Thursday 28th March 2024 - Big Excitement and Overstrand Gardening Club

Big excitement in the village!  The car park has had a revamp.  Is this because Overstrand has been rated ‘The Fourth Poshest Place’ (see my blog for Thursday 11th January 2024) and this is one of the areas in the village which has been looking unkempt?  The photo below shows the plant on site, in the process of digging out the turf and topsoil, on a part of the car park which often gets waterlogged and has been cordoned off. 

This is where an underground stream passes on its way out of the cliff, which a few years ago suffered a big slump.  Since the removal of the turf and topsoil, some sort of rough hogging has been put down and now topped with shingle, see photo taken this morning. 

Of course, this won’t stop the underground stream and whether this will well up again, during times of heavy rainfall, remains to be seen. We saw lorries taking away loads of soil from the excavated area but some remains piled on another part of the car park, which also gets waterlogged and cars have got stuck.  With Easter holidays on our doorstep I am guessing the District Council, wanted to maximise the number of parking spaces and take full advantage of revenue from visitors.

Looking ahead until after Easter, the Overstrand Gardening Club have an interesting speaker at their meeting on Tuesday.  Having said that, all of their speakers this year have been interesting.  Back to this coming Tuesday, when Ken Able’s talk is titled ‘Pelargoniums Explained’.  The Club’s Secretary has sent out advanced information to members which says, ‘Ken has bred and collected many varieties of these plants with their many colours and scents such as lemon, chocolate and rose!  He will show us how to grow and care for them and hopefully may have a few plants to sell.’  You don’t have to be a member to attend Gardening Club meetings, visitors are most welcome.  There are full details on the Gardening Club’s designated page here on Overstrand Life’s website.

Finally, Happy Easter everyone and don’t forget the clocks go forward this weekend, or as one person on Facebook put it, we will have one hour less of rain!