Cleaver Square Fete 2010 - photos

Yesterday was  an exciting day in Kennington Village (as it was introduced at Cleaver Square fete).  (This, after all, is Old North Surrey dahling, and not South London).  Anyhow, what with the frivolities of the Cleaver Square Fete and the celebration of Portugal Day in Kennington Park (photos will go up tomorrow), it was hard to know where to go (or what to eat) first, but help was at hand:

You can't beat a good Kennington cupcake:

Apologies to the headless people, but I was focusing on the cakes:

Manning the tombola...

Did I mention that I love cake...?  

The raspberry sponges at the bottom were incredible:

I counted three cake stalls.  Yum.

(The Punch and Judy show was very good, and the adults seemed to enjoy it just as much as the children). 

That's the way to do it...

Oh, Mr Punch.  Didn't they warn you never to smile at a crocodile?

Too late.  Mr Punch was eaten for lunch :-(

Beautiful fabrics on sale, and a lovely smile:

Kate Hoey, MP, opened the fete in a rather special summer boater.   

A summer fete is just not a summer fete without a pensive looking vicar.  In the event, it didn't rain.

Special thanks should go to Winkworth, who sponsored the fete to the tune of £4000 and ran the raffle.  

Well Done chaps. 

Kate Hoey is proud to have been re-elected to serve the residents of the constituency, and here she is again, enjoying herself in style.

Kennington Tandoori (KT) cooked up some superb chicken biryani:

We were entertained by a variety of acts.  Firstly, a little light jazz...

Followed by some popular tunes...

And topped-off by this rather powerful opera singer!

The Kennington Association had a little help from their friends, the Kennington Bookshop, who kindly donated unsaleable stock, to raise money for local projects.  

This lead to a rush, as the SE11 literati mafia stormed in.  

The Kennington Association were not the only people present in spiffing outfits...

You'd never, in a million years, guess that this photo was taken in inner-city London, would you?

Another general crowd shot that demonstrates how well attended this event was...  The organisers did a fantastic job, as usual...

You guessed right.  It's another cake stall!

These chaps (working for Tomorrow's People, a charity that enables young people to find worthwhile employment) are usually present, come rain or shine, outside St Anselm's Church on a Saturday, selling flowers and plants.  Business looked brisk today...

The only summer fete in England that can boast real French lobster!

Workers and volunteers from the Parish of North Lambeth, enjoying the fete and furthering consultation on the St Anselm's project (more on that this week...)

A bee-autiful mosaic, and some Lambeth honey:

The worker bees, keeping bee-sy at the Fete...

A fantastic day that attracts people from Kennington and beyond.  It's fair to say that a good time was had by all.  (However, if you happen to see yourself (or somebody you know) in one of the photographs, and wish me to remove it, please drop me an email.)

Dog snatching, Kennington fete, a new SE11 blog and former Lilian Baylis...

OK, I admit it, I went on holiday for a week, away from SE11 to paddle in the seas of the South West. And I didn't log on to a computer or blog or touch Twitter for any of that time! Obviously, it has been a busy week for SE11 lurkers... Here is a quick summary, for regular readers who failed to notice local things over the past week:

1. The Metropolitan Police conducted a puppy/dog grab from a residence in Renfrew Road, Kennington, where they discovered 6 pit bull puppies and 2 dangerous adult dogs. Kennington Association news blog have a link to the Evening Standard item here. It seems that the police seized about 20 dogs overall, but implies that these were from various South London addresses, rather than one address... Even still, I wouldn't be surprised if the neighbours complained about the noise from 8 dogs!

2. Kennington fete. I hope everybody had a lovely day and enjoyed the weather at Kennington fete in Cleaver Square. I really wish I hadn't missed that, but hopefully there will be another next year. Twitter user El_Nacnud has some photos, of the type that I would have taken had I been there. Please leave some comments with more links.

3. In less than the blink of an eye, somebody has formed another SE11 blog! There's always room for more local bloggers, and the new blog can be found at SE11life.com It comes from the keyboard of the esteemed MayorWatch blog and is written by Martin Hoscik (I'm presuming he is also quite local).

4. And for really dull hyperlocal news, (only relevant to 34082342 commuters, after all), there are some Twittery rumours floating around that lift number 2 at Kennington tube has broken (only about 2 weeks after the six month refurb). I notice that somebody finally had the presence of mind to stick a piece of paper over the sign that says that the stairs are to be used "only in an emergency".

Anything else??? Oh yes.

I'm not too sure what happened at the Special Council Meeting earlier in the week, re. all of the leaseholder issues. More info would be appreciated so please leave a comment re. the council's handling of the matter... What is due to happen next?

It appears that Viva Vauxhall had their meeting and have come out as opposed to the Bondway tower (there's a surprise!), but there's more here about that with further contact details if you want to be involved.

A certain amount of friction appears to have been generated re. the former Lilian Baylis site between ward councillors, various local resident groups and other interested parties. I'm not at liberty to paste every piece of correspondence I receive, but I am particularly interested in hearing from anybody at Lambeth Council who might be able to comment more fully on the future of the site, rather than issuing rather wishy washy leaflets without consultation dates or any mention of governance. I think the initial community consultation on the future of the site was rather weak (perhaps it was conducted at a time when residents were less vociferous), but we're now mid-recession, so perhaps the possibilities for ongoing usage might have changed. I rather get the impression that the discussions are behind closed doors, and there is no longer any room for community input, but watch this space...

Kennington Fete

There is lots of SE11 related news to post today... First up, the three wheeled pleb visited Kennington Fete, held in Cleaver Square. This is only the second fete that has been held in recent years, to my knowledge. Not having been able to be there last year, I can't make any comparisons, but it was very well attended this year. The day was warm, but grey, which probably helped.

Stalls included numerous general bric-a-brac and a plant stall whose attendant grew a rather large selection of plants in his own garden. There was a book stall, a flower stall, a steel band from the Archbishop Sumner Primary School and a human fruit machine (which I didn't see in operation, but consisted of a large cardboard structure with children in it). Also, there were food stalls provided by the Lobster Pot (the prawn cocktail, I'm told, was delicious) and Kennington Tandoori. A stall by Franklins displayed some exquisitely decorated fairy cakes. There were about 20 people doing a Tai Chi demonstration at one end (presumably the Tai Chi in the park people, who I've not yet blogged about), a Punch and Judy show / balloon modelling man near the other end, and lots and lots of happy looking people. I don't know if they were resident SE11-ites, or Kennington-ites, or outsiders, but there seemed to be a rather large contingent of the comfortably well-to-do (not surprising considering the location). The whole thing was sponsored by Winkworth, who are to be commended for their contribution to the local area.

I've put the photos up above. I'm afraid I failed to get a picture of the, ahem, attractive lamp shade that two men running one of the bric-a-brack stalls attempted to sell me, but that's not necessarily a bad thing! I took general shots, as I rather sought to avoid photographing anybody in particular, but that's somewhat impossible at a fete! Needless to say, if anybody spots themselves and would rather not be in the photo(s), I'm happy to either blur you out or remove the photo from the blog and map completely.