NORDELPH COMMUNITY WEBSITE: December 2009
STOP PRESS
This is a new area of the website that should allow us to publicise late-breaking news; read about how we intend to use it, below.
Meanwhile, click on the Carol Service poster above to download a printable A4 version which you're invited to display.
ALSO:
Next auction in the Village Hall will be 26th January; viewing from 5pm, starts 6pm anyone who wishes to
sell items to contact Gwen Tester 01366 324369 ASAP before the event as
table space is a premium.
You'll see that our heading has changed this month -- and you can find out why below. Which makes this the perfect place to advise you that if you can't see any heading (and an index panel to the left) then you have come upon a single frame of the home page. Click on www.nordelph.org to load the page as it is meant to be viewed.
Night blight
The two images above document just how much has changed in our night skies over just seven years. The maps, released by the Campaign to Protect Rural England and used here with their permission, are created from satellite measurements of artificial light at night over the East of England. Areas coloured red (all of Greater London and the centre of cities such as Norwich and Peterborough) are saturated; the darker the blue, the darker the night. Clicking on the image will download an A4-sized printable version which is not only easier to study, but contains a sobering statistical analysis on the reverse: while we should consider ourselves fortunate that, in this region, only Norfolk and Suffolk have any real night sky left, overall pollution has increased by 21% over these seven years, while in Cambridgeshire it is 29%.
As best we can tell, Nordelph wasn't in the darkest (i.e: best) band even in 1993; but since then it has risen up the scale -- Nordelph nights are lighter! Visit the CPRE website at www.cpre.org.uk/library/results/light-pollution for a range of downloadable maps and literature. You can also revisit our own page about viewing the Northern Lights from Nordelph -- in view of the depressing information from CPRE, perhaps this is something to do sooner rather than later.
Treasure Quest
Our revised heading ('pled horn' &c.) will make perfect sense if you listened to BBC Radio Norfolk's Sunday morning programme 'Treasure Quest' on December 6th. Every Sunday between 9.00 and 12.00 they host an interactive
treasure quest. Presenter David Clayton in the studio reads out a
series of cryptic clues, and listeners phone, text or e-mail in to help
solve the clues and guide presenter Becky Betts in Radio Norfolk's radio car (above) driven by Ian Forster to various locations throughout our region. On December 6th, the final destination was Nordelph. You'll find a full report with more pictures in our 'Features' section.
By using the BBC's 'catch-up' service, the iPlayer, it's also possible to listen to the programme for a short while (seven days) after transmission. If you're reading this in time, the link: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/p005cl60 will lead you to the broadcast; it's 3 hours long, but it isn't necessary to play it all -- using the timeline below the main window you can seek out the last 15 minutes or so, which is where Nordelph gets involved.
We recognise that this last item might be intensely frustrating if you're accessing this page after the broadcast has been removed. In that case, you might want to consider one of the standard services provided by the Nordelph website: every time there's a significant update, we e-mail those correspondents who've opted in to the service, saving them the bother of accessing the site just to see if anything's changed. After the 'excitement' of last weekend, we used that mailing list to alert everyone in plenty of time for them to access the iPlayer. To join that mailing list, just drop us an e-mail request at info@nordelph.org.
Late-breaking news
We try very hard to make this website a useful port of call for anyone seeking news or information about the village. We don't always succeed! Last month we were asked to
publicise one of the auctions at the Village Hall. We'd have been very happy to do this -- it's what the site is here for -- but we fell victim to our own design. The Nordelph website is structured in a way that means that items like this can only be added during a full update that replaces our home page -- an update like this one. The issue is purely cosmetic, not technical, but we've brooded a bit over our failure to meet a legitimate request in time. Our solution is visible at the head of this page, using a bit of the empty space that keeps us compatible with users with older computers. In future, we'll stick any late-breaking news into this 'Stop Press' box. That way, anyone visiting the site will see at once if anything's been added. Short items will be entirely in the box, longer ones and downloads will involve clicking on a link. And the good news is that the facility doesn't even affect our 'Printer Version' option, which opens the content of what you're viewing in a separate window, so that it can be printed without the header and the index. Whether we send e-mails alerting you to new stop press items is something we'll have to judge when the time comes.
Contacts
We're always delighted to receive feedback from our readers (visitors? surfers?). One of the nicest recent ones was also one of the simplest. In its entirety: "Daughter has homework to write about her village or town, found site useful . Thank You".
We also heard from Pat Still, now living in Kings Lynn, who wrote: "My Grandfather was blacksmith in Nordelph, Horace Butler. Is there anyone there old enough to remember him? I loved the village and the old pictures bought back many good memories."
We did some research (well we asked around) about Nordelph and its forge. What we found out is on our new page in the 'Nordelph Past' section, The Blacksmiths of Nordelph.
Church redevelopment ...
Everything went quiet after deadlines passed, but various "visitors" and the agents continuing to write letters and negotiate on some of the issues with the planners, highways and English Nature.
In early December there were 3 people measuring up the roadway, so our reporter cheekily asked who they were and what they were doing!
One turned out to be the the Planning Officer Mrs Wood-Handy. She confirmed that the application had been called in by Councillor Vivienne Spiking, one of our district councillors and a strong supporter of the village identity. A date for the application to be considered by the Planning Board had not yet been set. Mrs Wood-Handy also said that all those who had commented on the application would be notified when a date was agreed and would have the opportunity to appear in front of the Planning Board to put their point of view if they wished.
... and some other developments (or not)
Houses in High Street, opposite the public staithe, are supplied with electricity and telephone connections via overhead cables (elsewhere in the village, the phones at least go underground even where the power doesn't).The problem is that the wires, where they cross the highway, are lower than some statutory safety limit -- some day soon an even taller combine harvester will cut these houses loose from such modern conveniences!
This is due to change: British Telecom (or at least its rebranded engineering arm) intends to dig up the road and bury their cables in the New Year (their representative wouldn't be drawn on just which year). This could perhaps improve the telephone service to these houses -- surely BT won't bury copper wires when all the talk is of fibre optic connections to support digital Britain? Ironically, these houses are among those closest to the exchange and already enjoy the best Broadband connections in the village. And -- as a perfect example of the complete lack of joined-up thinking -- no one is intending to do anything at all about the power cables, which are generally lower than the telecommunications ones!
The images above show something that's perhaps more urgent: the road surface on Nordelph bridge, which is becoming seriously pitted and potholed. There was a time when simply alerting the Highways Department would have solved the problem, but developments further along the road to Downham Market cast some doubt on the efficiency of any response.
In late Summer, a number of dips began to develop along the stretch of the A1122 to Downham, with the most serious by far being just after the entry to Salters Lode, opposite the Old School House. Local wisdom held, quite plausibly, that this was due to the exceptionally dry September, since all the examples were close to trees that were suspected of draining the moisture from the soil.
Nothing
seemed to be happening, and then in mid-October, just as your correspondent was leaving for two weeks' holiday, some traffic cones and an alternating single-file traffic light controlled management system installed. Returning two weeks later, expecting the problem to have been sorted, we were surprised to observe that everything was exactly as it had been when we left! Some soil samples had been taken, and ruminations were going on.
When the 'solution' was applied later in the Autumn, it was stunning in its simplicity! Norfolk County Council arrived and erected a sign: slow -- bumpy road ahead!. In fairness, they subsequently did a tarmac-fill job that would have disgraced a cowboy builder, making the road even bumpier and necessitating an extra temporary sign warning of the change of level! Take extra care when navigating Nordelph Bridge!
Ready, Steady, Fold!
Nordelph Arts and Crafts Club has been practising its origami, led by a local expert who operates under the intriguing name above -- Ready Steady Fold. You can read all about it, and see pictures in our report. This is an item that can be accessed in future through the Arts & Crafts link in our index.
The Vegetable Shop
Ian Massingham is well-known to many Nordelph residents, not least because he pens our occasional series on Fen Food, which currently documents no less than 22 species of vegetable that thrive in the Fens. Ian also runs an organic fruit and vegetable business, initially from the entry to the Crown Hotel, then on the old market place in Downham and since September in shop premises in High Street. Among other things, this allows him to open more frequently. For full details, see the updated entry under organic fruit and veg in our trade directory section.
Village New Year's Party
We finish this pre-holiday update with the poster that you will have seen around the village; if you want your own printable copy, just click on the image below to download a copy. The important change to previous information is that, following strong recommendations from villagers, it has been decided to let 25 children attend from the village on a first come first served basis. Prices are £12.50 for 15+ (including adults!), 3+ -- 14 £10.00,under 3 £2.00.
Child tickets from Jane Mackie, 14 Coronation Avenue, tel: (01366) 324380.
