How is it October this Sunday?   Look at the positives, autumn walks,  cashmere jumpers, silk scarves, riding boots, trilbys, long A Line woollen skirts; i'm just dreaming I'm Audrey Hepburn in the 21st Century !

#autumnwear - buy it locally, Dorothy Annes have some lovely fashion for the cooler months

A lovely weekend was had last week with my dear friends, people I love and people I hold dear, without them, I would not be the person I am today – not sure if this is a good or bad thing?     Until 2018
 

Hubby has been away with work this week, visiting Las Vegas, most people would be excited but going by his description; it’s not all that – A glorified Blackpool in the day and something out of Grand Theft Auto at night – Vice City.   I suspect it’s a place you need to know where to go as a tourist whereas working there for a few days isn’t quite the same; I’ll be glad to have him back.....

 
 I stopped in at SPT uniform shop this week to pick up my order, more trousers!  I saw there were lots of items still hanging,  waiting to be collected.  SPT staff have phoned people, but I suspect at times, they may not have always been able to get through or leave a message, so if you’re still waiting on items it may be worth a phone call or a pop in to see if it’s in.  The rack is pretty full of bags waiting to be collected – their number is 0113 232 0111
 

Sad to see this week that people were flocking to the doors of Dominoes; as I passed with my eyes up to the sky (I’m very good at doing this) It was also sad to see all the other independent takeaways, rather empty! I think it’s really funny that people flock to a brand and drawn in by overpriced deals  - hey, it’s just my opinion but it may count when we see another independent close .  I Look forward to getting my weekend takeout from an independent this week with good locally bought fresh ingredients #eachtotheirown 
 


A few things going on this weekend
 
Gaping Goose are holding a Help for Hero’s charity event from 12pm through to 11pm

Come along and Help support Help for Heroes Charity, Daytime stalls, Tombola, raffles, auctions, games, DJ and tabletop Magician.
 
Station House Café 
They celebrate their 1st Year Anniversary of opening here in Garforth. They officially opened on the 1st August, but are celebrating on this day.  Station Cafe will open between 8am-11am serving their usual breakfast menu, then from 11am-3pm they will serving teas/coffees along with Italian pastries and Luigi's homemade focaccia in a variety of flavours.

Rebecca from The Gin Shack and Garforth Community Choir will be there between 12pm-3pm .
They have a ticketed event from 5.00pm, but this has already SOLD OUT 

 
Shine Tanning Salon have their fabulous Free Tanning Weekend

We are rewarding all our lovely clients..

We are giving new & old clients *FREE* sunbeds & iFit sessions
Also, 25% off ALL block bookings & sunbed creams
This offer is for the Weekend ONLY!

T&C's apply. Over 18's only. Maximum of 10 minutes for free sunbed session per person. All blocks are valid for 12 months after purchase date.
 
Swillington Farm have also have a fabulous event going on at their farm  http://us1.campaign-archive1.com/?u=1544e1af3f1378d8be3c75d7e&id=b1a837e265
 
Copy and paste the link to find out about their fabulous Saturday event
 
                                                               Who says nothing goes on locally?!
 
  
 
I hope today you managed to attend a Macmillan Coffee Morning today, we had plenty on offer in Garforth
 

What a tough week this has been, life can be so unbelievably cruel at times and I’m one of the most positive people I know.  This week, I have to pay tribute to a lovely friend who sadly after 3 years of battling her life and I mean fighting every step of the way, sadly lost the battle this week to the awful disease we all hate to mention.  Leaving behind heartache and a young family, which is the hardest bit.  
Our friendship group with young families,  have found this very hard to deal with.    I would love to be the person that was able to take all the pain away from those who are truly hurting.  Life can be so unfair and you wonder how you can move forward
 
Take time to live each day, you don’t know when it will be taken away
 
Until next week............................
 

Some time ago I asked the lovely people of Garforth to email me their smiles.  As planned, this week would be the blog of our Smile Wall, and it seems, with such a miserable and very sad week this week, it's the perfect time to share it.

​Thank you so all who joined in the fun, you are beautiful people.

Don't worry if you have sent us your smile and you can't see yourself on this fun trailer - there are more smile wall projects to come.


​
As you know from last week's blog, I will be at my, annual girls weekend away.  I will raise a glass or three and see you next week 


If there's a problem where you live,  shout about it on social media, when you've come up with the solution to fix it.


Until next week.................

So sad to hear of yet another attack on our capital city; will it ever stop?    There are children on our tube stations; there are no words!  The only thing that I see that's really nice from incidents like this is people nearby tweeting out that they are nearby for tea, coffee, a place to go, a reaching hand......  we do have some lovely people in the world, it's so sad to hear the few that aren't can cause so much tragedy.  




First full week back to routine for many, how are your little ones getting on in their new journey, at school, uni, jobs? My new year 7 is loving his first fill week, very tired, but loving the lessons, teachers and slowly getting to know his way round a massive school.


Not a great week with the awful accident yesterday on the M1 where a lorry had hit the central reservation.  I hope the lorry driver is ok; they don’t seem to report this bit, just the traffic chaos it causes. 
 
We’re sorry to hear this week that our lovely MIG (Mum in Garforth) is to depart our blog.  The lovely Christine is going back to work full time, meaning she will have very little time left to herself to 1. Be local and 2. Any spare time she will have will be spent with her cute little boy, Tommy – we wish her lots of luck in her new journey.

This now gives space for another guest blogger, this time I’m looking for a DIG (Dad in Garforth) are you a new Dad, how is a little one now changing your life, how does it impact your every day, how was your paternity leave, what are you buying, where are you going, do you feel more responsibility  if your partner has decided to take a year off on maternity?  – I’d love to hear from you.
Christine@themaindeal.co.uk



ROAD WORKS

It looks like Main Street has nearly finished and now  working down on Lidgett Lane has begun.

The works on  Ninelands Road/Hazelwood Drive are due to finish next week (according to their yellow sign) let’s hope they are on schedule; I think it’s been ‘driving people a bit round the bend!'  But look at the positives, at least their doing it now and not in the winter months.
 
Aberford Road is due to be the next dig up over the next 22 weeks as of 11th September,  making changes to the road for the new Lidl complex, widening the road, lights, and a new entrance.

Lover of Tech
The iPhoneX is soon to be released, early November.  I’ m a lover of tech, that’s how the hubster and I met, in a software house.  We’re both lover of gadgets and IT, and we aim to always be that one step ahead of our children on this score.  I’m liking the new cool aspects to the iphoneX, but with a  price tag of £1,045 I think I’ll have to get a few more members on The Main Deal before justifying this cost.  I’m not quite into the full AI; wouldn’t want a robot living in the house -  saying that, we do  have an added member of the family we call Albert; our robot hoover; he’s great.     



 

Garforth Gossip – There are 5,462 people who follow GG, I’m not sure if this is a great thing or not, it appears that many people would prefer to follow gossip!  Sadly a lot of the threads appear to be angry, even leaning on the side of hatred in some cases, what’s the matter with people?  Sometimes people ask a simple question or recommendation; luckily a fair few are quite ‘normal’ in their responses, but then there’s a block of people who pull out their fangs, spike their hair up, put their finger in an electric plug socket and then tap, tap away their answer; most of which aren’t really helpful or necessary – I do laugh at some of them as it’s like reality TV, I’m sitting back waiting for the car crash to happen.  Is it just how Yorkshire people talk to each other?  ‘I like what I say and I’ll say what I bloody well like’?    #confusedplasticscouser

I have some fabulous Gossip to share .............

Great to see and hear that The Gin Club with the lovely Rebecca of The Gin Shack has had another successful event at Pride and Produce last night - a bit of inside info, if you missed this one, the next one for your diaries will be the 30th November  - details to be released soon, follow The Gin Shack social media pages.

The Station House Cafe can now sing from the roof tops, they have their alcohol license and are serving lots of Italian wines and sparking Wines, Italian bottled ciders, beer and pale ale, they're also stocking some unusual liquors!  

The Station House will be also be celebrating their 1st year Anniversary on,  Saturday 30th September from 8-11am they will be serving their usual breakfast menu following on from 11 until 3.00pm they will be  serving teas and coffees, Italian pastries and Luigi's home made focaccia loaf in different varieties of flavours.  

Rebecca from The Gin Shack and Garforth Community Choir will be there between 12-3pm,  then they will close for their ticketed  event from 5,00pm.  Unfortunately all tickets for this special evening event have been sold - but if you're lucky enough to have got one, boy are you in for a treat...  7 piece Italian brass band is all I am saying .

​
I have met up with one of my members this week, and some great news might not be too far away   - As soon as I can put the key into that little  TMD secret room, I will shout very loud about the exciting news;  because they actually make like to hear your opinions!



Next Weekend is my annual Girls Weekend away – Womens weekend doesn’t have the same ring to it!
Every September, I get together with my school friends and we spend quality time together.  From the time we step in the door of our holiday cottage until the time we have to leave, we laugh.  The house is full of fun, laughter, loudness, screams, and our lives come to a stop for 48 hours; we’re with our dearest friends; some who I celebrate being friends with 40 years this year.   

Like many women, we are all busy working Mums and all our lives are very hectic, so this is a weekend, we plan every year and we have done so for many years,  it's a need!  As good catholic girls, we always make sure we behave, are respectful and look out for one another;  well until the  alcohol gets started that is #happydays
 
 
For all those lovely people who sent me their great smiles before the summer holidays, watch out next week for the lovely little trailer I've put together, the first showing will be on next week’s blog #smilewall
 
Until next week
 
Look after where we live, it’s really important

Welcome back and welcome to the start of Autumn, this is my favourite time of the year from September through to December, for me there are so many lovely things happening and I’m also going, all Hygge; living Danish-ly. Pronounced (Hue-gah)

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