Hillaballoo

Photo by Gilson Pereira

Last July, after the last day of school term, there was a great party in the Top Park to celebrate year 6 moving on to secondary school. The date of Hillaballoo, 21st of July, is the day after the end of term. So, it might be an opportunity to celebrate the moving on of this year’s 11 year olds. Any ideas for a celebration activity as part of Hillaballoo?

…and it’s getting brighter. I saw Julia King yesterday at a ‘Make your Mark meet-up’ in the Albany Cafe (see this link for more http://makeyourmark.ning.com/ ). Julia is the new development manager for the Cafe. She said that they’d had a brilliant workshop with Catherine Shovlin, for staff and trainees to get a vision for how the Cafe could be better for regular users and to attract more people. They explored colours, moods and views and came up with a plan. They’ve also been busy painting and changing the furniture and they are hoping to make a garden in front of the Fabric of Society mural.

It’s great that Cafe Orange can be part of Hillaballoo. Julia has the inspired idea of running a project for the trainees all about the view towards Docklands before Canary Wharf was built. This will lead to an exhibition. She’s keen to hear if anyone has photos, knowledge or ideas about this.

Two of the trainees are going to start having a stall at the Arts & Crafts/Farmer’s Market, so they will be part of the day too. An open day at Cafe Orange is planned for the 4 June. Good luck with the plans, Julia and everyone else in the Cafe.  

When the weather is fine enough, there’s a bit of a tradition that families go up to the Top Park on Fridays from roughly teatime until bedtime. You can take your dinner as a picnic and share it, or just go up to play after you’ve eaten. Bottle of wine. Football. Hide and seek. Sunset. Home after dusk for a late and thankfully sleepy kids bedtime.      

Today was the Farmer’s Market in the Park, on a ridiculously sunny day. All the trees are starting to leaf up, the playground was buzzing, and you could sit chatting for hours without that nip that nags you to go indoors and get your hands round a cup of tea. I’m starting to spread the word about Hillaballoo and everyone seems to like the idea. Read the page ’What is Hillaballoo?’ to find out more.