PLANS MAY BE ON HOLD BUT OUR PARKS ARE OPEN TO ALL

Coronavirus precautions
The National Lockdown 3 COVID regulations are likely to be with us until at least late-February or early March, so we are still not making any definite plans for 2021 yet ~ but at least the mass vaccination programme has started.

The parks are open, so everyone can continue to enjoy the fresh air for that essential exercise, whilst maintaining social distancing and all other applicable Coronavirus regulations. The Drovers Return café is also open for take-aways, so be sure to get something to warm you up once you’ve had enough exercise.

When in the parks, please help everyone stay safe by respecting social distancing of 2m and limiting contact, and not sharing items with those outside your immediate household or support bubble.

Thank you to everyone who put something in our Donations box when they were in the café, in appreciation for the festive decorations and lights we erected at the Country Parks main entrance, and also for the festive pebbles which have been painted and hidden by us and Hunsbury Hill W.I. We have been able to give The Hope Centre, our chosen charity for Christmas 2020, a whopping £99.75. We have added the painted pebble pictures that were uploaded to our Facebook page to our Gallery (suitably cropped where necessary).

We had started thinking about an astronomy evening in February, involving telescopes and moon-gazing, but we are now looking to re-schedule that for later in the year or, if the moon phases aren’t suitable, maybe early in 2022.

If Coronavirus restrictions are relaxed sufficiently by next Easter (which is the first weekend in April in 2021), we will probably re-arrange the Easter Pebble Egg Hunt which we had planned for last Easter (2020).

Then, of course, there is International Dawn Chorus Day, on the first Sunday in May (which will be 2nd May next year). A Dawn Chorus Walk has been mooted at one of our committee meetings earlier this year, although we have yet to draw straws to see which of us are going to get up early enough to lead it.

Whilst on the subject of getting up at dawn, we have initiated contact with the Druids group which held one or more summer solstice events in our Hillfort back in the 1960’s, and hope to be able to get them back again some time in the near future to talk about their experiences and their history.

Keep Britain Tidy are organising another Great British Spring Clean for Friday 28th May to Sunday 13th June 2021, so we will be organising something to help during that fortnight.

Once we get a spell of dry weather next summer, we will have another go at painting the play equipment in Ladybridge Park. We originally tried to do this in 2019, but weather and circumstances have conspired to stop us getting back to it.

Hunsbury Hill Centre, owned and managed by Northamptonshire ACRE, are planning to hold a Community Festival on Sunday 18th July which should be a lot of fun. We shall be there (COVID regs permitting) so hope you will be, too.

Although we have now achieved our ambition to get Shire Horses (well, one anyway) back in the park fields after possibly a hundred years or more, by having Hartwell Shires’ William chain harrow our Wildflower Meadow on Sunday 20th September (check out photos and videos). We unfortunately were not allowed to make this a public event due to the COVID-19 restrictions, but we WILL be bringing William back to Hunsbury Hill next year once we are allowed to hold public events again and have already started thinking of some ideas for what we can arrange.

We will undoubtedly try and get William back for 2021’s Heritage Open Days in September (we’re thinking of a chain-harrowing competition, but probably not as you know it) and would like to have him visit us in the Spring, if his other commitments and COVID permit.

In the meantime you can always enjoy our Tree Trail and can buy Northampton Lottery  tickets using our dedicated page at any time. You can also read our Poems in the Park for Humour, VE Day, Mothers’ Day, Valentines’ Day and Armistice Day by scrolling through our website Gallery at your leisure.

Please keep an eye on this website and on our Facebook page for updates.