It got me musing on what a 20 ways to beat the Credit Crunch in Harringay list would look like, so shamelessly stealing from the EcoSalon list, I set to work.
Guerrilla Gardening
Armed with a packet of seeds, where do we start? How about here, around this neglected little memorial?
or maybe in all those weeded over spaces round the trees?
The Outdoors
Spoilt for choice really...Ducketts, Fairland, Chestnuts, Railway fields, Finsbury Park, The Community Garden, Parkland Walk, New River walk. Have I missed any?
Concerts
Freebies in Finsbury park or local bands in Fairland Park. How about seeing a film down in the Gardens?
Urban Foraging
Hmm this one is a bit tricky. I'm not sure Harringay has orchards groaning with fruit but you could try blackberrying in Railway Fields or gathering windfalls from the fig trees that overhang the Harringay Passage. Didn't someone once suggest a pooling of the fruit from trees in our gardens (I have pears and plums) or am I imagining that?
Sex
Well nuff said. Enjoy!
Picnic
I do love buying a load of hummous, olives, and bread from Yasars and sitting in the American Gardens on a sunny day.
Trade Entertainment
Look no further than 'The Charity Shop'. Get rid of all those unwanted books, cds and DVDS and go get some more from the Marie Curie shop.
Stargazing
Not sure this one is possible in Harringay, given the light pollution, but the moon puts on a good show from time to time.
Podcasts
Hey, watch this space. In the meantime, why not listen to a little Harringayonline radio
Volunteer
There's lots of ways of helping out mentioned on the Harringayonline site. Here's a few of them , get stuck in with the Harringayonline Sustainability group, or look on the Green Map to go further afield.
Craigslist (and more)
or Freecycle, as it is known on this side of the pond. See what mad stuff someone wants rid of.
Clothing Swap
I have a limited wardrobe so would be no good for these clothes swap parties but it might be a good excuse to sit round someone's house and gossip.
Garage Sale
This might be a tricky one to try round here. Anyone ever tried? However, the excellent Give and Take days around Haringey might do just as well.
The Library
Oh, the wonderful Library. Just go there. They let you have 12 books now.
Potluck
Perhaps we should hold one of these in summer in one of the small spaces and scare the little boys in bandanas away (or feed them)
Get Creative
Go on, get the crayons out and give it a go. Perhaps we'll eventually have a place to show your Salisbury at Sunset watercolours.
Nature Knowledge
See section on the Outdoors and libraries. Arm yourself with Spotting Birds and the I Spy Book of Trees and commune with nature.
Send a Note
Yes, I love social networking and all that but a personal letter or card, especially hand made, still makes me happy all day and you support your local post office to boot.
Get Fit
Cycling, running, walking.
Write
You can have a free blog on Harringayonline.com and an audience of over a 1000 people. What are you waiting for...?
3 comments:
Harringay Library:
12 books? for three weeks? It seems rather excessive..
Many years ago, in fact in another century, I was a member of the Cissbury Road Library, St Ann's Road.
It really was a wonderful place, in fact the gateway into the wider world. Thanks to it, I was the only person in my class of 11 year olds, who knew of John Nash, the architect and planner of Regent Street, Regent's Park.
My mum used to check the books that I brought home, that's why I never took home, the only book in the library I could find with 'Naked Flesh' in it.. An American Civil War book with naked soldiers relaxing and swimming.. I've never forgotten..!! Even at such a young age our sexuality seems to be programmed in..
What would we working class kids have done without libraries? No way my mother and father could have afforded my voracious book appetite. 12 books in 3 weeks then would have been no problem. I was a very precocious reader. Friends used to joke that I'd swallowed a dictionary.
Oddly, although my parents controlled my viewing, they did not control my books, so I learned much about the 'ways of the world' which I doubt they even considered.
I take my kids now and I still get a real pleasure in just being in the library, surrounded by possibility.
St Ann's has just been refurbished. Its lovely down there. I'll try and take some photos for you next time we go to an event down there.
Oh thanks, that would be great.. On going in, there was a reading room on the left, always full of 'grumpy old men' and on the right the children's library..
It must be nearly 40 years since I was last in there..
On the opposite side of St Ann's Road where Cissbury joins it, there was a church hall, that used to have fab jumble sales.. It disappeared with the all the narrow streets behind it in the early 1970s and was replaced by those strange looking houses.
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