Front Page News

STOP PRESS!
We now have permission to announce that our new garden will be at Sedgefield Primary School! We will work in partnership with them and have use of their land, greenhouse and raised beds to grow our produce to support the community. I’m thrilled and excited about our Market Garden (Sedgefield) C.I.C. project. It will help so many of us. Carole.

An update from Carole Lawford & Honey

We’re back! Since I last wrote, I’ve been having treatment for my MS and have moved into one of the beautiful adapted properties in Caden Court. Named after Father Caden of this parish I’m told; some history in the new.

I wish I could promise you a COVID 19 free zone, but it’s bounced us into a new direction with the Market Garden project and I am excited to share it. The location we were hoping for is now not available and we thought we were on hold, but as things progressed, I realised we may be needed more than ever. So I’ve started to sow the seeds we have (as it happens, they were with me when lockdown began) but my committed colleagues will join in when they can. I’m not in this alone, and am grateful for the support and advice I’ve had.

Honey has adapted too; having her first season in isolation, she is enjoying regular walks from our kind neighbours who take her on their daily exercise trips. Thank you, Harry, Simon, Jim & family who answered my call on FB and practise social distancing to keep us safe. Honey is learning passers-by don’t need to be greeted with a bark. She’ll get there!

Our plan is to grow produce from the seeds and kind donations we’ve received, to support residents of Sedgefield and surrounding areas - those who are furloughed, isolated through disability or age, low income and impacted.

Thank you to Sedgefield Community College for the compost and plants donated; I’m sure we will work together when the time is right; and to those who left plant pots as a response to my Facebook plea. We have had more seeds, a greenhouse, compost and wheelbarrow added to our list.

We are a social enterprise, here to help each other and support those who need us. Nobody is paid, and all profits will go to the local community through projects like this one. Supported by Durham County Council & the Area Action Partnerships, we are applying for community funding to set up a market garden. Once the isolation restrictions are lifted, we’ll welcome volunteers to join us and tend to our produce, help put things together and in turn help each other through our new normal, whatever that will be.

It’s tough now for many of us; but please keep going, stay home, respect the restrictions and look after each other and our amazing NHS. We can do this, so let’s be proud, set the right tone in our neighbourhoods, to our young people and children, just as I’m seeing so far. As a society we will change, we’ll lose jobs, businesses, airlines, etc. and live a simpler life, supporting local producers who are delivering where they can and adapting their lives and businesses. Thank you to them all. I am certain that there will be new jobs, new businesses set up everywhere by people like us that will meet new demands as we all adapt. It is happening already; we’re seeing it in the news, and it will continue.

If you’re finding the news difficult to watch, try again, and watch for the communities coming together, clapping for our NHS, carers and all essential workers; for restaurants and food outlets adapting and delivering; schools and factories making protective face masks and people sewing scrubs & wash bags.

The race for a vaccine is on right here at NETPark. The good is out there, we just need to focus on it. So thank you for the small things, a wave, a passing chat; for collecting a neighbour’s prescription, shopping for them along with your own, walking their dog, respecting the 2 metre distance and helping others do it if they forget - generally being the wonderful community that is the Sedgefield area.

Lastly, some ideas if you would like to help our project. Make a bug hotel - any size, any materials, add your name so we know it’s yours. We would love a scarecrow, child or adult size, cute as a button, creative. All will be cherished and shared.
If you work with wood, a birdhouse/cottage/treehouse/rocket? Do make it safe for both wildlife & people!
Feel free to get in touch at carole.lawford1@btinternet.com

Greener Sedgefield

With us all being forced temporarily to abandon our normal daily lives some impressive changes have already been noticed. Fish have been spotted in rivers which were thought to be too polluted, air quality has improved, and reports of drastically lowered CO2 levels have been making headlines. It's difficult to predict how long lasting these improvements are and how quickly human activity will make up the carbon emissions currently withheld, only time will tell. But what can we as individuals learn from the current situation? What positive changes can we take from it that we can implement to our lives after the crisis?

With supermarket shelves emptier than normal, our access to shopping limited and the financial strain many families are under, there has been an impact on our food consumption. Maybe we have become little bit more careful with our food planning and preparation, cooking only what we need and resourcefully using up our left overs. Lack of flour and yeast in the shops show that many of us have already taken up home baking, a skill to be proud of - why not stick to it in the future? Maybe a few more of us have also considered growing our own, be it a few potatoes, some strawberries or even just a few pots of herbs on the window sill.

With everything closed and nowhere to go, maybe a few more of us have worn certain items of our clothing for a bit longer than we'd normally have done and not felt the need to upgrade our wardrobes for more fashionable items. Hopefully some who couldn't stitch or sew before have picked up a needle and thread to sew a button or put a patch on the knees of children's jogging bottoms, which don't need to be perfect anyway if the children are playing only in the back garden. If we can also keep doing these small things in the future we can considerably limit the negative impact that fashion industry has on our environment.

Maybe the time we have had to spend in our own houses and gardens has also given us a chance to learn new ways of spending quality time, be it gardening, reading or a new craft skill we have learned, so perhaps by the time we will finally regain our freedom we will think twice before jumping into our cars to travel unnecessary distances in a search for entertainment. After all, individual small changes will mount up to big changes on a bigger scale.

Hopefully, when all this ends, we will come out stronger, wiser, more resourceful and also more sustainable. Stay safe everyone!