The Official Wenvoe Homepage
New posts for August 2019
How to make washable chalk paint
You will need:
Cornflour
Water
Food colouring
Mix the water and cornflour in equal parts (try 1/2 cup of each to begin with) then add food coloring until it reaches the color desired. It will dry lighter. You can use the paint on paper, chalk boards or even to paint on your patio – but remember to ask a grown up first!
July Meeting Report
President Madeleine welcomed everyone to the meeting, especially Shirley, who has been unable to join us for some time due to ill health. We were delighted to see her again and spend time with her.
Our speaker Viv Truran, has been a visiting speaker at Wenvoe WI for many years and it was good to have her back. We all thoroughly enjoyed hearing about the stories and facts behind a selection of items that Viv passed around for us to see. They included a Vaseline Glass Vase (which was quite valuable), Victorian postcards of local landmarks and a beautiful handmade purse/small bag displaying hundreds of tiny beads, all sewn on by hand. We are looking forward to Viv’s visit next year to see what treasures she will be sharing with us then.
We all enjoyed strawberries and cream and then moved on to WI business. Members were thanked for their contributions towards the success of our recent Charity Tea. At our October meeting we shall be giving a generous contribution to the Breast Centre at Llandough Hospital.
Names were collected for Wenvoe Garden Centre on 10th July to celebrate Gloria’s special Big Birthday and final arrangements were put in place for our trip to Radyr Garden Village on 22nd July.
Our next meeting will be on Thursday 5th September (there is no meeting in August). We will be collecting names and payment for our Fish and Chip Supper in November. September’s speaker will be Abi Reader who will be giving us an insight into ‘Cows on Tour’. Any visitors can be assured of a warm welcome and there is no charge.
Six Green Flag Awards
Six Green Flag awards was our tally for this year putting us well ahead of any other village in the UK and with more awards than most towns. The Green Flag Award programme is delivered in Wales by environmental charity, Keep Wales Tidy, with support from Welsh Government. It is judged by green space experts, who volunteer their time to visit applicant sites and assess them against eight strict criteria, including biodiversity, cleanliness, environmental management and community involvement. Our success is down to our few active volunteers and the support of the landowners, the Reader farmers and the Vale of Glamorgan Council. The sites now include the Upper Orchid Field, Community Orchard, Elizabethan Orchard, Wild Orchard, Welsh Orchard and now, Goldsland Farm. Why not visit some of them during August? We have led two guided walks so far this year and plan to do more.
Thanks are due to the Village Hall Committee for donating their old noticeboard to the group. With some adjustments and refurbishment, we plan to put the noticeboard up at Goldsland Farm either in the orchard or the new Pollinator Patch. We had fine weather for our Poisonous Plants walk with visitors from Barry and Cardiff joining Wenvoe residents.We would have had more but on a day when Culverhouse Cross was gridlocked, Five Mile Lane virtually impassable and the road past Dyffryn House closed, several gave up and went home. A pity as the weather was ideal.
We found 8 poisonous plants and trees in the middle of Wenvoe and a further 24 in the hedgerows and orchards. Whilst cases of poisoning are very rare, they do still happen often to children and those foraging so it is as well to know your plants.
One of the least pleasant tasks we undertake is to empty the dog-poo bin on the Upper Orchid Field. Dog-owners are very good at making use of the bin and the field has very little litter on it. The bin contents are emptied into bins in the village which are collected by the Council although they will not empty the bin on the field. Although we have been doing this for 8 years there have been instances recently where we have been challenged by local residents who presumably assume we are depositing household rubbish in the bins – hopefully now you will understand what we are doing and why.
This year the 5th Wenvoe Scarecrow festival will take place on Saturday 21st.September from 2.00 to 5.00pm and Sunday 22nd September from 10.30 to 11.00am when the winners will be announced.
Please start to think about entering a scarecrow this year even if you have not entered before. Its free to enter and there is no theme. We would like to make this year’s festival the best year yet as after this year the festival will become biennial, so we want this year to live long in our memories – well two years at least! More details will follow in future issues of What’s On. However, if you are keen to start building your scarecrow now further information can be obtained by emailing wenvoescarecrows@ yahoo.com or ring Vicar Jon on 02920595347. Please put the date in your diary.
July saw the passing of Dorothy Miller at her home in Grange Avenue. Dorothy was, at the time, the oldest resident born in Wenvoe. She worked at Anstee’s Nurseries, now Pughs Garden Centre, where they propagated roses and sold the cut flowers. Dorothy was known there as the rose queen. Dorothy had an allotment for many years and believed that most ills could be kept at bay by using herbs and plants found in hedgerows. This belief certainly worked for her as she was 97 when time finally caught up with her.
RHS tips for August.
Slugs and snails are well known enemies of gardeners. The old slug pellets are to be banned from use next year because they contain metaldehyde which is water soluble and pollutes water courses and is harmful to wildlife. The new pellets contain ferric phosphate which will degrade harmlessly into the soil. There are numerous tricks that people who tend the soil have been using to deal with these pests. Egg shells around plants do not work, the same goes for copper foil strips. You would need a strip of copper 6” wide for it to work, then some scallywag would, no doubt, relieve you of it. If you decide to catch the molluscs alive don’t just throw them over into next door’s garden as they will be back. Apparently you have to take them at least 20 metres away as their homing instincts only cover short distances. Trials have shown that beer traps work well but you should empty regularly as they smell awful if left. A piece of wood or slate left on the soil will allow cover during daytime, check underneath before dusk then dispose of the little blighters as you see fit. When watering the borders you should only water the ground close to the plants as slugs and snails find it harder to cross dry soil.
Our milder climate means that we have a longer flowering season, especially with Roses. When dead heading your Rose bush or climbing Roses don’t be afraid of cutting back a bit further on spent stems to a healthy bud and you will get more flowers this year. Rambling Roses are different and will only produce flowers next year on this season’s growth. All side shoots that have flowered can be cut back to one or two buds.
August is a good time to take cuttings of your favourite perennials, over-winter these young plants
under glass if you can. One of the RHS star plants for this time of year is the Japanese Anemone. They say it can be invasive but is easy to control. Don’t believe it. You will be pulling up offshoots from this plant for ever.
We must continue to weed around our plants. While doing this look out for self seeded plants and pot them up. They may not come true to the original but will help fill the borders next year.
Take care and happy gardening.
National Meadows Day
National Meadows Day is an annual celebration of wildflower meadows across the UK. The event takes place on or around the first Saturday of July every year. National Meadows Day events are helping to raise awareness of the importance of meadow conservation of a fast disappearing habitat.
The Living with Cancer July Stroll coincided with this special day and the strollers felt fortunate to be walking under bright blue, cloudless skies amongst a huge range of wildflowers, insects and grasses. Cosmeston has an abundance of wildflowers and Tess and Helen did a great job naming a selection including knapweed, orchids, oxeye daisies and cow parsley.
The strollers were also treated to the sight of a grey cygnet with its proud mother.
We are lucky to have Cosmeston on our doorstep with its myriad of paths. It’s different every time the strollers go there! You’re welcome to join us: the first Thursday of every month at 10:30am.
‘WRITING IT IS THE EASY BIT’ by David Simmonds
Many people enjoyed a lovely evening with journalist, novelist and genuine raconteur David Simmonds, who gave of his time to support the Friends of Wenvoe Library.
David’s career in journalism took him from the newspapers of the South Wales Valleys to BBC Wales in Cardiff, where he worked as a radio and television producer and director.
After retiring, David embarked upon writing and has recently published his novel ‘Jake’s Progress’.
David shared his own experiences of writing creatively, and suggested some advice that he found invaluable.
As the title of the talk suggests, in the end the writing of ‘Jake’s Progress’ for David was the easy part. Publishing a book today is extremely difficult and in the end David decided to go down the route of self-publishing. Publishing companies usually look for an author with a high profile or insist that you have 2/3 books in the pipeline. By choosing the self-publishing route you pay £75 to publish a book and each book is printed individually to order.
The ‘Meet the Author’ evening concluded with David’s thoughts on themes raised by the audience, including free speech and citizen journalism.
Our thanks to David for an entertaining and informative evening.
‘Under A Pole Star’. by Stef Penney
This book is centred around the two main characters, Flora Mackie and Jakob de Beyn.
We are first introduced to Flora, an elderly explorer known as the Ice Queen, as she prepares to return to Greenland in the year 1948. A reporter, accompanying the group, questions her about the fate of de Beyn and his companion Armitage, both of whom had disappeared during an Arctic expedition in the 1890s.
The story then follows the early lives of Flora and Jakob in the late 1800s. From the age of 12 years, Flora accompanies her father, a widowed Captain of a whaling ship, on his fishing expeditions to the Arctic. She is fascinated with the polar regions and its indigenous inhabitants, the Inuits. From the age of 18 years, at a time when it was difficult for a woman to achieve a good education or career, she studied Meteorology and was determined to lead her own exploration to the North. Jakob meanwhile, having been raised by his brother in New York, studies Geology and follows his ambition to become an Arctic pioneer.
It is during the ensuing expeditions that their paths cross.
The group agreed that the expectations for this book had been high with the promise of adventure, historical interest and romance in the early chapters. We loved the descriptive and expressive prose which brought to life the glaciers, the skies and the hardships experienced by the Inuits on a daily basis and the explorers during their expeditions. It had obviously been well researched and many of the Page Turners had read ‘The Tenderness of Wolves’ a previously successful novel by this author.
However, despite an interesting start and even though it was necessary to read of the personal relationships, emotions, passions and power struggles to set the scene of the protagonists, the Page Turners agreed that the storylines became too verbose and confusing and it was difficult to relate to some of the characters. The romantic encounters between Flora and Jakob were far too frequent and graphic. The storyline petered out and the question of the fate of de Beyn and Armitage was inconclusive.
The Page Turners agreed it is not a novel we would recommend. The overall score was 5 out of 10.
