Friends, freelancers, Kensalmen, Friday 5 July (10am–12pm) come say hello…
Park Life and Paradise by Way of Kensal Green are inviting locals for a cup of tea and to meet the neighbours. Know a great plumber, electrician, painter that you’d recommend? Get them to pop in. We always get asked for advice when it comes to local services or businesses, so now’s their chance to slip people their business cards.
And stay tuned for Park Life’s new forum, which we’re launching too on 5 July: this online hub will be where local residents can communicate with each other directly and crowd-source information such as tips on the best tradesmen.
‘Come, let us have some tea and continue to talk about happy things’ – Chaim Potok
While we try to reply to the many emails we get, and there’s nothing we like more than flagging up great places and people in our marvelous neighbourhood, it is fantastically time consuming keeping up a non-profit blog and all its social channels – particularly when you have a full-time job. So, thank you Mile Estates for kindly offering to invest in our time over the last month to upload this new forum care of Mathew Waddilove, and keep on blogging. Another reason to celebrate on 5 July…
Why do all of this? Ubuntu – community spirit – that’s what we all need. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, this African philosophy speaks sense with its talk of interconnectedness, respect, sharing, community. And since we have a very special London villages of Kensal Rise and Queen’s Park and with the Park Life forum you’ll be able to talk amongst yourselves via our blog.
In the meantime, put the morning of 5 July in your diary and please come and join in the conversation in person.
‘When you have nobody you can make a cup of tea for, when nobody needs you, that’s when I think life is over’ – Audrey Hepburn
Pictures: the mighty Countessian, Rachel Juarez-Carr.
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Three weeks ago, after mild persuasion by my 15-year-old son, I decided to get three hens. He calculated that we consume, on average, three free-range eggs a day at about 30 pence each (£6.30 a week x 52 week= 327 pounds!). Although we probably over-estimated our egg bill, as I have three sons I was easily convinced that a few girls might balance things out a bit.
“There’s an egg!” announced my two-year-old after opening the egg hatch for the hundredth time. When he reached in and brought out one little white egg my initial thought was that it must be a fake or a toy as it seemed far too sudden. We all gathered round to hold it in amazement. The comforting warmth of a freshly laid egg makes for a truly magical moment.
The great thing about hens is that you can pick and choose a variety of breeds and they all get along once the pecking order has been established. This seems to have happened already with our girls and our little Japanese Bantum called Blueberry is clearly the current leader. She leaves the coop first and isn’t scared of the dog, the cats or the toddler. We’ve even had a few cuddles with her at bedtime. I’m not sure how much hens really like to be handled, despite it being recommended in all the books.





