A Harringay Housewife

Spring is waking up and putting her face on

noreply@blogger.com (Liz) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:13:00 +0000

Hints of Spring are everywhere.

This tiny iris is blooming in our commmunity planter

and this clump of pretty little snowdrops were sighted in a Wightman Road front garden.

Three free to see

noreply@blogger.com (Liz) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 14:50:00 +0000

January is going by in a bit of a blur as routines kick back in and I find myself back on various sidelines holding the kids' coats or helping out at the Citizen's Advice Bureau office but I have managed to find three free things to see this month that I loved.

Free photography

Don McCullin at Tate Britain

This display of Don McCullin's landscapes, portraits, and photos of Berlin in 1961 stays with you for a long time. As a history student, the pictures of the building of the Berlin Wall and the armies facing off against each other across the barricades are utterly compelling. This felt like the start of World War 3 and the tension is apparent in the faces of the army personnel. Meanwhile people pose for photos and stand and watch the action in their Sunday best. I wonder what Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels would have made of a whole square being named after them.

Don McCullin's industrial landscapes are also important. These landscapes of Yorkshire, Liverpool and Co Durham remind viewers of the enormous human cost to the Industrial Revolution. People are dwarfed, landscapes are grimy and grassfree, children go about their play in front of great piles of scrap metal or belching factories, boys play foorball on waste ground littered with rubbish, mothers push prams down roads that appear to lead into wasteland. This is the other side of heritage, the true face of the industrial landscapes so soon to be transformed into places of no industry or even cleaned up museums to a disappearing past.

I was also taken with Don McCullin's portraits of homeless people in the East End. He tells us that he wants to us to look into their eyes and really see them and his photos certainly force us to do that but the picture that stays with me is the one of a group of men standing, all asleep on their feet as though they've been switched off by an invisible hand.

Tateshorts: Don McCullin (video)

Free exhibition

Boxed at The South Bank

Planning your funeral might seem a bit like a morbid pastime ( I have decided on some of the music for mine though) but this exhibition of special coffins from coffin makers in Ghana and Nottingham makes it somehow less Victorian and a bit more,well, fun.

Plain wooden boxes are so 19th century. These days, you can get 'planted' in eggs, replica cars, (small) Viking longships, or my favourite a giant corkscrew.

The coffins from Ghana include a cocoa pod, important for the local economy and a small Mercedes, a symbol of success and wealth.

Go have a browse. You'll probably find yourself musing on what kind of box would best symbolise your life. Could they make a coffin out of a giant bar of chocolate?

Free sculpture

Virginia Dare at St Brides

A beautiful little sculpture that is tucked away at the back of St Brides Church in Fleet Street. Made by Clare Waterhouse (1999) to replace an original (stolen) marble representation, Viginia Dare was the first English immigrant child born in the Americas of parents who were married in St Brides in 1585.

She was born on Roanoke Island on August 19, 1587: "Elenora, daughter to the governour and wife to Ananias Dare, one of the assistants, was delivered of a daughter in Roanoke". The child was healthy and "was christened there the Sunday following, and because this childe was the first Christian borne in Virginia, she was named Virginia"

Frost

noreply@blogger.com (Liz) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 09:56:00 +0000

The blooms in our community planters are suffering from the hard frost.

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Location:Harringay

Library books: feeding their addictions

noreply@blogger.com (Liz) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 16:14:00 +0000

Library books: feeding their addictions
Originally uploaded by MrsEds

Via Flickr:
At the age my kids are, they don't read books, they ingest them. Not literally of course, but they nibble away at books, returning again and again to the pages they like. They don't want just one book on Dr Who, they want them all. They're not always sure what they like, so library books enable them to develop their tastes and experiment with new flavours. They get to sit among books, take them off shelves, flick through them, read snippets all under the approving gaze of a librarian.

For as good as book shops are for kids, at the end of the day the booksellers must sell stock and so it's hard not to hover and make noises about 'not spoiling the book' etc. The good librarian, on the other hand, understands that a child's love for books has to be left to grow unmolested by fussing grown-ups.

Every single literature addiction I have began in a library from the moment I met and fell in love with Sherlock Holmes in a tiny (now under threat) library in Ipswich. My parents did not deny me books, they loved them too but they couldn't have kept up with my voracious appetite any more than I can keep up with my kids' today.

Closing libraries is closing minds, denying opportunity for the dreaming child to find soul mates in books, keeping the child in their place being fed what they grown-ups think they should be reading. You can't measure a return on investment on a library, how can you measure developing imagination, knowledge and empathy in our children and ourselves in a piechart?

I am most fortunate that Haringey have given a commitment to our libraries. I'm not having to chain myself to railings or weeping outside watched over by police as they empty the stock and board up the windows as is happening across the country, but each one of those closures is another bitter blow and a terrible legacy for this government that must have their Victorian forefathers spinning in their graves.

Wild Winter's Day in Harringay

noreply@blogger.com (Liz) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 19:25:00 +0000

Rainy and windy but still quite exhilarating. Winter's dark and wild beauty reveals itself.

Staying in and keeping it free

noreply@blogger.com (Liz) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 11:22:00 +0000

December played havoc with my plans to get out and about. The first two weeks seemed to be mainly about shopping for presents, the last two weeks about looking after the kids, playing with new presents and enjoying lounging about the house. Still plenty of free stuff to enjoy if you don't get out and about though, thanks to libraries and the internet. Here's three free things that I enjoyed.

Library book: Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann

Great big German family saga that charts the decline of a bourgeouis family in pre-unification Germany. While not usually a fan of family sagas, this one is a cut above. Highly readable, interesting characters and big themes: sacrifice, death, decadence, conflict between business and art. The central character that binds the book together is Tony who suffers bad marriages and disappointment in her attempts to be socially acceptable but remains a sympathetic character who endures long after the males of her family are driven into the grave by work and poor health.

Free Film: Secret Agent by Alfred Hitchcock

An early movie by Hitchcock starring John Gielgud who you forget was quite the handsome young movie star with cheekbones that could cut butter (as the expression apparently goes), Madeleine Carroll as the chirpy English girl whose enthusiasm for espionage is soon tested and who delivers the fast moving dialogue with aplomb, Robert Young as the baddie German spy with a nice line in patter and the great Peter Lorre overacting like mad as the murderous General. The wit, the dramatic angles for the action and above average characterisation mark this out as a Hitchcock and well worth 86 minutes of anyone's time.

Free ebook: After London by Richard Jeffries

I downloaded this onto my new toy, an e-reader. Described by the Observer as a strong candidate for the most beautiful of all Victorian novels, the fact of Jeffries being a nature writer shines through both in his scientific description of post apocalyptic England and the descriptions of the hero's voyages which teem with detail about the birds and landscapes he passes through. The strongest parts of the book are the descriptions of environmental collapse in the first part and Felix's trip through the nightmare landscapes of an extinct London which are truly gripping.

I was less enthralled with the descriptions of future feudal societies, although there is some interest in Jeffries proto-socialist philosophising about the corruption of the nobility, the inability of the lower classes to overthrow a society that they recognise to be rotten and which enslaves the vast majority of them and the eulogising of a society of workers (the Shepherds) where men and women's work is of equal value, sharing and hospitality are the norm and war is for defence rather than glory or gain as in the other societies Felix encounters, which, perhaps, were the parts that were said to give William Morris such inspiration for his News from Nowhere in which "absurd hopes curled around... [his]... heart as... [he]...read it."

Strike 30 November

noreply@blogger.com (Liz) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 21:33:00 +0000

30 November, a set on Flickr.

Protests in Haringey and central London at plans to cut public sector pensions.

The New Recruit

noreply@blogger.com (Liz) — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 17:52:00 +0000

Today I spent 6 hours volunteering at the reception desk of our local CAB. This time last week, I hadn't really intended to commit a couple of days a week to helping out anywhere, let alone at a Citizen's Advice Bureau. I've always had enormous respect for the organisation but hadn't really considered getting involved.

So what caused this sudden rush to join up? Last week, I went along to the Haringey Council HMO conference. The more I listened to council officers and housing experts explaining the changes to housing benefit, the rise in the number of complaints against private landlords, the impassioned pleas of enforcement officers to 'join up the legislation' so they can tackle rogue landlords effectively, the more I realised that being angry about the cuts, lack of housing, benefit reform etc and reading endless Guardian articles about the effects wasn't going to be enough and it was time to get skilled up to help those about to be knocked off their feet by the tsumani that is the Coalition's welfare reform.

I'm starting at the reception, learning the ropes and how to handle people that are worried, frustrated or angry about their problems. I spent a lot of time apologising that we don't have enough people/time to see them. I hope they will be successful if they show up the next time but the queues in the morning for the 9.30 opening suggest that they may have a long wait. I hand out opening hours and a list of alternative places to get advice. The CAB staff and volunteer advisors work all day with new/ existing clients but there's 30 turned away today. Demand is very high and not enough staff to cope but there is tremendous relief on the faces of many of those who are seen. One client comments to another as she's leaving, 'you have to wait a long time, but it's worth it'.

I hope to train as an advisor in a few months. In the meantime, I'll do what I can to help out. I expect to learn a lot in the next few weeks.

Photo by Alan Stanton on Flickr

Link: Haringey CABX

Reflections on a week of Remembrance

noreply@blogger.com (Liz) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 23:09:00 +0000

In February, I will be starting a third year OU course called Total War.

We shall be spending a lot of time looking at the wars that tore generations of lives apart in the first half of the twentieth century. As we approached a weekend of remembrance for the fallen, I decided to begin some personal pre-course work on the First World War. Here are some disjointed thoughts about the beginning of that work.

The Imperial War Museum

I passed about an hour and a half in the First World War galleries. I spent a long time reading all the information, looking at the uniforms and the guns and the posters. I took some notes. I even followed (at a distance) a group of kids into 'The Trench'. At the end of it all however, I felt strangely unmoved by the experience. Walking through the Trench seems pointless. War as theatre not a theatre of war. Even standing alone (after the kids had gone) and just listening, it conveyed nothing to me. There is a lot about the The Western Front in the First World War Galleries but anyone seeking to find out more about the other battlefronts were a little short changed. The Middle East section (arguably the most interesting from a modern point of view) is small and a little cursory. How it all links up with now is somehow missing.

Maybe that's for me to work out and I'm being too demanding. I'm beginning to feel that much of the work that the IWM does online is of greater importance than the permanent exhibitions. I also think their temporary exhibitions are probably better curated. One, a while back, on the Spanish Civil War was amazing (I even did something I never do and bought the catalogue). Have museums gone too far down the road of 'entertainment'? I also couldn't help feeling strange about the huge display of camouflage merchandise clearly aimed at little boys. What's the message here? Is there one? This is after all a war museum, so perhaps I'm asking too much to feel the 'pity' of war.

First World War Poetry, edited by Andrew Motion

Mooching around the bookshop at IWM (and slightly bemused by the 'between the wars' section which really should be named the Hitler section - really, IWM, lots of other history happened between 1918 and 1939), I came across a slim volume of poetry published by Faber of First World War Poetry. Having always read the trusty Jon Silkin edited Penguin edition, I debated whether I needed another 'collection'. I'm glad I bought it. Here was poetry about the war by lesser known poets which conveyed in a few lines more about this war than hours spent looking at museum exhibits. Helen Mackay's Train with its heartbreaking subject matter, Ivor Gurney's gentle lyricism as well as the more familiar trio of Rosenberg, Owen and Sassoon all picked me up and wrung my heart out. The First World War continued to echo down the years so the collection also includes poems by those who never fought and by women who both served and stood and waited.

Because our fathers lied

Many fine articles were written about the wars this year but for me none was finer than this piece by Christopher Hitchens. With his characteristic clarity, he discusses Kipling's desire to see his son at the front, the poets of war and how this all relates to now.

Photo by Shelley Usher on Instagram

Vampire muffins for the school cake sale

noreply@blogger.com (Liz) — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 17:31:00 +0000

Vampire muffins
Originally uploaded by MrsEds

(belated) Happy Halloween!

Reading week: An Ibizan interlude

noreply@blogger.com (Liz) — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 17:24:00 +0000

30th October 2011

Week 2 of free for three wasn’t half bad, spending as I did in Ibiza with the family. My main pursuit, aside from swimming and lying on a beach was reading. I whizzed through half a dozen books including King Leopold’s Ghost, a gripping but harrowing book about the Congo under Leopold the second, King of the Belgians).

Tales of murder and mayhem from Boris Akunin and Marcel Allain’s Fantomas seemed light relief by comparison. I also spent an afternoon reading Magnus Mills’ The Scheme for Full Employment, rather disappointing after his first two books, all a bit obvious in its moralising about people’s relationship to work.

An hour in the company of Kurt Vonnegut’s God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian proved much more satisfying. It’s always a pleasure to read anything by Vonnegut and although this is a very slight book, comprising ‘interviews’ with people who have passed through the pearly gates done originally as 90 second interludes on public radio, there’s lots of ideas to mull over, not least the thought that keeping score of the times when you are truly enjoying something is a good way to pass your time on the planet, just like Uncle Alex.

The Harringay housewife gets some time to herself

noreply@blogger.com (Liz) — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 22:44:00 +0000

Suddenly after 5 years of being a stay at home with a small one in tow, I've got my daytime back. I'm going to take a holiday. A holiday in London. I'm going to take trips out to see and do stuff. I'm on a budget though, so I'm going to try and only do things that are free between the hours of 9.30am and 3pm during the week when my time is truly my own. I've started a diary of those three free months. Why three? Well, in February I'll start the third year of my OU course in history and I really should try and find a job...ah but there's plenty of time for that next year. The posts will also end up here on my personal blog just in case anyone is passing. I might also do some baking...

Two free things on Tuesday: brain food in Bloomsbury

noreply@blogger.com (Liz) — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 22:35:00 +0000

Today's outings took me to Bloomsbury.

First stop was the British Library where I popped in to see the Michael Katakis Photographs in the Folio Gallery. One wall of black and white images of Sierra Leone and the US. The photos were simple, people were smiling and posing in the photos from Sierra Leone unaware of the cataclysm about to fall. In the photos of the US no one smiles. The cataclysm has already occured: the Vietnam war and the 9/11. It was hard to say which pictures were sadder, of those who already knew the worst or of those happy smiling kids whose country would be plunged into a 9 year civil war.

Then it was time for some Brain Food at UCL at their free public access lunchtime lectures held every Tuesday on a variety of subjects. Today's lecture was on Slavery and the writing of two contemporary women, Mary Prince and Elizabeth Barratt Browning by Professor Catherine Hall who argued well that the legacies of slavery are still with us and that slavery cannot be pigeonholed as black history or that abolition tells the whole story of British involvement. British history is the history of slavery. I sensed from some of the comments from the audience as they left that they found this an uncomfortable message although there was a heartfelt comment from a Trinidadian member of the audience thanking the Professor for insisting that the history of slavery is a central part of any telling of British history. As we walked out into a Bloomsbury built from the wealth of slave owners, the lecture gave me much to ponder on especially as I had recently read Harman's chapters on slavery in A People's History of the World and was reminded that the racist narratives of today were written in those dark days of slavery: "The prevalence of racism today leads people to think that it has always existed...slavery is then seen as a by-product of racism, rather than the other way round...Racism developed from an apology for African slavery into a full blown system of belief into which all people's of the Earth could be fitted as 'white', 'black', 'brown', 'red' or 'yellow'."

noreply@blogger.com (Liz) — Thu, 12 May 2011 17:17:00 +0000

Spring in the BTCV run nature reserve on Green Lanes in Harringay known as Railway Fields

TUC March for the Alternative

noreply@blogger.com (Liz) — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 20:12:00 +0000

2011 26 March - TUC March for the Alternative, a set on Flickr.

Some of my pictures from the March for the Alternative, attended by many Harringay Families (43 pictures)

Via Flickr:
Pictures from the TUC march for the alternative.
YouTube video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEYubAIo3gc

Winter in Harringay

noreply@blogger.com (Liz) — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 18:50:00 +0000

Something about snow that makes a familiar landscape unfamiliar and magical.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Good ideas: Please water me

noreply@blogger.com (Liz) — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 16:25:00 +0000

Please water me
Originally uploaded by MrsEds

I like this idea from Hackney where they put invitations to water the street trees and watering pipes to make it easy.

Turning bedbases into vegetable plots

noreply@blogger.com (Liz) — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 11:04:00 +0000

It's that time of year again when along with the leaves falling from the trees, the bed boxes and mattresses begin to litter the gardens and streets of Harringay (and indeed many other places).

Every time, I see one lying on the ground abandoned to the elements, I'm reminded of a comment by Boom in the Harringay Online Gardening Group last year

Wanting more space to plant as we're moving towards the summer, I have used an old bed box (the things that go under a mattress - commonly found in front gardens, as Liz mentioned!) and turned them into planting boxes, sowing some carrots a couple of days ago. The boxes aren't exactly the most attractive or smart things, but function well and didn't cost more than a bag of nails and a few hours.

and an image from the landshare blog keeps coming back to me of a pallet garden 1 m by 1m

From skanky fly tipped junk to a little garden...that would be an impressive example of reuse and recycle.

The mystery and magic of the trees of St Ann's Hospital

noreply@blogger.com (Liz) — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 14:23:00 +0000

Here's a little mystery for you history detectives to solve.

In the grounds of St Ann's Hospital are a large number of planted rare and interesting trees but nobody knows who was responsible for deciding the detail of the tree planting, remarkable for its wide variety and the amount of edible fruit trees selected. The only clue I can give you is that the planting was done in the 1920s. The organisers of Tuesday's tree tour would love to hear from you if you can unearth the answer.

Over 50 staff, service users and local people gathered in the grounds of the Hospital on October 12th to listen to Haringey treasure, botanist David Bevan, give an entertaining and highly informative talk about the wonderful trees.

We began with the stars of the show, the twelve True Service trees. St Ann's has the finest True Service trees in North London (in fact you have to travel to the Wyre Forest to see better). It is an uncommon tree in Britain and wild trees are extremely difficult to find but there is a wild True Service tree in Railway Fields, the only one in London, which was probably seeded by a local bird.

The True Service has edible fruit which either resembles small apples or pears but it is not until the skin has turned a leathery brown and looks over ripe that the fruit is good to eat, in fact it is recommended to wait until the first frosts to harvest them. It tastes of a pear flavoured chocolate by the way.

It can be turned into an alcholic cider-like drink known as cerevisia to the Romans from which the name of the tree is thought to derive.

There are a number of Mulberry trees on the site. Some of the staff admitted that during the fruit season in July, lots of people can be seen dotted with the tell tale red stains of the Black Mulberry where they've been 'scrumping'

Another rarity for North London, was the Strawberry Tree. Although a native of the British Isles, you usually have to go to the West of Ireland to see it. The fruit is quite tart but those who tried it said it was rather nice.

There are also lots of crab apple trees which formed a sort of odd link with my encounter with the wartime table at Markfield Park where the art of making crab apple jelly was being demonstrated. We also found damsons, sweet chestnuts and lime trees, the young leaves of which make a good salad leaf.

There is a large patch of protected woodland at the back of the hospital backing onto the railway line, home to much local wildlife and native trees. David, in his time working at Haringey Council was responsible for getting the protection for this land as well as developing Railway Fields, so David has a special place in Harringay natural history.

Alas, I had to reluctantly drag myself away to pick up the small one from nursery but the rest of the party continued to explore. However, there will be more opportunities to learn about the trees. There are plans to do some tree conservation such as coppicing as well as harvest the fruit.
To find out more about the Trees of St Ann's project and to get involved, they have a new blog at The Trees of St Ann's

Autumn shades in a Pemberton Planter

noreply@blogger.com (Liz) — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 18:12:00 +0000

Autumn shades in a Pemberton Planter
Originally uploaded by MrsEds

Blackberry Muffins

noreply@blogger.com (Liz) — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 20:43:00 +0000

Blackberry Muffins
Originally uploaded by MrsEds

Made with blackberries from our garden. Not many left once the kids found them

How to make a cherry gazpacho and other stories

noreply@blogger.com (Liz) — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 13:56:00 +0000

Oh dear, some serious negect of this little corner of the blogosphere. Here's a quick post about a trip out to Railway Fields in Harringay and what we did there:

The cherry is an endangered species. In the last 50 years we’ve lost 90% of our cherry orchards and now import around 95% of the cherries we eat.

That's why, in order to come to the cherries aid, the focus of the Sustainable Haringey Summer Gathering's opening hour was 'A convivial celebration of cherries and plums'.

We started with an outdoor cookery demo by Sarah Moore who demonstrated how to make cherry gazpacho (divine!) and delighted my two nippers with a delicious plum jam that she had brought along.

My children, smeared with plum jam, quickly added (vegan) chocolate and cherry cake to their faces as they happily polished off a plate of goodies that someone had left in front of them. The cakes were provided by members of Urban Harvest who had gathered the fruit used to make the treats from places in Haringey such as Tottenham Marshes and Stationer's Park.

The lure of the Railway Fields playground was becoming stronger but, before we went to play on the swings, I managed to collar Phil England from Sustainable Haringey, who quickly explained one of the projects that was going to be discussed in the more formal part of the meeting.

Phil explains how a sustainable food project in Hackney could soon cross the border into Haringey.

For more information on Sustainable Haringey and to sign up for the newsletter that Phil mentions visit
http://sustainable-haringey.wikispaces.com and you can also keep up with their news on Facebook.

Yes, yes I know, you clicked on this post to find out how to make Cherry Gazpacho. Sarah's recipe for it is on her blog Mudpies and Minestrone . Quantities are simply guidelines by the way and you can use ordinary tomatoes but I probably don't have to tell the foodies of Harringay that!

A Sunday walk in Tottenham

noreply@blogger.com (Liz) — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 15:25:00 +0000

The E family enjoyed a very lovely Sunday stroll from Markfield Park, South Tottenham to The Paddock, Ferry Lane, Tottenham Hale. Markfield Park is undergoing a big makeover and has a pleasant children's playground and a good cafe, Pistachios in the Park. Lots of very important conservation work is going on in both these spots by local groups, such as the BTCV who are rescuing the community nature garden in Markfield Park and welcome volunteers to help, and the Friends of the Paddock .
Markfield Park is also the home of the Markfield Beam and Engine Museum, open every second Sunday during Spring and Summer.

The sites are very close and are connected by the canal that runs alongside Markfield Park and there is refreshment, en route, courtesy of the Ferry Boat Inn which is almost next door to the Paddock and serves meals daily, including a decent Sunday roast.

The Paddock is alive with bees, birds, butterflies and very quiet, despite its proximity to the busy road of Ferry Lane. Perfect for little (and big) explorers.

From Markfield Park to the Paddock on PhotoPeach

Getting there : Markfield Park can be reached easily from Harringay by taking the Overground from Green Lanes to South Tottenham and walking down Crowland Road. Buses 230 and 123 will bring you back to West Green Road/Turnpike Lane

Langham Working Mens club, Harringay

noreply@blogger.com (Liz) — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 08:43:00 +0000

Langham Working Mens club, Harringay
Originally uploaded by MrsEds

On Harringay Online we had an interesting discussion about the decline of working mens clubs like the Langham

We discovered that we had a local enthusiast that runs a website dedicated to the history of working mens clubs and who continues to champion them as real community assets. Her site is

www.clubhistorians.co.uk/

A virtual walkabout

noreply@blogger.com (Liz) — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 16:47:00 +0000