Settle Community Christmas Day Lunch - Do come if you live near Settle

25th Dec 2010 - St John's Methodist Church Hall, Settle BD24 9JH

Christmas Day Lunch
(A similar event is arranged for 2015 - and this year  50 people are expected!!! -still space for a few more)

Coffee 11.45am and lunch at 12.30 

Afterwards (optional) light party games and carols, followed by tea

A special invitation is given to old people and to people living by themselves, and also to people where there will just be two or three people together. If you need transport, please request a lift.

And a special invitation to people who had planned to go away but get stuck at Settle due to bad weather!!

People of ALL AGES welcome.

Picture of last year's event
This year there will be both old people and younger
people -so come whatever age you are

Volunteers, helpers, drivers, participants, people needing lifts - all very welcome and should contact Judith Allinson or Ken and Angela Barton ...Email

Anticipated cost between £5-00 and £8-00 - We will run it on a part organised, part Jacobs Join (Bring and share) basis

Please get in touch as soon as possible to offer help and to contribute ideas on activities during the lunch or book.   It is for people of ALL AGES .

This is following on from the splendid lunch under the banner of Age Concern lunch run by Margaret Holgate and Jean Carr but they are not able to run it again this year so we are starting from (almost) scratch, and running it as a Community Lunch.

Please tell other people who you think might be interested. Email for more details, or to book.

We start with coffee at 11.45am - Cool Earth Coffee! - one jar saves on rainforest tree.

Here is a picture of last year's event - this year there will be both old people and younger people - so come whatever age you are..

This morning Ken and Angela and I planned the food and  then went into the Hall to plan the event.

Afterwards I took photos of Settle:-

Here's Settle Methodist Church looking through an arch of the Settle Carlisle Railway line. The Church Hall is on a side alley left of the van with the black window.

And here is the Church Hall seen from Castleberg Flagpole

Here is the same picture but wide angle - can you see the hall - it is a third in from the left and a third up from the bottom.

 Castleberg cliff seen from Settle Christmas tree - my car is next to it.

The moon was rising as I drove home - the white line above the sheep is the Settle Carlisle Line

Ribblehead Station Carols 2010 and Cool Earth Coffee

The annual Ribblehead Station Carol Service (N Yorks)  took place this Thursday 9th December with slightly reduced numbers due to the potentially foggy and snowy conditions. We rush out and sing for the passengers on the 5.42 train as it stops on its journey from Carlisle south to to Settle and Leeds.

The vicar from St Leonard's Church in Chapel le Dale organised the readings

The picture shows some of the carol singers enjoying  Cool Earth coffee - 

(The sale of one jar saves one rainforest tree)

We also had hot punch and mince pies.

We raised £29 for the Children's Society

Right: one piano accordion in its case on Ribblehead Platform before going home

Settle Telephone Box Star

This is the telephone box in Settle next to the Cenotaph. Churches Together in Settle now rent it from the Council. We hope to follow the example of Gallery on the Green  in upper Settle which maintain the telephone box there as an art gallery.

The star started shining ready for Settle Lights-On on Saturday 27 November. Inside there are some of the cards listing the Christmas time services of all the churches in Settle.

I hope we may get some positive involvement of the people/children in the neighbouring Northfields estate

Same pictures but bigger:

And here are pictures of the Gallery on the Green in Upper Settle taken on 14th November. They have an excellent exhibition about 3D photography

CoolEarth Coffee at Foxglove Covert Nature Reserve

 Wednesday 25 November:  A visit to Foxglove Covert Nature Reserve at Caterick Garrison near Richmond. I arrvied at 12.30 but there were so many paths to explore I didn't get back till almost dark - and then shared a drink of Cool Earth Coffee with one of the volunteers there, and left them a jar to enjoy.

I'd had a good day. At the far end of this pool is the tower hide (above) and a rounder brand new hide below.

Inside it was delightful - brand new wood, not yet made dirty by birdwatchers feet. The building was so symmetrical and peaceful.

There were new paths and new benches.

and new pools and scrapes:-

I

 I found the Open air classroom being built ..

Here is a flush area (they called it raised fen ) - with Quaking grass and Grass of Parnassus.

CoolEarth Coffee at St John's Coffee Mornings

We had some of the Cool Earth Coffee at the regular Tuesday Morning Coffee Morning at St John's Methodist Church this week -23 November. There is a choice and this week we could also have FairTrade Percol cafetiere coffee.

CoolEarth Coffee at Skipton - Craven Speakers Club

On 15th November at Craven Speakers Club (at Skipton, North Yorkshire) we chose to drink Cool Earth Coffee, to support CoolEarth  and their coffee morning that day

CoolEarth were having a Coffee Morning that day, so we joined in..

CoolEarth coffee has been launched recently. The sale of each jar of CoolEarth coffee protects a tree at risk of being logged in the Amazon rainforest.

You can read about Craven speakers club at www.craven-speakers.org.uk

 Here you can see I am  (as usual!) promoting the beautiful cards I make to sell in aid of the Rainforest.

 This is the manual we use at Speakers club.


















These are apples that Eileen brought as a gift for anyone to take. They are delicious

I had had to make a special trip to Tesco's to buy the coffee beforehand, as I understood that this is the only place you can buy the Cool Earth Coffee. I would rather support other shops as well as Tesco's.

I bought four jars £2.99 each. But I have made good use of the four jars

A friend at Speakers Club bought one jar from me.

I took the coffee to Craven Conservation Group's AGM on Tuesday Evening and told everyone we would be drinking it. Unfortunately the meeting went on so long that we abandoned coffee and the mince pies that I had brought too.  However one member was keen to buy a jar and did!

I took a jar to show Settle Spinner's group on Tuesday.  And gave a jar to St John's Church for their Tuesday Coffee Mornings.

Cheers!

Autumn 2010 Views + St John's Church Settle

Here is a picture of St John's on 30th October. In the background above the railway bridge you can see Castleberg rock with the flag flying

On 3 November I walked up through Castleberg Woods

..over the fallen leaves

..to Castleberg Rock. From Here you can see St John's in the distance, bang in the centre and a little to the right

But from the top of the rock you get a better view of Settle - I should try and join these three pictures to make a panorama. The church is on the right side of the right picture.

 Here is the right picture enlarged

 You see the road in the centre above, and being crossed by the railway?

To the left of the road is St John's Methodist Church Hall

and to the right is the church (Remember you can click on the pictures to get large versions)

At road level,  the Settle Carlisle arch frames the church.

I enjoyed making the most of the autumn colours.

Nagoya Poster at Allhallowgate

Here is a Nagoya poster on the display board at Allhallowgate Methodist Church in Ripon on Thursday 4 November. This church had a float on the theme "Noah's Ark" for the St Wilfrid Festival in Ripon in summer and you can see some of the models of animal heads on the window sill.

Molina caerulea - Purple Moor-grass

Newby Moor Looking to Ingleborough
 Late Novemeber 2009

Purple Moor-grass leaves start to die in October.

By November hillsides dominated by Purple Morr-grass appear white in the distance.



I love to plunge my hands into the dead leaves and lift a pile high in the air, scattering the leaves in the wind. The blades are spiralled  like spiral wood savings, like curly ribbon prepared for a parcel.

"This is Britain's only deciduous grass" I say and watch as the leaves flutter away.



In autumn the nutrients go down from the leaves to the swollen shoot bases and shoot dies.





The nutrients are there  for use in future years. And the wide flat leaves which would otherwise loose water through transpiration, at a time when it is too cold for photosynthesis, are gone.








 You can see a swollen shoot base on the right.











Sit on the ground and pat the ground. The  Molina feels like a hedgehog - there are the remains of the shoots from previous years

I examined this "hedgehog".  Look also at the very thick whitish roots. I took the photo on the right two days ago (30 Oct) as I drove over from Settle towards Airton

View from Settle-Airton road

.  The grass in the foreground is mostly Mat-grass but the pinker patches are the Purple Moor-grass.

In the back ground (centre) you can see the far hillside is whitish and has similar vegetation. This is The Weets. To the left of the Weets is the road going up from Gordale to Lee Gate/Newhouses and to the left of that green grassland with limestone outcrops.


Grassland dominated by Purple Moor-grass with few other species is difficult to walk on because of the tussocky nature. In the National Vegetation Classification system this type is given the number M25 - Purple Moor-grass Tormentil grassland. - easy to remember this number as the M25 motorway round London is usually very slow progress too.

Wetter areas of M25 can reveal interesting Bog-mosses - this red one on the right (back at Newby Moor again) is Sphagnum capillifolium.



Purple Moor-grass can grow in basic flushes and then accompany plants such as Quaking Grass, Northern Marsh orchid and Bird's-eye Primrose.

Purple Moor-grass flowers late - July - August and has purple anthers.




In September through to November I look out for Ergot of purple Moor-grass - this is a fungus disease. Where the grain should be instead there is a large purple fruiting body (Sclerotium). these are poisonous and can cause madness and gangrene.

It will be another five months till the green leaves of next year's Purple  Moor-grass appear.  On the right you see a group of students looking at a tuft in late May at Headley Heath - In Surrey it is an uncommon plant. - Even here you can see last November's dead leaves scattered like wood shavings in the foreground.