Tree Register managed by the Woodland Trust. The Wildlife Group is registered as a recording group so if we come across a tree that is likely to be particularly old we take measurements and send the details off. So far we have recorded 18 trees, many of them in our parish. These would be regarded as 'veterans' – to be 'ancient' a tree has to be at least 400 years old – the likeliest candidate being the yew in St Mary's churchyard facing Old Port Road.oct-tree-near-tretower

However, whilst walking near Tretower recently members of the group came across a massive oak. It measured over 10 metres around the trunk and details were sent off along with photo, grid reference and lists of the mosses and lichens growing on it. The response we received from the Ancient Tree Register was encouraging. "This is a most remarkable ancient oak you have recorded in the Brecon Beacons… What a great find and thanks for adding it to the Woodland Trust's Ancient Tree inventory. Although the girth could be exaggerated by the tree's condition, falling open, it still suggests that this is one of the biggest and possibly oldest oaks in Wales"

oakleaves01It was as recent as 2014 that was is considered to be Britain's oldest tree was discovered in a churchyard in Wales, a yew in St Cynogs churchyard at Defynnog near Sennybridge which is thought to be 5,000 years old. The Pontfadog Oak was believed to be Wales's oldest oak at 1,200 years but it fell over in 2013. It will be interesting to see how our oak comes out when investigations and surveys have been completed

 

 

 

‘CAPABILITY’ BROWN

DID LANCELOT ‘CAPABILITY’ BROWN EVER VISIT WENVOE?

capability-brownThe August edition of Wenvoe What’s On contained a fascinating article on Wenvoe Castle. The grounds surrounding the castle are listed Grade II by Cadw (the Welsh Government’s historic environment service) because the layout and surviving planting are of national interest. Some of those features are typical of the work of ‘Capability’ Brown – rolling green slopes; trees dotted about singly or in clumps; a perimeter belt of trees and a pond of natural appearance. Historians have long pondered on whether Brown might have been instrumental in the design of the land around the castle and it is worth reflecting on whether the most important garden designer of the eighteenth century might have influenced the landscape of Wenvoe.

In 1774 Peter Birt bought Wenvoe Castle from the Thomas family and by 1776 work had started to rebuild the castle, following plans drawn up by berrington-hallRobert Adam. 2016 is the 300th anniversary of Lancelot Brown (1716-1783) and there have been many events this year to celebrate his work – his nickname came from the word he used to assure clients that their land was capable of improvement. He worked mainly in England but occasionally in Wales as, in 1778, when the fourth earl of Bute commissioned him and his son-in-law, the architect Henry Holland, to modernize Cardiff Castle and the surrounding grounds. At the same time Holland appears to have been asked to work at Wenvoe Castle. This seems to have been specifically in relation to the stable block and courtyard (now Wenvoe Castle Golf Club) which bears a distinct resemblance to another site he and Brown had developed together – Berrington Hall in Herefordshire.

Subsequently the land surrounding the castle became known as Wenvoe Castle Estate and remained in the hands of Birt’s descendants for almost two centuries. When the golf course was laid out in the 1930s considerable effort was made to ensure that the existing landscape was altered as little as possible. In the 1970s Birt’s descendants sold much of the estate’s farmland and buildings with the result that most of the land is private and cannot be accessed without permission. One such area, Bears Wood, is particularly interesting because it contains mid-eighteenth-century rococo landscaping with the remains of a grotto and serpentine canal. Easier to appreciate is Waun Lawn, the two fields on either side of the entrance drive to the golf course. Here oak trees that may date from the eighteenth century still stand – Brown liked to dot them around parkland, both to catch the eye and give shelter to livestock. An 1871 map of the estate shows one side of this road closely planted with trees, creating an avenue, as well as a belt of trees surrounding the perimeter of estate land. The 1871 documentation also gave details of the gardens which included ‘Vineries, Forcing and Cucumber pits, Stove [hothouse] and Greenhouses … an Archery Ground, a Charming Lawn and Terrace Walk to the south of the Mansion overlooking the Park’.

Despite the fact that the area around the castle illustrates evidence of the characteristics of Brown’s style of landscape gardening, no documentary dynefwrevidence has yet been found to confirm that he visited Wenvoe but he was known to travel great distances on horseback to visit sites and it seems likely that whilst working on Cardiff Castle he would have made the short trip to Wenvoe to see how his son-in-law was progressing. Birt would, no doubt, have welcomed both him and any advice he was prepared to offer on the landscape. Brown, in turn, would certainly have assured Birt that his estate had many ‘capabilities’.

 

 

 

 

 

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