Judging - day 1

Today I was up at an early hour (for me!) and left the house at 7.30 to meet my co-judge in the Ikea car park at 8.15. Then I drove us down to Billingham to judge the town on its entry to Northumbria in Bloom. I remember the place as very boring but with an exciting new feature - the Forum, with a swimming pool and an ice rink! I am talking about the early 1970's. Now it is a thriving town. ICI, which was its raison dêtre, has gone. The memorial to the ICI war dead has been moved alongside the town cenotaph in the Peace Garden. This lies between 2 main roads and is a haven of peace.1
There is a lot of colour about. The roundabouts are very variable - they range from all covered by trees, to one, (with pipes and wires just below the surface), that is covered in gravel with large plantes full of bedding scattered about. Another is covered in the most beautiful annual wild flowers.
There are two wonderful wild-life areas. One has a large fishing lake, a smaller one and several ponds. Between the paths it is left to itself, so between the trees there are brambles, nettles and so on, so that animals, birds and insects have a really natural environment. The other has acres of meadow, which we saw at their best, with orchids and many other meadow flowers showing their colours. There are woodland areas too and a lake and wet lands. Originally it was salt pans - long ago. In one place lime had been tipped, so that led to different types of plants. We would have loved to have spent much longer there, rather than the 20 minutes we were able to give it.
We spent a happy time in an Infant School, where they had had a competition to design a flower bed. Two pictures were chosen and then planted in the grounds. We met the 2 boys and 2 friends - all year 2's - and went to see the beds - in a heavy shower. They were lovely little people who had helped to plant one to the beds. Once their initial shyness had worn off they were full of chatter. Then we went to the associated Junior School, where one young girl's design had won the prize for the best butterfly. This too had been turned into a bed, which we went to see. The wee girl also brought a friend, but was pretty firm, when it came to photo time, in seeing that she was the only in the picture!
During our tour we were given a light finger lunch, overlooking bowling greens and accompanied by 2 teams of lady bowlers, who were unable to play because of the rain.

From there we drove to Spennymoor in County Durham - an old mining village/town. In this case we were entertained by the Town Mayor and the officer responsible for N in B. The atmosphere was quite different because responsibility is shared between them and the Borough Council. There was much less to see but two things stood out. First the Cemetry. As you enter you look down between two herbaceous borders, backed by hedges. Most unusual and they won the best cemetry in the country last year. Although it is very open, with few trees in the main bulk of the buriel area, trees do continue to border the road after the herbaceous borders, to the centre. The man who cares for it is also planning plantings to break up further areas.
The other outstanding area is the Park. They have a wonderful new play area with innovative activities. One amused me in that it was an exciting slide, but only available to anyone who could either climb a mini climbing wall or get up spread footholds, hanging onto a rope. In other words you have to work for the pleasure of going down the slide and little people are prevented from getting into a dangerous situation! The planting in the Park is lovely and the bowling greens are, unusually, not fenced off, so the beautiful grass and plantings round each area can be seen by all.

The great joy of a day like today is the people you meet. They are all so lovely and so proud of their town and so keen for it to do well.