We thought we were so well set up. A Festival of Nature to be held in May in association with the library with a local acoustic band with an interest in Thomas Hardy and the natural world, lots of stalls with a nature interest, plant sales etc. Then, like everyone else, we had to cancel it down. We couldn’t even get onto the orchard for the first part of the year. One passer-by commented at the time ‘This used to be an orchard you know’. I smiled and told him some more about it.

The great thing about the orchard is that it was designed to feel wild and so has suffered little as a result of our neglect. We even made some progress, thanks to Neville, in clearing a large bramble patch at the North End, which now has two plum trees planted and more to come this autumn.

Our Facebook profile is ably managed by Amparo and now has more than a hundred followers. It was also Amparo who alerted us to the painted stone snake in Johnson Road that needed a new home. This lovely piece of community art was created by local young people to commemorate the key workers who have helped us during the pandemic. The stones will shortly take pride of place in a new garden in the park supported by a grant from Councillor Judy Adams.

The park continues to be an extraordinary asset to the neighbourhood with its lovely combination of formal space, play space and wild, we need to make sure it remains good for all its users and that includes all the plants, insects, bats, moths, foxes, hedgehogs and other wild creatures who use it. To that end we were delighted this year to take our first steps in monitoring the wildlife in the park as small teams of us worked with Ed Drewitt learning for ourselves how to identify and quantify all that lives in the park and its surroundings. One delight of this process was to see how the triangle of meadow bordering Emersons Green Lane has become a haven of wildflowers and insects. Ed says it is a prime example of meadowland. And what did we do to achieve this? Almost nothing. It just happened. Therein is perhaps the lesson of the year. If the wild is left to be wild it flourishes. Ed’s survey report will give us pointers as to how, with minimal intervention, we can make sure the wildlife in the park remains as abundant as it is.

If you have any comments or questions about the park and the Friends group please join our AGM which is to be held online by Zoom at 8pm on October 5^th. If you let us know via this website that you want to join the meeting, we can make sure you get an invitation.