13th-18th June: heatwave
Good afternoon, and welcome again to my Village Diary, a round up of life in and around Rusthall, a village in Kent near Tunbridge Wells.
Keeping up with my Couch to 5k running project has been a challenge in the heat this week, but as compensation Happy Valley has been captivatingly beautiful.
At the start of the week I was starting an epic toy clearout, but when I saw the piled high donations waiting to be sorted in the Hospice in the Weald charity shop after the weekend, I decided to wait a day before taking my bags in. The volunteers do an awesome job in one of the busiest Hospice shops in Kent for donations - it’s clearly a never ending task! I spoke to Hospice in the Weald’s Head of Retail Sharon Gill for the next issue of the magazine, about how much they appreciate and rely on our donations - but also she had a special plea to please only leave donations when the shop is open. Common sense, you would think!
On Tuesday it was great to meet up with some of the Rusthall Life and Langton Life team in Daily Bread for one of the first in person meetings we have had since Covid-19 restrictions began. It was great to talk about how the magazines can continue to flourish in the future - while many things are on-line, we believe there is still huge value in the physical copy of the magazine going through every door in the village, and reaching every household.
Leaving the cafe, it was great to say hello to Gemma Stapeley, clerk to the Commons Conservators, as well as Friends of the Commons chair Clive Evans and new Ranger Dan Colborne, who is taking over from Warden of thirty years Steve Budden when he retires at the end of the month.
I also bumped into Hannah Mackintosh who runs Rusthall St Paul’s School’s hugely popular Forest School which takes place both on the school field and on our lushly beautiful Rusthall Common - and how lucky are we to have it on our doorstep? It is such an enriching experience for the children, and teaches them to look after our environment.
As we come to the end of the school year, I’m thinking about what a great school Rusthall has been for both my children. I actively chose it ten years ago because it gave me the warmest feeling. I believed that if a village felt good to live in then it would be good to go to school in, and I wasn’t wrong. The community here is special. Parents at the school have phoned plumbers for me when my pipe burst and I couldn’t speak, decorated rooms of my house, left food parcels on my doorstep, given me countless lifts, picked my children up from the side of the road when they had been in a car accident, and in countless other ways been there for me and them when we needed it - I don’t know how I would have survived without them, and I can’t think of a better foundation for children to go out into the world from.
On Thursday I found myself walking up the steep hill from Hurst Woods to Woodside Road, and had to stop for a cold drink from the corner shop there. I spotted a book library - they’ve been running it since the first Covid lockdown and it’s still proving very popular with locals. The shop itself is at the heart of the Denny Bottom community and is celebrating 50 years owned by Linda and Jerry Rowbottom - more than a shop, it’s somewhere to stop and chat.
On a bike ride this week my daughter and I spotted another pair of ‘owls’ in a tree we hadn’t seen before. Do you recognise where this one is? I’ve also had to stop and look at and sometimes buy the plants every time I pass the Venture. They bring such a colourful joy to the High Street.
Today I have been to Brunch Cafe in Langton Green to interview their new chair of the Langton Green Village Society, James Bowdidge, also known as The Peasant Farmer. We were talking about engaging residents with fun projects to make the village better, musical evenings and cherry tree planting amongst other things - the interview will be in the August issue of Langton Life. I was back in time to do a second stint at the Community Larder in Rusthall, where they were queuing with parasols in the sun.
After school we might drop in at Rusthall Family Fun, run by Play Place in the Mary Caley playground, and we are looking forward to a sunny, relaxing weekend. I hope whatever you do, you have a good time - thank you for reading!
Jayne
