Summing up November...

Gah, the rain. I’d forgotten how muddy and slippy things become over the winter. Last year I spent time desperately digging troughs for the deep puddles to drain off the track, but they’re back with a vengeance.
The track needs a lot of attention, but that really is a big and expensive job – and not one we're responsible for at the end of the day. It’s mistreated regularly, and would be back in the state it is now within a couple of months, so without more control over what happens to it we make do and mend.


Well, despite the weather, it’s all systems go around here at the moment. Hopefully at least some of it will be noticeable in the spring, but as with a lot of the work we’ve done so far, it may be lost in acres of derelict and scruffy land we have no responsibility for.

There’s not only physical work going on though, behind the scenes things are moving apace too, with new possibilities, old uncertainties, and possible directions laid out before us like a Christmas selection box. Steer clear of the nougat cluster and find me a strawberry cream.

Again, who knows what we’ll actually be able to move on with, but it seems the new website has brought a little good fortune and positive thinking for the NUFP – and long may it last.


Throughout my time with the NUFP it’s been a bit of a crazed do-si-do. A few steps forward and a few back – you just have to keep it heading the right way.

That can make planning very hard work. A few things go our way and you feel animated, prepared to take the bull by the horns and get stuck in, only to find someone else has grabbed the bull, mistreated it, and you’re having to convince folk it wasn‘t you.

A convoluted metaphor, but at least it had a farm animal in it.


Anyway, to end, I’d like to thank everyone that donated trees and our regular volunteers who planted them as part of the BBC Breathing Spaces World Record attempt, Tree O’clock – www.bbc.co.uk/breathingplaces/treeoclock.

We planted 25 trees of varying sizes and types in less than a hour, twice as many as we pledged to plant, and now we wait to see what the total figure was across the country.

To put us in our place we hear in Derry they broke the record for 100 people planting trees in an hour – over 26,000 trees! Maybe next year...

Hey, any tree planted is a good thing, and the best time for planting them is last year... so go and stick a conker in a park somewhere.

I'll end with a big thank you for Far Cotton Boxing Club who made sure we stuck to the rules. They're always helpful and John really does good work there – another hidden gem in Northampton.

Jamie