What an arid month it’s been! Our rain butt on the Piazza ran dry a couple of weeks ago and the lovely team at the Rose of Denmark, who came to our rescue in some dry weeks last year, were not able to help since the pub sadly closed last month. You may have spotted Wheelie Bin Bob transporting water to the Piazza for desperate plants, many thanks to him and others who may have overloaded bicycles with containers.

Our aspirations for creating green space that responds to changes in our climate lost out to the responsibility we felt to existing trees and flora, particularly the catalpa and dog wood shrubs we planted in memory of Ray last year, and we have hired a standpipe for the next four weeks from Bristol Water. It’s bound to rain now!

Amy Hutchings, who painted the lovely Herons and the Charles Place Playpark mural has been working with Hotwells Primary after school club (ELASC). The children have produced some beautiful drawings that Amy has copied onto the wall and invited them to come and progress the mural with stamps of flowers, grass, waves and worms. The mural is funded by Hotwells & Cliftonwood Community Association as part of Ray Smith’s legacy.

 

 

 

To extend the mural along the whole wall, Amy and Anna have selected Dinah Black, a freed slave, Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelly, Ellen Craft, Eliza Walker Dunbar, Angela Carter and Sylvia Crowe to highlight what amazing women who’ve lived, passed through or improved the lives of people in Hotwells & Cliftonwood over the centuries. The idea was inspired by Jane Duffus’s Women Who Built Bristol and Bristol Women’s Voice, who published and are selling the book. Anna has also contributed some funding from Art within the Cracks of Women’s Lives. Amy will finish the mural over the next week or so- heat hasn’t helped progress. Let’s hope the taggers leave this one alone.

The murals will be complete over the next week or so- heat hasn’t helped progress. Let’s hope the taggers leave this one alone.

Massive thanks are due to Carmel and Barbara who have been litter picking all around the area for the past month or so. They’ll be sharing news with us soon.

If you’d like to join in with projects at the Cumberland Piazza or in Hotwells and Cliftonwood generally, or receive monthly local new bulletins, please email admin@hotwellscliftonwood.org.uk