Closures In The Community

Lancashire County Council have to make a savings of £265m over the next five years due the central government cuts and these are some of their actions.

Closing 6 museums from 30 September 2016. These are:-

The Judges Lodgings - Lancaster
Maritime Museum - Fleetwood (Run by 1 paid staff and a few volunteers and only open in the summer)
Museum of Lancashire - Preston
Textile Museum - Burnley
Helmshore Museum - Rossendale

Organisations for four of the above museums have applied to take over the running  and the council is hoping negotiations will soon end with the view to make the transfers by the end of the year. But I don't know which ones they are and it still means that two will be gone forever.

Also on the list of closures are 2 Youth Centres (1 of which is in my area), the one and only Youth Offending Centre (in my area also), old people services and diabled services.

On top of that 14 Childrens Service (once know as Sure Start) one of which is in a raural area are to close. (Luckily our one is not closing) And 40 out 74 Libraries.  The buildings that are owned by the council will be sold off. So may job losses too.

So many organisations rely on voluteers so that they can continue delivering the sevices we need. I worry what will happen when people say enough is enough and people stop vlounteering.

My local library is affected by the closure, where I go to a craft and chat group and will close at the end of September. However there is a group who are negotiating a new proposal with the county council and local council in a bit to take over the library, run it with volunteers, and bring in other agencies who will contribute to the cost of running the building and the county council will give £5,000 towards the set up costs. I'm not sure if other areas are also considering this way forward too.

A number of years ago our police station closed and the building sold off. It was knocked down and a block of flats were built in its place. Then gradually the 3 banks move out.  All the while our village (almost the size of a town) has been expanding with more and more property being build on old farm land. (Currently only 2 working farms left in the area)  Even now there are plans in with the local council to build over a 1,000 homes (with strong objections) on some farm land close to a very congested road. There are only 2 roads out of Thornton and both are congested mornings and evening and as there are so few jobs so most people have to commute.

I wonder how other councils are affected in this way and how the residents are coping?

Carolx

Show Time

The other week-end it was our annual Flower, Art and Crafts Show. I did take loads of pictures on my tablet and they've all deleted themselves. This tablet has a mind of it's own and I can't use the main computer as that is so very slow since it came back from the menders. I realy think we need a new one but it wil have to wait.

Anyway back to the show.  In the past I've not entered many exhibits. It was a case of if I had done something I would enter it. However it was a different story when it came to Laura, she had many exhibits and came away with one, two or three trophies. But now she is too old for those catergaries and possibly too young for the adult sections due to her inexperience and with this in mind we decided to give this year a miss.

Two weeks before the show we changed our minds and we found 14 things, between us, that we could put into the show.  There was the painted canvas Laura did for her GCSE, some painted pebbles, that looked like cactus, in a pot, some baking, and some crocheting.

I won 1st for my crochet jacked and 2nd for my marmalade and that was it for me and Laura didn't win anything.
The chocolate cake wasn't chocolatey enough but was very light.
The victoria sponge, not sure what was wrong with that. I felt it could have been lighter.
Scones, well they were a disaster, very much like rock buns. Won't use that recipe again. Will stick to the Bero ones.
One of my jams was disqualified because I forgot to put on a wax disc. oops!

We want to knock Miss Winner (not real name) off the top. We have our work cut out but at least we have a year to practice.

Carolx

Results Day

Laura was up early today as she wanted to be at school for 9:30 to get her GCSE results. I dropped her off and waited in the car park. I had every confidence that she had done ok although she was anxious and worried that the results were not going to be good enough for the course she want's to do at collage.

Earlier in the year she'd had eight weeks off school recovering from her operation and was worried that it would have had some impact on her results. The year head had already told us that if Laura's exam results were not as good as she needed that they would contact the collage and explain the situation.

Anyway, back to this morning. She did really well and did much better than she anticipated.  2 A's, 3 B's and and 2 C's.  Two very proud parents (dab the soggy eyes). She has done so well despite the set backs. Tomorrow we are off to register her into college and then off to Preston do some collage shopping and have a nice lunch somewere.

Carolx

Lurking In The Freezer

Our chest freezer really needs defrosting so I've done an inventory of everyting in there in order to use things up. It would be easy to just get some boxes and pile everything in them and then put everything back, but it dosn't acheive much. So that's my mission. Last night for tea I used up a half jar of Tikka (from the feezer) and poured it over our pork chops (from the freezer) with rice.

In the bottom of the feezer was some fruit. 1st was some blood oranges from earlier

in the year. I love blood oranges so bought quite a few. Some to eat and some for (shredless) marmalade. I didn't have time to make the marmalade streight away so into the freezer they went until this week when I made three jars. I only have a small pan and we don't eat a lot.
Next I made some summer berries jelly jam  (another three and a bit jars) with bits of left over fruit like strawberries, blackberries from the field at the back of us, balckcurrents and red currents from the garden and yellow sticker raspberries from the super market. It takes forever to strain the fruit but it's worth it to get rid of the little seeds the will stick in our teeth.
I also made some lemon curd, not from the freezer this time.
You will see some of the jars have celephane tops and that is because I want to enter them into our annual Flower, Arts and Craft show next week.  I have a problem with them jars though. The celephane tops were sealing well until they were cold and now the tops are wrinkly. I don't know if the judges take this into concideration but I'm not happy. Is there a solution to it now or advice on how to prevent it happening next time? please.
The left over have been tried and tasted and are delicous. Fingers crossed.
Do you find that after making your own jam and you have to eat shop bought jam that is has so little flavour and is very sweet.

Carolx

Bubble and Squeak

I'm not making Bubble and Squeak but I would like to introduce you to our latest foster doggies. They are brothers and inseperable, where one goes the other has to follow, and are 31/2 years old. The boys are a cross between a pomsky and chihauhau.  These two are so funny when they play together chasing each other through the house to outside leaping over the door step as they go.  Turfing each other out of bed when playing a rough and tumble games.
Due to the pomsky in them they are very fluffy and malting like crazy and love lots of cuddles especially if you are wearing black.

Today they left us to go to a new foster home in Halifax as the charity we are connected with have too many dogs at the moment and need to move some on and these two little guys where part of the movement. I'm missing them already but they were not meant to be.

Carolx

Prom

Last night was Laura's prom.

Here she is stanging at the gates of Mains Hall at Singleton. She had a fantastic night and felt relaxed enough to dance most of the night. The theme was casino (in other words glamoures). All the girls but two were in long evening gowns that must have cost a fortune, but they did look lovely. Laura was one of the two who opted for a shorter dress. Her whole outfit including her hair all came to less than 100 pounds (pound sign dosn't work on this keyboard). Laura thoroughly enjoyed her night without parents.
and heres a family photo.
Carolx

PS. the computer went to the menders yesterday can't wait for it to come back I don't like this tablet for writing blogs.

Miniture

Sorry I've not been around for a while but you know how it is when you're just doing and enjoying what you're doing.

Here's what the painted plant pots became. It was for a competition that we didn't win. It was a joint effort. Laura did all the painting, Martin made the sails, I bought the posts, made the bunting and came up withe the idea with lots of input from Laura. At the moment it's sitting by the front door but will soon move into the back garden.

This past weekend we went for a little trip to the lakes. We ended up past Grange-Over-Sands on the way to Flookburgh to visit the Lakeland Miniature Village and Oriental  Garden. We took lots of pictures but they're on the main computer and it's not internet freindly at the moment (need to go to the menders) and so  I'm writing this on my tablet. Here's the link though, hope it works, www.lakelandminiaturevillage.co.uk.  The village is set up in the back garden of the builder, Edward Robinson and his wife. You walk up the drive and ring the bell and pay a small entrance fee and follow the path round to the back and be prepared to be truely amazed. It really was a miniature village with all kinds of buildings depicting cumbria's old houses and farms all built of slate and stone with wonkey slate roofs. There are over 100 incredible buildings some famous and some very old hence the wonkey roofs. One of the fams has animals for children to play with.
It has taken over 23 years for Edward to create these small buildings mostly from memory and some from photos. I'm in awe of his wonderous careative talent. It makes Blackpools minature village look shabby and dull in comparison.
As we arrived Edward was working on a larger construction of a bridge which has been commissioned by Hayes garden centre at Windermere.
The oriental garden was good but not as impressive as the village but in all well worth a visit if you get the chance.

Carolx