Ale Festival, Apple Day, Incredible Edible Festival, Urban Bees, AGMs - events this weekend and beyond

This is a late post, but I'm hoping some of you might catch it in time to attend some of the following events.  This weekend is a good one to stay south of the river unless you're inclined to join demonstrations because it's going to be tricky to get north of the river by road.  Trafalgar Square and surrounds will be unpassable on Saturday due to the Stop the War Assembly, and Westminster Bridge will be blocked on Sunday due to the anti-Health and Social Care Bill Block the Bridge event.

But there are plenty of autumnal ways to eat, drink and be merry in Kennington this weekend:

There's the Garden Museum's Incredible Edible Big Harvest Party.  The Garden Museum is over in SE1, in the old church next to Lambeth Palace.  They're celebrating local food growing with community stalls, seed bomb making, an Incredible Edible scrapbook(!?) and the opening of an insect hotel.  Visit (and bring your own seeds) on Saturday 8th October from 10:30am - 4pm

Then there's the annual autumn Roots and Shoots Apple Day 2011 where there will be over 100 different types of apple to sample, along with juicing and fruit preservation workshops.  That's at the top of Walnut Tree Walk, just off of Kennington Road.  There will also be activities for children; apple bobbing, corn dolly making, story telling etc. - This is one of my favorite days.  Go and visit on Sunday 9th October from 11am - 4pm.

Then the Old Red Lion pub (42 Kennington Park Road) Ale and Food Festival with stalls, music, a hog roast and a fine selection of ales.  It's held on Saturday 8th October and Sunday 9th October from 12 noon.

Also, some future dates for the diary...

Don't forget on Monday both the Kennington Association and the Vauxhall Civic Society are holding their AGMs on Monday 10th October (oops!).

The Kennington Association AGM will be held at the Durning Library, beginning at 6:30pm.  Their special guest is Val Shawcross, member of the London Assembly for Lambeth and Southwark.

The Vauxhall Society AGM will be held at St Stephen's Church, St Stephen's Terrace, SW8 1DH at 6.30pm to begin at 7pm.  The guest speaker will be Sue Foster, Lambeth's Director of Housing.  She'll be speaking on regenerating Vauxhall.

On Saturday 15th October, there's an Urban Bee open day and Foragers Walk, starting at noon from St Agnes Place Keeper's Lodge (in one corner of the park).

Then, on Sunday 16th October, Keyworth Primary School in Kennington (that's Faunce Street in SE17) is to be turned into a pop-up restaurant by food writer Philip Dundas in aid of "Magic Breakfast".  You'll need to book, but for £30, you'll receive a three course meal (with wine).  To attend, please RSVP philip@pip-dishes.co.uk or call 07764 336 220.  Magic Breakfast is a charity that provides free health breakfasts to schools in which over 50% of children receive free school meals and who might not otherwise eat a health breakfast.

The Pope is visiting Vauxhall... and then he'll be off again

The Pope is visiting Vauxhall, twice.  Firstly, he'll be off to see Archbishop Rowan (he of the fluffy eyebrows) at Lambeth Palace, just outside of SE11.   Technically, Lambeth Palace isn’t Vauxhall (unless you work for TFL Cycle Hire), but never mind.  It is anticipated that the Pope will make conciliatory ecumenical efforts (perhaps in an effort to appease the Anglican flock) with talk of a shared brother, Cardinal Newman.  No doubt a public statement will be made, and then he'll be off again.  A few days later, the Pope will visit a St Peter's care home for elderly people in Meadow Road, where he's likely to say some prayers, greet the faithful and hold a private meeting.  A comment on the Stockwell News blog indicates that it will be difficult even to sneak a peek at the pope, as the roads leading to the home will be closed.  And then he'll be off again.

Unbeknownst to many, much of the organisation for the ecumenical visit at Lambeth Palace will be undertaken by members of the Anglican Community of the Holy Name.  The Lambeth branch of the community comprises two  nuns, who have been based in a cottage within the grounds of Lambeth Palace since 1994.  When they’re not preparing for Papal visits, their other work is simple; leading prayer, looking after church fabric and pastoral care for staff at Lambeth Palace.  It sounds very routine, and in many respects underwhelming, but those that live as nuns or monks bear witness through their lives of simplicity.  Time spent in prayer, they would argue, is not an escape from the world, but a manner of drawing close to God in order to better embrace one’s neighbour.  The virtue of peace is practiced through the avoidance of distraction and the continual stilling of one’s heart.  A people willing to advocate and practice peace in such a manner are becoming fewer, and thus I consider their presence more necessary.

I'm afraid I'm still unable to work out exactly how many Roman Catholic nuns work at Meadow Road elderly people's care home.  I saw a few of them when I visited Vauxhall Park Fete, but their exact number remains a mystery.  Their order’s web page doesn’t say; neither do the papal visit documents.  Perhaps it will remain a mystery even to the Pope, as the old joke goes.  Maybe numbers don't matter that much.  The Roman Catholics have been on site since 1863 (probably not the exact same nuns) and their work is also simple, but difficult.  Anybody that has borne the presence of those with dementia for long periods of time will know the toll it can exact upon the human spirit, but also, I suppose, the joy that might be received through giving the gift of time to others.

It's easy, far too easy really, to name the horrendous and despicable child sex abuse of the Roman Catholic hierarchy and to talk about the church's failure to promote condom use in countries riven by AIDS.  It is also important to declare those truths and not muffle the voices of the victims.  It is not difficult to consider instances of misogyny in the church or to bring to mind people who cannot conceive that "gay" is a label that many human beings rejoice in.  Am I offering a defence of gross exploitation or acts of uncharity?  No.  There can and should be no defence of injury to others.  I'm as stumped as the next person upon being asked to prove there is a God, to argue how evil can exist in the presence of said God, or to prove that the generic good of religion outweighs the generic bad.  The best I'll probably ever manage is to point at a healthy order of nuns who give up their lives to serve the needy and undeserving in the face of a sometimes obdurant hierarchy and a similarly baffled world.

In the meantime, there has been some Tweeting about the Pope's visit to Vauxhall, the sacred beating gay heart of London.  There's obvious potential for protests at the presence of somebody that many people consider has worked against the dignity of human beings and who does not deserve a civic State welcome.  The broadsheets have taken sides, pitting the Anne Widdecombes of the world against the Polly Toynbees, and they’ve granted Johann Hari column inches to do his thing.   The British will (and should) always value the freedom to speak truthfully.  Free and open speech has been conducted in the newspapers and the votes have been cast.  The "nays" seem to have won on this occasion, if the number of unsold tickets Papal visit tickets is correct.  Maybe numbers don't matter that much after all.  In any case, who is counting?  I don’t suppose the Pope is.  He’s just visiting Vauxhall, and then he’ll be off again.

But when the Popemobile (will it be sponsored by Barclays, we wonder?) has been retired to its garage, when the jet departs and the faithful return to their dioceses around the country, who will be repairing the fabric of beautiful church buildings?  And who will be holding the hand of an elderly person who hasn't got long to live?  And who will have a faith that's strong enough to maintain that human beings have dignity, even when they're drooling and incontinent and scared?  Maybe it will be the secular humanists and the agnostics and the "don't knows".  I'm pretty certain that it won't be the State, not after the October public sector jobs cuts.  The Pope is visiting Vauxhall, and then he'll be off again.  So it won't be him.

If I had to choose who'd see me off in my last days, it probably wouldn't be Anne Widdecombe or Johann Hari or the Pope, for that matter.  I'd hope to be accompanied by my friends.  I'd want to walk with the people who'd kept some semblance of faith when the Pope had departed, and Monday morning had arrived again, as it inevitably does.  And next week, when Monday morning comes around again, when the Pope and protesters have left, when we cycle the rosary beaded blue tarmac of Kennington Park Road and we’re left with the unpaid papal bill, the elderly will still need all the friends they can find.  After all, the Pope is visiting Vauxhall... and then he'll be off again.

Spring is nearly sprung (hopefully) so it's time for gardening

Careful readers of the blog will know that I'm interested in cultivating rooftops and areas in which others might not have thought about gardening. I'm very interested in planting veg (and fruit?) in areas that aren't overly exposed to traffic fumes. I'm quite excited by an idea for growing tomatoes in old plastic bottles that I found on a website this weekend. I also sent off for a book on container gardening, since not actually having a garden can be something of a constraint and I want to branch out into vegetables! It must be said though, that the beautiful chilli plant, bought for £2 on Camberwell New Road is sprouting new chillies happily in the bathroom! I'm sure I'll still find some space for strawberries and tomatoes on the balcony though (which has the advantage that squirrels, birds and slugs don't have easy access).

Inspired by the enthusiasm of residents in Lambeth Walk / Old Paradise Street, who, according to the Prince's Ward Councillor blog (Labour administration), are attempting to investigate the possibility of a community garden, a weekend visit to the Museum of Garden history cafe (next to Lambeth Palace) and finally a quick wander down from the museum past a potential allotment site for the Museum staff, I've decided it's time to expand the gardening efforts from inside the flat (whose balcony is still beautifully decorated with winter flowering pansies and viola) to the wider area.

Since the weather is getting warmer and the evenings are getting longer (well, slightly), I've joined the Guerrilla Gardeners forum in a bid to attempt to enlist some willing guerrilla gardeners for the SE11 patch (and its surroundings). Plants don't much care about postcodes so it would be great to hear from any readers who would be happy to explore the area and venture a little further out to make the Kennington/Vauxhall/Riverside area a little more attractive...

C'mon, you know you want to do gardening in the middle of the night! :-)