Sunday 20th September 2020 - Swings & Roundabouts, Prickly Visitor and See You in October

Since the introduction of restrictions, due to Covid-19, on the use for playgrounds, the Overstrand Children’s Playground has remained closed. Other playgrounds, run by Councils, have re-opened but Overstrand’s is run by a group of Trustees which makes things different. The following, provided by one of the Trustees, explains the continued closure in detail.

‘As many of you are aware the Overstrand children’s playground is operated and maintained by The Overstrand Millennium Group (OMG) with financial help in recent years from Overstrand Together. We are now being asked why the children’s playground is not open now that the Covid 19 lockdown has been released somewhat especially as other playgrounds are now open. The government guidance says that we should have signage to advise parents and children about what is needed as well as high touch point to cleaned on a regular basis. The signage is not expensive (£150 to £200 roughly). However regular cleaning of high touch points is an issue.

I have been advised by NNDC that they have a fogging machine to disinfect the equipment they are responsible for. They also told me that though they have put signage up it is a constant battle as it gets removed ( why would anyone do that!).

OMG can certainly put up signs and we could buy a fogging machine to disinfect but and it is a very big but.

OMG is a charity with a number of responsible Trustees and the trustees are personally responsible in the event of there being any come back resulting from issues with the playground. This is very different to playgrounds operated by councils where individuals are not at risk. The trustees have unanimously decided that we are not prepared to open with that risk hanging over our heads.

I hope that this explains our position and why the playground will remain closed for now.’

The feral cat Lunar (Sid’s sister) who we have been feeding and who had started building enough confidence to come into our conservatory, has gone ‘AWOL’. She’s normally around first thing in the morning, waiting to be fed and be fussed, and then again in the afternoon. But following her Wednesday morning breakfast, we did not see her again until Thursday evening when she returned, ravenous. Since then we have not seen her. To check if she was coming in the hours of darkness, Peter set up the trail camera. No Lunar but instead we had a visit from a hedgehog who sniffed round the empty outdoor cat food bowl. Since then Peter has continued to set up the camera and he has put out a covered food bowl with a timer, set to open when the hedgehog’s visit was recorded. We now have a regular hedgehog visit each night but unfortunately no Lunar. We can only assume, as she was being harassed by a neighbouring cat, Lunar has moved on, but she will always be welcome back here again.

I have quite a number of things to cover over the coming week or so. To enable me to give these my full attention, I will be taking a break from blogging and will return in October. I’ll leave you with a photo of a basket of pelargoniums, in our garden which despite the onset of autumn are still providing us with a colourful display.