Pumpkin & Leek Soup, Cheese Flan & Parkin

 Kim, from Cracking Good Food, led another cooking session at Good Neighbours on 30th October. On the menu was a warming and seasonal, pumpkin, leek and thyme soup and a cheese and onion flan. To finish off we made a lovely parkin cake. We ate all we produced and learnt a lot about soup, flan and cake making in the process

showing the finished cake around

The finished parkin cake .....

just before I ate it - the parkin cake with pears and cream - delicious

Ki

Learning about Photography Session

Jennie Keegan came to Good Neighbours on Monday 29th October to give a session to users and volunteers on how to get the best out of their 'point and shoot' cameras. The session was extremely useful as Jennie explained what all the mysterious settings on the cameras were. She focussed on the most common and useful functions, and as each camera is different she went round to each individual to show them how their camera worked

      so that's what the camera settings mean

As well as looking at the technical aspects of the camera we also looked at composition and getting the best out of the shots we took. So we all went round taking portrait photos of each other and pictures that illustrated the 'rule of thirds'. We then downloaded these and discussed the results 

         

Jack Baker poses for a practice portrait shot

Jennie Keegan explaining how to get the best out of your camera

Anthony look on as Christine adjusts her camera

Everyone found this to be a really useful session and Jennie will be running a follow on session in the New Year where we will look at editing our photographs

Woodchip, woodchip and more woodchip

Week 3 and our luck with the weather continues - the sun shines brightly on us despite the chill. It feels like someone up there is showing their approval of our efforts!

 

Our new volunteer Tony a-woodchipping

For this session we revisited the woodchipping of our waste wood with a more powerful machine and more volunteers. This time we absolutely whizzed through it all and pretty much cleared the massive pile of wood that had been making our plot look more than a little untidy. However a gardeners work is never done and we now have a big pile of woodchip that needs to be put somewhere.



Sherlock investigating the woodchip

The woodchip is destined for composting and this leads to our next project....building compost bays. You can buy some very plush looking compost bins these days (worms and slugs are moving up in the word - don't you know!) but we believe in recycling so we are going to construct our own out of old floorboards.   


Planning the compost bays



Paul sampling the mizuna

Our Gardening Sessions are from 10am every Friday. If you would like to find out more contact us on 0161-881-2925 or come along to our office at St Ninian's Church, Egerton Road South and have a look for yourself. 

Carolyn O'Hanlon
Older Men Development Worker



gardening update

Bob Cowan and the Arctic Convoy medal

Granada Reports interviews Good Neighbours user, Bob Cowan, a WW2 Arctic Convoy veteran, following a campaign by Chorlton Good Neighbours to get the UK government to allow him to receive a Russian medal in recognition of his wartime service

Frogs, Woodchip and the Golden Autumnal Sun

As we boasted in our last installment, Chorlton Good Neighbours Gardening Club came up with quite a little harvest in our first year considering we only had three raised beds to grow in. At this week's Thursday Coffee Morning we sold our harvest to raise money for next year's seeds. It was very interesting discussing vegetable growing with everyone who came up to the stall and I think a few people have been introduced to the wonders of kale and pak choi for the first time! Thank you to everyone who made a donation!.

On our second session down the plot, the autumnal sun graced us with its presence giving a golden hue to every leaf and twig...and err frog.

Unfortunately there was no time for napping - we had a big pile of branches and leilandii to deal with. Out came the woodchipping machine. Using this machine felt a little like birthing a calf backwards. The end result was we turned a bunch of branches into a fragrant pile of woodchip.

As well as the woodchip, I think we gained an enormous sense of wellbeing just from being outside on such a lovely day. Its amazing what a fresh air, exercise and chat can do. Peter's smile says it all.

Our Gardening Sessions are 10-12 every Friday. If you would like to find out more contact us on 0161-881-2925 or come along to our office at St Ninian's Church, Egerton Road South and have a look for yourself. 

 

Carolyn O'Hanlon
Older Men Development Worker

 

Visit to the Chill Factor

A small group from Chorlton Good Neighbours visited  the Chill Factor - the UK's longest indoor skiing and snowboarding slope - next to the Trafford centre. It was certainly an interesting place to look at, but we were soon glad to get out of the freezing viewing area and go for a cup of tea. 

Taters and Chainsaws - The Gardening Club Returns

The Chorlton Good Neighbours Gardening Club has re-started after a late summer break and as you can imagine there was plenty for us to do.

We continued to harvest our sarpo mira potatoes that we'd planted in late June. The stalks and leaves had grown to triffid like proportions but we didn't hold up much hope of much more than golf ball sized potatoes after the late planting. Fortunately all that rain and lovely compost in the raised beds had produced a lovely crop of whopping great potatoes. So far they have graced a leek and potato soup, delicious wedges and will be offered up for donations at next week's coffee morning (well you have to show off don't you!). And lets not forget our greens! - amongst the weeds we found lots of lovely kale, mizuna, rocket and other oriental salad leaves that have popped up in our raised beds. Another happy yet less delicious find was that there is a healthy population of worms in our raised beds. Always good to see!

But against the backdrop of nature's bountiful creation, came the roar of a chainsaw and the sound of falling timber. A leylandii hedge and the branches of a central tree were throwing shadow onto an area we want to grow in - nature had to be tamed. Ian very bravely took down the offending vegetation and I stayed as far away as possible -  I've seen Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the images have stayed with me!! Fortunately no limbs were lost at this particular session and the plot is already looking so much more open and light. Great job Ian!

Today we also had the official opening of our patio area - kindly donated by Brammell Construction. Unfortunately with all we'd been up to on the plot our lovely new patio was looking a little bit muddy! Never mind, hopefully the big grins in our photo distracted from the dirt.

Our Gardening Sessions are 10-12 every Friday. If you would like to find out more contact us on 0161-881-2925 or come along to our office at St Ninian's Church, Egerton Road South and have a look for yourself. 

Carolyn O'Hanlon

Development Worker

Enjoying the Autumn Sun on the Bowling Green

Some CGN members enjoying the Autumn Sun on the Bowling Green at SW Manchester Cricket Club on Oct 9th. Gladys and Dorothy are playing each other whilst Don (age 94) gives Ian a run for his money

Chainsawing and Potato cropping

Its getting towards mid October so we decided to dig up the sarpo mira red potatoes we planted in June in one of the raised beds. A good crop we have got too for our efforts. Ian brought his chain saw along so we could cut back on the cupresses leylandii hedge at the end of the plot and also a large branch from the tree in between the plot and next door's garden. This will let much more light onto our vegetable plat. The gardening group now aims to meet every Friday morning to work on our plot. We will go outside if the weather is OK and if it isn't we will do some work indoors - planning and constructing things like our wooden compost bay, shed and greenhouse

The potato crop in the good neighbours garden

Harvesting some of the potatoes from the raised beds. They were planted very late, in June, but we seem to have come up with a good healthy crop of sarpo mira red potatoes in October