Hygge is a feeling, a Danish ritual of enjoying life’s simple pleasures. Friends. Family. Graciousness. A quality of cosiness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being
I will soon be celebrating birthdays, the husbands and mine – 2 days apart, 2 Virgos in the house! Then we have one of my favourite times of the year Halloween; it’s a good job our street goes to town. I’m easily spooked and I’m not a massive fan of trick or treat but it’s the feeling – pumpkins, soups, chocolates, colder weather, jumpers, autumn leaves the colour orange and kids having fun; and I do like getting dressed up and scaring the pants off the kids…. Then Bonfire night and Christmas follows… yes I said the word – but these are things to look forward to, things to love. We should always enjoy the good things that come along and if you’re like me, make a big deal about it.
So what’s been happening in the world of Garforth whilst I have been resting my blogging fingers?
Well Dominoes is back! *eyes rolling to the sky – it opens at some point – can you sense my enthusiasm?
Road works have taken over Garforth, long term good, short term pain. I feel so satisfied when the lights are on green and I can glide… well dodge through the cones, barriers, things in the way…
Woodlands Drive is soon set to be a Residental Permit area (outside of school hours) so I suspect it will be difficult for commuters to park outside the parking areas they have recently painted.
I have hinted, and by now a lot of you may have heard directly from Chris himself,t at the end of October, Chris’ Fruit and Veg shop will no longer be trading – yeah, it’s crap…. sorry to be so blunt but this is a case of people not shopping local, some of you may say he needed to diversify a little or spend some money on updating the shop; but everything needs money. After 33 years, Chris will leave our housing estate and if like me, you live on the Fairburn Estate this is going to be a massive loss as well as to some of our local businesses that Chris currently supplies to. What about Christmas trees and wreaths and flowers and eggs and Dumouchel bread….. I will truly miss him and his produce; I spend approximately £60 a month easily with Chris as I buy fresh and cook fresh and my children eat lots of fruit #sadtimes People have been in and asked why he’s closing, spend 50p a week and say, ‘well I spend in here’. Unfortunately it’s little too late. This is a huge case of if you don’t use it, we lose it. Hey ho, at least some are happy about Home Bargains coming, hey! *eyes rolling to the sky
More sad news that Cielo in Crossgates and Duncan Street went into liquidation over the summer, this must have been a sad few weeks for our lovely local family, The Castles, who put so much hard work and effort into wanting to emanate what we have in Garforth into other parts of our city. But please do not fear, if we keep using our local coffee shop here in Garforth and in the library, we have nothing to fear. #uselocal it pays.
LOCAL PROJECT
There was hope of a fantastic project earlier in the summer holidays of working with Virgin Media and all their cable boxes. My idea was to give something positive back to community after lots of disruption when they dug up our roads and paths and I wanted to see if we could use the cable boxes and have them aesthetically painted to the area they are situated. For exampl, near the library, a bush, a flower bed, a shop, we could have some ideas like this
However, over the holidays Virgin team have had some thinking and they now feel that it would not be appropriate or a good time for them to get involved with such a project as the issues raised by the community, they have said
‘Unfortunately due to the amount of issues we have faced during the build process, we feel that it may divide opinions further throughout the community’
I’m not one for giving up easily, so I have gone to them with Plan B – just give me permission to use them then and me and team GFEAST will go from there
I can’t put the pictures I have on my Pinterest page due to copyright issues, but if you have a look under, Local Projects on my Pinterest account under THOM you will be able to see what I’m thinking, you can also look online under painted cable boxes and you will see some fabulous ideas. There are book shelves, plants growing, large letters that wold be great near to a post box. Lots of lovely ideas that would compliment our town.
This project is a, wait and see what happens over time………….
Routine – back to normal
Kids are back in school and holidays are over, hopefully we’ll start to see you all back using local businesses. August is a really hard time for all businesses as everything goes quiet. So please get back spending where your money counts the most.
The Choir Starts back next week and news will be released soon of our new Choir leader – come for a taster, it’s only £5 for the two hours, see if it’s something you will like – the choir are not a serious crew, but they are very well knitted family who open their arms to new members – come for a session next Wednesday at 7pm – 9pm , meeting James Jelliman our Arts Live Co-ordinator at Garforth Academy reception
We have held a few Garforth Feastival meetings over the summer, all our ideas and things we have learnt are putting us in good stead for July 2018, when you will see things added, changing and growing – the team I work with are fabulous, we all have the same goals and we all like to achieve and do good things – I like working with these people and they like gin too.
If you haven’t had chance to look or seen it yet, have a look at the fabulous video that was created supporting the good of our feastival http://www.garforthfeastival.co.uk/
PLANNING
Home Bargain have officially been announced as setting up home next to Lidl. As mentioned in my post on Facebook a week or so back, I’m truly disappointed that planning has allowed this to happen. Before people start barking, I truly couldn’t care about Lidl, I think Lidl is a need as it will keep people from travelling further out of Garforth to shop at the lower cost super markets that have grown in many of our families lives. However, with a pub and now Home Bargains in place, what planning without any thought are creating a destination . With 134 free spaces, a pub, a shop that offers everything under one roof and a super market, do you truly believe that the good Garfonian will then come down main street to use other local businesses? As there is also 13,000 other square footage still to let, all they need to do know is allow a coffee shop
We are being taken over by too many large corporate companies, Costa, Dominoes, Greggs, Subway and now Home Bargains – will we just be like every other town? How sad we can’t be a little more individual and how sad that someone on twitter said, ‘ Hearing that home and bargains is coming to Garforth has made my life’.
*eyes rolling to the sky
Nothing much to report apart from as mentioned above about Chris’ Fruit and Veg, an application for a Physiotherapist is in to go in it’s place
Cooplands Bakers look like they’re getting a new shop front and some interior work that looks as though there will be more room to shop inside.
There’s also a few local businesses currently up for sale
You’re never too important to be kind to others
I’m off for a gin to three, and to get my eyes back to their normal position…………………..
Until next week
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