Sheldon Jottings for January 2012

A very happy New Year to you all! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, one full of joy and peace with families and friends, and that 2012 will bring you all you could wish for.

Despite the cold and current recession, the Christmas Light Up this year raised £690. After a discussion at the Parish Meeting it was agreed that it would be split thus: £250 to Contact the Elderly; £210 each for the Church and Village Hall; £20 towards the Sheldon Website upkeep. The team says thanks to everyone, and it is only because of our local community, generous in getting involved with time and donations, that the team could make such a success. Here’s to next year!

Our best wishes to Oliver who was in hospital for a while during the month. He’s feeling a bit better at home now, but has lots of pills to take every day, as well as lots of rest and a different kind of diet to get used to. Our thoughts are with you.

Harold has also been in hospital for three days to have a seriously infected hand seen to. He’s on the mend, using one-and-a-half hands, he says, and still milking! All our best wishes to Harold as well.

We’ve had to get used to coping with a new County Council approach to gritting roads in small villages such as ours, which means when it snows we don’t get any grit until much later in the day…if at all! The general view after the first relatively mild snow of the year is that it’s not working and has made life very difficult for residents who try to leave or enter the village early in the morning. We’ve told Derbyshire County Council; they say they are looking into it.

This year’s Christmas parish meeting was suitably festive although on probably the coldest night of the winter so far! Lots of the villagers there, mince pies, splendid chocolate cake (Marlene comes up trumps again) and a cup of tea before we started the meeting; this gave us all time to chat before the serious part of the evening started. The meeting, amongst many other decisions, decided to freeze the precept for the next year.

We’ve been having some trouble over the years with school groups and Duke of Edinburgh award groups not understanding how to protect and enjoy the countryside. We were pleased therefore to hear that John recently gave a talk on ‘Safely and Responsibly Enjoying the National Park’ to Duke of Edinburgh award assessors at Calver Village Hall. John was invited to talk about issues surrounding the use of the National Park (using Sheldon as an example) such as closing gates, not climbing over walls, and parking responsibly by assessors and parents. The discussion went well, and John has been invited to give further talks on this subject.

No Vicar’s coffee morning in January, but the next one will be Tuesday 7th February in the Village Hall.

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