Hornsey Wood in Finsbury Park

Just before Christmas I put in a bid to the Forestry Commission for some money to plant trees along the edge of the Park next to the railway line. A lot of trees were cut down here to allow the old railway wall to be demolished. I wrote the bid with Daniel from the Groundwork Trust; we hadn’t met at the time except by email and had one day to do the bid. We got the money so on Saturday 28th February we had a volunteer day to plant 150 trees. There were about 8 volunteers, we all ended the day happier from having done something so simple and positive.
Most of the trees are small, we will have to show the Council exactly where they are so they don’t get mown down. We’re also getting a hedge to enclose the patch of ground behind the Art Hut and then I want to apply for another grant to build a memory garden (with space for drumming).
Last Friday Shakespeare started his new rhythm class and followed it with a multi instrument jam session where he arranged a piece for all the musicians. Again, much enjoyment, we didn’t leave until about 12:30pm.
Then, a complete piece of nastiness, on Saturday night someone broke into the building and stole our money; not a lot but all donations and money earned by BJ running a class for us. It could have been much worse, there was no equipment stolen and no vandalism other than a broken shutter but it feels so nasty because whoever did it knew us, knew where to go to find the money and had prepared for the break in by unlocking the door from the inside.
It took a lot to keep the building open for the drumjam on Sunday afternoon while waiting for the police. I couldn’t drum; perhaps someone who was there had done it. I found it difficult to cope with people, some were great and helped out fixing the broken shutter, others not so great, demanding to know why the building hadn’t been painted recently and what festivals we are organizing this summer. Very strange.
A few of us are drumming tonight to reclaim the space.

Fire in Finsbury Park

 

 Recently I’ve been dealing with a mixture of great, positive people who want to create and do interesting things and one or two others who insistently share their negative outlook; which in plain english means they’re looking for an argument. It ‘s hard work keeping things going  without getting pulled down by the bad stuff.  Here’s the positive, just to cheer me up. We had some fire jugglers turn up at the drum jam today.

This is my young friend Bianca becoming a juggler with a pink swirly deveice.

They were juggling to a very energetic drum jam inside, inspired either by the weather or Neil’s Polish homemade wine. A new drummer from the Gambia joined us. He’s called Nu Chilly and he gave me the address of his very fancy website nuchillymusic.com.

Here’s some of the drummers. The chinese man did a dance with the cow bell

 

Snow Fun in Finsbury Park

At 2:30 last Sunday morning, I was waiting up for our charity accountant to bring round the accounts for signature.  She arrived, I signed things and she drove off into the snow to Bloomsbury to make sure that our accounts were on the doormat of Companies House for Monday morning.

So I knew it had been snowing when I woke up but I figured that if she could get to Bloomsbury I could get to work in South London. Half an hour later and a mile down the road at Newington Green I watched a Nissan Patrol slide across the road and realised I was wrong. My resolve gave out, I slowly circumnavigated the Green and went home for a mental health day.

It’s boring watching the snow and then watching the news about the snow on the telly. I went to Finsbury Park, expecting to be a lone lunatic with a camera. I turned out I was the last person in the neighbourhood to have this idea, the park was full of sledgers, snowboarders, snowball fighters, snow people and their builders. Every one was happy, playing like kids.

Here’s some photos:

This is looking down toward the city from the site of the old bandstand and this is a man on a tree:

   

best hairdo on a snowlady and sledging on the slope down to the New River:

       

I took 108 photos and had a hot chocolate in the cafe. In the evening I went down to the Art Hut to tune djembe and put up a notice board. No one else came, it was so peaceful.

Tuesday is Practice Day. Six people meet in the Art Hut to play djembe and dun dun. We are learning the Malinke rhythm “Sofa” , which is for warriors and their horses to dance to. We got all five parts working together and ate some cake. Next week: “Dallah”.

On Wednesday our group of adults with learning disabilities had to cancel as they couldn’t get through the snow. In the evening I was at the Hut again talking to Joe and Kamil about how to publicise their class.

On Thursday I had a night in, crap TV and a good West Indian takeaway form Walworth

On Friday I actually had time to cook a meal in the evening. In the daytime on Fridays I work on Finsbury Park things, so I met with Steve, the project manager for our Hornsey Wood Project and decided what species of trees we are going to plant then did a flyer for the volunteer day on the 28th February.

Saturday is my day to be mindful and do the housework. In the evening I went to Shakepeare’s Reggae Jam at the Westbury in Wood Green and played some drums.

Sunday is the DrumJam. It was great this week, a real mix of familar people and new people with different skills all making a fantastic, joyful noise.