Sheldon Jottings for January 2020

Welcome to 2020  – a new decade! The New Year means a new beginning and here’s hoping for a happy one for all. We hope you had a most marvellous festive season and are looking forward to the New Year with joyful anticipation.

The shoots of early bulbs are already showing through the soil and there are still some berries about, particularly the cotoneaster, still looking gloriously red and luscious for the blackbirds.  We must remember to keep our feeders full for the birds – we have more than ever coming to the table and are very pleased to see good numbers of sparrows, fewer of whom have come in the last few years.

The Book Club had a lovely Christmas meeting at Amanda’s with superb nibbles and wine to help the conversation along. Thanks to Amanda for hosting such a wonderfully festive evening and to Julia for ‘running’ the club. Julia has posted the interesting and exciting list of books which have been chosen for reading during the coming year. The first for the meeting at Marlene’s on February 4th is ‘Cold Comfort Farm’ by Stella Gibbons. If you have not been to this club, why not make it your New Year resolution to do so and enjoy a great social evening with friends and neighbours.

In early December the ‘Golden Oldies’ made their way to the ‘Cock and Pullet’ for their annual Christmas Dinner. This is paid for from village funds and enables the older members of the village community to get together, catch up with gossip and friends and reminisce about days gone by and friends who are no longer with us. Ten of us enjoyed a most delicious meal, good conversation and Christmas cheer. Kath, who organised the occasion, donated a bottle of Baileys for a raffle which was won by Pat. We would like to thank the village and Kath for providing this opportunity for us all to travel back down memory lane and catch up with the latest news – and thank you to Claire and Helen for looking after us so well.

The wreath-making evening in the Village Hall was, as usual, fully subscribed and some wonderful examples were made for our Christmas season front doors. There were 3 very welcome people from outside the village, so word has spread about this popular evening run by Lindsey – and, of course, wine and mince pies add to the flow of creativity!

It’s brilliant that our village hall is such a useful community hub and so well looked after by the committee. If we all made good use of it on election day then perhaps the ‘powers that be’ will not see fit to close it as our Polling Station, especially as we are being led to believe that there will be a lot more money sloshing around now that ‘austerity is over’. Not everyone here has a car, public transport for us is non-existent, and it is a lengthy walk to Ashford BUT an even greater struggle back – up a long drawn-out hill all the way!

The village hall is where we hold our Parish Meetings. The last one on 25th November was so well attended and we even welcomed a Councillor from Bakewell. We hope he was able to see how a parish meeting was a friendly and very democratic affair for us, with anyone having their say on the topics discussed, unlike a Parish Council or Town Council where there are strict rules.

Everything seems to be working smoothly with detailed reports from our different sub-committees for Finance, the Village Hall, Planning, the Playing Fields and last but not least, our fund-raising, celebratory and now famous Sheldon Day. A big thank you to everyone who is helping to run our affairs and to John who runs our village website.

Congratulations to Marlene Greasley who won the Big ‘100’ Church Draw for December with no 73.  A lovely Christmas Bonus!

DIARY DATES

Sunday 12th January 9.00am – Sheldon Church Holy Communion

Sunday 26th January 9.00am – Sheldon Church Holy Communion

Tuesday 28th January 7.30pm – Parish Meeting in village hall

Tuesday 4th February 7.30pm – Book Club at Marlene’s

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