Welcome to the SRT blog No. 43
5th March 2021 – Welcome to our blog post No. 43
March – the third month of the year already and Spring is sprung.
If you were born in March, your birth flower is a daffodil! March babies have two birthstones: aquamarine, and bloodstone which symbolise courage.
There are two zodiac signs in March. Pisces, and Aries.
March is the equivalent of September in the Southern Hemisphere. Every year, March and June finish on the same day of the week.
The name for March comes from Mars, the Roman god of war. It was named as such in both the Julian and Gregorian calendars.
The Vernal Equinox occurs around March 20 or 21st. This is when the sun is directly above the equator, making the day and night equal length. 
March is the time of year when animals start waking up from hibernation.
Twitter was launched on March 21 2006, with the first tweet going out the same day. It was posted by the founder, Jack Dorsey, which read “just setting up my twttr.”
St Patrick’s Day occurs on March 17th every year and is, celebrated in many western countries to commemorate the day Saint Patrick died.
On March 10 1876, Alexander Graham Bell made the first ever phone call. It was to his assistant and he said “Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you.”
The Eiffel Tower was ascended for the first time. Eiffel himself led a group of government officials and members of the press to the top. The elevators were not in operation yet, so the journey was made on foot and took over an hour.
At the end of the month the clocks go forward one hour – ‘Spring forward’!
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It was World Book Day yesterday and we wanted to let everyone know what Clare Manley has achieved. Clare is a poet and self-advocate and collaborated with novelist Emma Sweeney on a beautiful series of poems reflecting on the experience of lockdown. Emma is one of our patrons.
Robin Meader illustrated a selection of poems from their collection:
https://www.cl-initiatives.co.uk/poetry-reflects-life-in…/
The wormery has now been set up by David and the Activity Centre team, converting some old bee hive frames into a vermicompost bin so that our wriggly residents have somewhere to live. They are now able to put certain leftover foods from lunches into the box and this will feed the worms who convert it naturally and quickly into good quality compost. The aim is to establish a wormery at each Sunnyside site and then to progress to selling the compost and worms to the public. In the photos Ellen Fermont and her 1:1 Sharon is helping the worms to move into their new home in the greenhouse where they will stay until it is a warm enough for them to be moved outside. 
They are also revamping the two woodsheds so that they can be more accessible for members of the local community. This week the sheds have been cleared out so that they are empty for new flooring, insulation etc. The trainees have worked very hard to remove everything safely, being mindful of potentially dangerous tools whilst maintaining social distancing in the sheds. More news on this project to follow over the coming weeks.
On Monday the usual Bovingdon litter pick happened, with Noreen and Annette.
On Wednesday Ian took a group to Coombe Gardens in Berkhamsted to maintain the four beds there – Suru, Noreen and Rebecca and Libby one of our volunteers. Whilst there they decided that the beds needed woodchipping to help keep the weeds away so on Thursday they returned to add that
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Our community bakery build is underway at Sunnyside Hemel. Michael and Tanya have been working over the last few months to develop the plan with an architect, obtain permissions and get things underway and it all started with a bang this week!
The space has been cleared and the first hammer blows have been made.
Amazing how much has been done in a week – walls are nearly up. Helps being inside in the dry in an existing building and when completed will be creating new skills for our trainees, offering therapeutic courses, employment to vulnerable people and fresh, bread for our local area.
We will keep you up to date with how work progresses. Daily photos from Michael – thank you!
St Davids Day was on Monday and celebrated in style at Hemel.
Leek & potato soup served with tasty Welsh rarebit and Welsh cakes. Chris going in for the steal!
Now it’s March onions and garlic have been sown on the allotment and the troughs freshened up outside the Summer House in the tranquility area.
Rebecca made lemon drizzle this week and there are handmade, limited edition Mothers Day cards available in the Sunnyside Up Café & Farm Shop, whilst stocks last.
We also have a double layer fabric face masks in S, M & L sizes for sale – some with chickens on!
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A big week for Northchurch as the Mayor of Dacorum – Terry Douris – visited to officially open the new development. He wore his ceremonially garb including the chain of office and of course his less traditional face mask. The Northchurch team have all worked so hard over the last few weeks to finish off all those little, niggly jobs in preparation and it looked amazing.
Hope everyone will be able to visit soon, see the shop and of course say hello to the animals.
Sunnyside has been the Mayors chosen charity and has supported us over the last 2 years in helping us to realise our development for Northchurch. From bingo nights to pub quizes and much in between, Sunnyside has benefitted greatly from his patronage.
Our new development celebrates 30 years of Sunnyside and introduces greater therapeutic services for young people and adults with learning disabilities through horticulture and animal care alongside a more public facing service with a new shop. There are so many thank yous.
We had intended to have a grand opening and celebration last year but with the pandemic have been unable to. Because the Mayors tenure finishes soon and lockdown has gone on longer than we all imagined it would, we had to scale back the plans considerably and moved it online. That way we were able to invite people to listen and watch the Mayor cut the ribbon and show some of the site. These photos were taken from the zoom video.
The Mayor walked around the site with Matt and loved his stable sign that Zoe made. Thank you Mayor Douris.
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And to finish up – last weekend England were well and truly trounced in the Rugby by Wales 24 – 40 (another thing for the Welsh to celebrate this week!). So Matt called up some potential new players…
…what do you think? Would they make the side?
May be not!
They’re not interested in the ball as they can’t eat it!
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