Battersea park zoo

Battersea Park Zoo Bar-b-que

Monday was the Friends of Battersea Zoo Barbecue. Although the weather wasn’t great, there was a big turn out, and hopefully much cash was raised for the Friends. Apart from a raffle, silent auction and drinks being on sale for charity, there was a face painter for the kids.

Battersea Park Zoo is one of only 3 zoos in London and is perfect for kids. Its small enough for little ones to walk around without getting tired, and there a large play area for children. This has expanded recently and now includes a real fire engine.

Editors note: This article has been updated to correct an error. Money raised from the event supports Friends of the Park, not the Zoo. The Zoo gives the use of the premises free, and the staff give their time free as well.

Summer Party Battersea Square

The first street party of the year took place this weekend in Battersea Square. A ‘farmers’ market, craft stalls and other food stalls, as well as music and dance performances from nearby RAD (Royal Acadamy of Dance). Also a chance to see some parts of the square I’d never seen before. There’s quite a large office complex that houses a number of small businesses tucked away.

Good weather brought out the crowds and the perfomances on the small stage were of a high standard. I do pity the ballerina who’s tutu fell off though. Lots of interesting stuff about Battersea history, and I picked up a new booklet of heritage walks (Battersea Heritage Trails), which is a great introduction to the history of this part of London. The booklet was published by Wandsworth council.  It’s available from local libraries, or by calling 020 7627 3182.

It was great to see many of the activities were free (thanks Wandsworth council parks), or in aid of  local good causes (Katherine Low Settlement)

Battersea Election 2010

Very little evidence of any campaigning in Battersea, despite it being a marginal seat. All we’ve had so far is a leaflet through the door from the Conservatives and Labour andI did see a battered Ford Fiesta with a few stickers from an independent candidate.

Policies I like:

  • No increase in national insurance
  • Citizenship for long stay immigrants
  • Keeping Sure Start programme

Unfortunately these policies are one from each of the main parties, so it’s tricky to decide…

Goatastic

My sister is becoming a farmer – a goat farmer to be precise. she and Ian now have approx 50 female and 1 billy goats on rented land near their place in Bradford upon Avon. The plan is to increase the herd (billy has been busy) and buy some farmland to establish themselves. After that it’s on to Smoothie production…

As you can see from the photo the goats were happily penned in, but my childhood experience reminds me that for goats the grass is always greener the other side of the fence, and they’ll do just about anything to get there.

Good luck Sarah, hope you don’t mind getting out of bed in the middle of the night to recapture your straying herd 🙂

Wandsworth Green Business Awards 2009

Winners of 2009 Wandsworth Green Awards
Winners of 2009 Wandsworth Green Awards

The Wandsworth Green Business Awards were held yesterday at the Pestana Chelsea Bridge Hotel. Unfortunately we didn’t win this time for our green server hosting, but it was a popular event. I’d say around 250 people attended and it was very well organised.

Linebyte A1
Linebyte A1

The winners included Hakan from Linebyte, an IT company. Hakan was demoing a nifty little micro-computer (pictured) for which he’s been rewriting the linux kernel, drivers and all sorts. Unlike the VIA/Atom boards, everything on this board is low power and ultra small. Power consumption for the whole unit is just 2W. Power is from USB. All it needs now is an application or two…Any suggestions, please comment below!

Another worthy entrant was Technology Solutions, who are bravely punting Linux based desktops for small businesses. All application software is Open Source based so no licence fees.

Real Life SimCity

Waze
Waze

Recently I’ve been playing with a mapping app on the iPhone called Waze. This allows you to do free turn by turn routing on a smartphone (at time of writing Android and iPhone’s supported), with the added bonus of up to date traffic reporting by fellow users of the service.

Waze started in Israel, and they’ve pretty much got the whole country mapped now. The UK however is sparse – most roads are not mapped yet, but this is the bit I’m enjoying most. When you drive down a road that’s not on Waze, you actually create it. The phone uploads the GPS data to the web, and you go along later and add the street name.

This bit feels like SimCity – creating your own roads! However it does feel like wasted effort, as a project called OpenStreetMap has already created free maps of the entire UK, which Waze or other projects like it could be using. Waze are taking a bit of a gamble on UK users wanting to create a map of the UK before the routing and traffic functions will start to take off. Smartphone Apps that use OpenStreetMap are plentiful – but I’ve yet to find a free one for the iPhone.

For SimCity fans it’s great though – you find yourself deliberately taking new routes to and from work just to add new roads to the map.

Learning Ladders Nursery Battersea

Learning Ladders Children’s Centre

Learning Ladders operates from the old Battersea Children’s Home situated on the Doddington Estate in the London borough of Wandsworth. The group operate presently from three main rooms on the ground floor and use a separate dining area. They also use a soft play room on the first floor. All children have access to secure enclosed outdoor play areas.

In the November 2009 Ofsted Inspection report, the Childrens Centre was rated GOOD in all areas. A full copy of the Ofsted report is available online.

The staff work exceptionally well as a team to support the children and make sure everyone enjoys their time in the nursery

KL trip

Sleepy Head
Sleepy Head

With travel chaos in Britain and north Europe, it was always going to be touch and go. Late leaving Heathrow, we caught the connecting flight in Amsterdam with minutes to spare. Our luggage was not so lucky and took a couple of days to join us.

We flew KLM and it was a night flight. An interesting touch was the hot noodles and ice-cream served at about 3am.

1984 BAC

thanks to lovely Stephen Moorhouse, Jeannette and I had a night out at the theatre this week. we went to see 1984 at the local Battersea arts centre, and very good it was too. it was a mix of live action and puppetry, which never got in the way of the fast pace of the story.

the play runs: December 02 – January 09, 2010

tickets cost: £10 – £16