Never A Dull Moment at The Flower Bank

As we were preparing to hold our first market at Leicester Road - the weather was atrocious, but that didn’t deter people, and we received some amazing support; thank you, everyone who visited. To the volunteers on Sunday - Anna, Bob, Chris, Denise, Julie, Martha, Steve, Wai, Wilton, the amazing Helen Harte who does all our social media and our fantastic musicians, I’m fortunate to have your support. My enthusiasm for zero waste was still going strong on Tuesday, and I inspired Zoe, a support worker from Southover School who attends every week with a student, to have a go at turning discarded M&S bread into bread and butter pudding. The results were glorious, and she’ll be at the next market along with a lady who makes tote bags for charities from old curtains and cushions. Zoe kindly dropped a batch of her latest bread pudding with me yesterday en route to Borough Market for research, so glad I’m not gluten intolerant! This week, a young offender and I decorated the front door of Max’s house for his bar mitzvah. Yosef is Jewish, and when I asked him what he’d done for his bar mitzvah, he shrugged his shoulders and said they’d had some drinks after the service for everyone but that his parents didn’t have much and his dad was disabled, so they just did what they could. Yosef was a great help and really threw himself into decorating the house, and neither of us really noticed the rain. This afternoon I’m visiting Sandra’s open garden at 40 Hendon Avenue N3; it’s a gorgeous oasis of calm and well worth the visit. I hope everyone enjoys the Bank Holiday. Ursula