Kingsway Villagers

Since all the rain that we have received thoughout nearly the whole year, our back garden is now a mess. We have almost lost our 6 conifer trees just sitting in water, which has rotted the roots and have now turned brown looking very sad.
We can’t walk up or around our garden due to the grass turning into mud, and being very slippery, in fact you need your wellies on to visit my garden!

Our labrador puppy on the other hand, is the only one that enjoys jumping and skidding around our garden at the moment. Our two year old daughter is banned from going outside to play, as the last time she was outside playing with her puppy, she came in the front room looking like goodness knows what… just covered in mud from top to bottom!

We have had to place old towels down inside our front room – right though to the kitchen – to stop muddy paw trails. I have been in touch with the surveyors department, and a very nice lady came out to see for herself just how bad it was; she said that their was definitely a problem as our garden is on a sight slope, so when it rains the water runs off the garden towards our patio and floods it with muddy rain water.

We have muddy water just sitting in the flower borders with nowhere to go, and as for our rockery which was once full of flowers, it is now a mud bath. It has got so bad we have had to completely cover it with a blue tarpaulin, to stop it filling up with any more muddy water, and overflowing back onto our patio.

The lady surveyor did take a few photo’s of our garden, and said that she would have to sit down with her manager to see if he would take this on board, and if so she would be in touch. I did not hear anything for a few weeks, but I did call her and left her a couple of messages on her answering machine. Then they called again and said that they were still looking into this for me, which made me feel a lot better, but all has gone quiet again. But I won’t give up hope just yet, as I am aware they have had a lot more serious issues going on in and around Gloucestershire – all on the news – regarding the floods and flooded houses. It is so barbaric and so cruel, and the saddest thing is, that it is all out of our control. We can’t control the weather.

At least my home is not flooded throughout; as the saying goes “There but for the grace of God go I”.

Family Lives are looking for Volunteer Befrienders.
Could you help families cope with the ups and downs of family life?

Family Lives, a national charity providing parenting and family support, is running a project to support families through befriending support. If you can spend a few hours of your free time each week to get involved in your local community and build a friendship with a parent who is struggling to balance their family life, we really want to hear from you.

Often, all people need to solve their problems is a listening ear, some positive support and a boost in confidence. You can help families improve their lives, supporting them to create positive environments for themselves and their children.

Our befriending volunteers will:

• visit a family to befriend them on a one to one basis
• visit children’s centres and community venues to talk to parents
• help our staff to set up parent support groups and signpost parents to services that can support them

Our volunteers receive ongoing training and support from our dedicated team of staff, who are always on hand to offer guidance. We also offer an OCN (Open College Network) qualification to those who complete our full training programme, and we pay out of office expenses.

You don’t need any specific qualifications but you will need to be understanding and resilient. You will also need to have experience of being in a caring or parenting role or have experience of supporting parents or young people. If you are pursuing a professional career in counselling or social work, this opportunity may particularly interest you as it offers hands on experience of working with families.

To download a full role description and application form, please visit our website (www.familylives.org.uk/content/volunteer-family-lives).
Contact Charlotte Willson, Volunteer Development Officer:
Tel: 01453 751676, or email: charlottew@familylives.org.uk.

Hello All,

This is my first post on the site as I have just moved up to Kingsway from Bristol and one of our cats has gone missing.

Meg is a long-haired white and ginger cat and was last seen on Tuesday morning. She has a collar with a tag with our postcode and ‘phone number on and she is micro-chipped.

The microchip search service has been called, but if anyone sees her around the Mount Pleasant / Valley Gardens / Thatcham Avenue area please let me know.

My number is 07967 271892.

Many Thanks,
Tim
14, Mount Pleasant.

Hi,

My name is Claudia and I live in Marham Drive.

I have just started a course in Holistic Massage and for my homework I need to give 50 hours massage throughout the year (I actually need 6 hours in the next 3 weeks… HELP)!

If anyone is interested to receive a free massage, please give me a call on my mobile 07867774466.

I can provide the ‘phone number of my course leader – Andy Fagg – for you to contact and check, and also the website details.

Thank you very much in advanced for your help.

Claudia

I am now a resident of Kingsway following the much anticipated completion of our new build home in June 2012! I must say how very different my family and I are finding Kingsway compared to our old home and neighbourhood back in Emersons Green, Bristol/South Glos’, phew… very different indeed! It’s going to take some getting used to! Already we are feeling like we are one of the minority residents – neither of us own a crossbred dog, we do not wear hoodies, jogging bottoms (and I’m not talking visits to the gym here), football tops, we do not have a smoking habit, and neither of us sport any type of tattoos, or chunky gold chains! Sounds a bit harsh you may think, but I am being brutally honest here!

Day 1 of our house move, our belongings still being carried off the back of the removal lorry, and we were approached by one of the neighbours, who as bold as brass introduced herself, and her SIX children (all aged under 10 years). Even the removal men commented to us about how ‘full on’ she seemed! Three months on we have heard several accounts, and ‘warnings’, from other neighbours (all from affordable housing) on how to watch out for the family with all the kids on the corner as they have a habit of ‘pinching things’. The only problem I have with the rather large, and young family on the corner, is the amount of noise that can be heard coming from their house from the crack of dawn through ’til midnight! I can report that nothing, (touch wood), has been taken from outside my house, my garden plants still remain safe!

I was disappointed with the lack of respect for the new build park on the corner, a stone’s throw away from our house. The new turf had been down for less than a week when it was strewn with litter – mostly kids sweet wrappers, and the rides covered in child-like graffiti! I was tempted to take a bucket of bleach and have a go at removing the rude marker pen drawings and swearwords from all the new kids’ play equipment, but it seems bleach would not even do the trick! The children clearly need to be taught a valuable lesson in respect for their Community! I can’t imagine the parents would be the ones to do this, judging from the number of parents who seemed to turn a blind eye to their own offspring littering the park!
Teachers in the local primary schools need to take some responsibility here, and perhaps a visit from a Community Police Officer would help. I was also astounded at the number of very young children left unattended in the park. Children as young as four (could have been much younger, but giving them the benefit of the doubt), left to play with their young friends and siblings, no sign of their parents! I witnessed a very young child screaming after she had been left alone in the park by her seven year old sibling. I took her hand as she attempted to climb the railings because she could not open the gate herself. We managed to track her sibling along the footpath, and I watched them walk home together. I simply do not understand why any parent would allow such young children out on their own, left to their own devices, when if they did the same in their own home, left home alone so to speak, the Social Services would come down hard on them!
There were similar type scenes in the local Tesco Express. I couldn’t believe the high numbers of very young unaccompanied children in the store. A lot of them were riding their scooters around the aisles, and the store staff didn’t seem to mind! Back in our old village, there was a strick rule in our local Tesco Express – a maximum of two unaccompanied children at any given time, and certainly no bikes or scooters allowed in the store!

My family and I decided to give the Summer ‘Fun Day’ a go at the Kingsway Primary School. Firstly we were all quite shocked at how the lady taking entrance money at the school gate had a can of lager in one hand, drinking it in between taking our monies! We were hard pressed to find a single non-smoker at the fun day, unless we were to count the very young children, or police lady on the premises!

I know I’m probably coming across as quite judgmental here, but really I am shocked at the different lifestyles here in Kingsway.
Kingsway is a newly built area, and the surrounding countryside looks quite picturesque, so I really can’t understand why any resident wouldn’t appreciate their new home (affordable or owner occupied)!

I’m sorry but I need to highlight the awful state I saw at the Tesco shopping area yesterday morning. Filled Tesco’s bags of rubbish, paper and cigarette butts everywhere… If I were to want to use the facilities of the Cafe, the Hairdressers or the other establishments in the complex, I would be put off with the amount of debris around.

Who is responsible for cleaning the area, the shops or the Council?

I would have thought that the shops in the area would have found it in their own best interests to keep it tidy!