A fantastic day for all the family! Bands times for the Felix School of Rock Stage are now confirmed! Children’s Magical Art Marquee Face Painting Storytelling Tent Felix School of Rock Stage Brockley’s Rock Fishing Pond Music and dance performances Brockley Max Art Market Pop-up food stalls Brockley Brewery & parlez bar Brockley Max raffle draw 5pm…https://brockleymax.co.uk/events/venues/hilly-fields/
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Much Ado About Nothing: 5th, 6th and 7th June, 2019 at 7pm
Brockley Max at Hilly Fields
Brockley Max – our local community festival – runs this year from Friday 31 May to Saturday 8 June with a huge range of events at local venues including Hilly Fields. To see the full programme, click here or pick up a paper copy from the HF cafe or other local outlets. Meanwhile, scroll down.
The Hilly Fields cafe (‘Pistachios in the Park’) is hosting three events. On Monday 3 June from 7-9 pm, an evening of poetry and stories presented by Write Brockley, a group of local indie authors. At this point, I should ‘declare an interest’ as I’m one of the authors reading along with Jason Shelley, Diana Pooley and Richard DeMox. Our styles range from traditional narrative to hip-hop poetry and electronica prose with humour, down-under demotic and existential musing in between. The event is free, the ‘Dionysian refreshment’ (a reference to wine, I believe) is free and our books will be on sale at reduced prices. Please bring cash.
Tuesday 4 June sees Professor Nohair and the Wiglifters (presumably the ‘heirs’ of Professor Longhair and the Shuffling Hungarians) playing ‘fast-fingered jazz and boogie woogie’ at the cafe from 7.00 – 9.30 pm. This is a free event, but donations are welcome. And on Thursday 6 June from 7.30 – 9.30 pm, there’s a priced event at the cafe – ‘Learn the Harmonica in Two Hours’. For £20, you get a harmonica, a glass of wine, free tuition and the opportunity to play on the Art In The Park stage on Saturday 8 June.
There are two big events elsewhere in the Park. In the Stone Circle, Hilly Shakes will be giving a performance of Much Ado About Nothing. This will take place on 5, 6 and 7 June from 7 – 8.30 pm. ‘High-jinx, clever wordplay and romance.’ Free, but donations welcome. And on the final day, Saturday 8 June, Hilly Fields will host the big Art In The Park event ‘for all the family’. See here for details.
One last plug, Quaggy Printmakers are exhibiting in the chapel at Brockley and Ladywell cemeteries on 1-2 June and 8-9 June between 10.30 am – 4 pm as part of Brockley Max. This free exhibition is called ‘Flights of Fancy’ and includes demonstrations of print-making techniques.
Hope you can get along to some of these events, especially the Write Brockley one!
Lottery Funding Progress
monoprinting workshop
Thanks to the grant from the Community Fund, we have now:-
run a mono printing workshop in the park…exhibition in the café to follow.
installed a new bench for the mud kitchen, obviously everyone is welcome to rest their weary legs and enjoy the views.
New Planting at Vicars Hill Entrance funded by MPGA Grant
We’ve just about completed our new planting at the Vicars Hill Entrance. We have a honeysuckle and a Japanese quince still in their pots, which we intend to grow over our future dead hedge. The Friends contributed the additional funds to enable the upgrade from chainlink to estate railing and the plants were purchased with a grant from MPGA https://www.mpga.org.uk/
Planting in progress and completed…we still need to do some extra weeding and mulching!
Beautiful Morning…
…on Hilly Fields. The trees like the horse chestnut below are coming into leaf.
The birds are singing and calling like this Starling.
While this Goldfinch shows an interest in the seed balls of a plane tree.
If you want to see and hear more of the Birds of Hilly Fields, come on the Dawn Chorus walk on 4 April. Meet outside the HF Cafe at 6.00 am.
Watch the Birdies
Our Big Birdwatch event (in conjunction with the RSPB) took place on Sunday 27 January as advertised. Unfortunately, a strong cold northern wind put many of the birds off and the count was low. However, a surprising number of humans turned up and we thank you for your support. A fuller report can be found on the Hilly Fields Birdwatch blog here.
This years Dawn Chorus Walk will be held on Thursday 4 April. If you’d like to come along, we meet outside the cafe at 6 am. As in previous years, we will listen to the birds on Hilly Fields and around the Brockley and Ladywell cemeteries. You can leave at any time to get to work but we’ll be finished by 8 am at the latest. Hope to see some of you there.
Orchard Maintenance and Wassail
Sunday 3rd February, maintenance session: we’ll be weeding and mulching the trees, pruning the trees and fixing stakes. We also have a couple of new fruit trees to plant. We’ll start at 2pm and finish at 4pm. So that we can plan the tasks and tools; if you plan to come along, it is helpful to contact us. email hillyfields4@googlemail.com
The Wassail will start at 4pm, with musicians and wassail. Please try to remember your own cup!