It’s play time!

Today I co-ordinated the media launch of the new Clopton and District Children’s Centre near my home in Stratford. The centre threw open its doors at 10 am and welcomed people with a wide range activities for all the family including a teddy bear hunt, face painting and my favourite strawberries and cream! Both the Stratford Herald and the Stratford Observer attended the launch.

The SureStart Children’s Centre, which is one of the last to open as part of the Government’s plan to provide one for every community, provides children under five with a combination of play opportunities, advice and support. The new centre will be offering a toddler ‘chatter matters’ course, a group for breastfeeding mothers and a breakfast drop-in providing information from the local Citizen’s Advice Bureau, First Steps project and Credit Union.

The Centre is managed by a local charity The Parenting Project who also runs three other Children’s Centres in the area at Studley, Alcester and Stratford.

70th anniversary of the last Blitz attack

Nearly exactly 70 years ago Londoners woke up to the devastation caused by the largest single Blitz raid of the Second World War. It came closer than any other attack to breaking the British spirit but unknown to Londoners at the time the date was also destined to go down in history as marking the end of the Blitz.

The previous night the capital had been subjected to the most destructive raid since the beginning of the Blitz back in September 1940. After it 1400 people lay dead, 1800 seriously injured and over 12,000 people were homeless. The list of buildings damaged or destroyed read like a tourists guide book to London and included the Royal Naval College, Queens Hall, the Law Courts, the Tower of London, Fleet Street, the British Museum, London Underground and the Houses of Parliament.

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Royal honeymoon to be in the ‘Indian Ocean’

The Daily Mail has published an article saying that the Royal honeymoon will be in the ‘Indian Ocean’. It said that Prince William and Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, will go on a 10 day holiday later this month at a secret location costing £4000 a night. The location is one of the most beautiful places in the world and the villa where they will be staying is on an island with pure white beaches, crystal clear turquoise waters and a private butler service. Apparently the Princes security team flew out a couple of weeks ago to check out the villa which has been ‘confirmed and booked’.  If the story is true from the description it is likely to either be the Maldives or the Seychelles.

Sharks in the shallows

A highlight from my latest trip to the Maldives was being able to film a joint attack by black tipped reef sharks and jack fish on a school of bait fish. At this time of year the shallows around the Maldives are home to large schools of bait fish which inhabit the waters just off the beach to escape predators. The top predator on the reef is not the black tipped reef shark but the jack fish who are aggressive hunters and constantly patrol just offshore.  When an opportunity presents itself they swim at high speed at the school of fish and attack them head on with the sharks in tow. In this short clip they have isolated a small ball of bait fish against the groyne and then proceed to eat them. In their desperation to escape some of the bait fish jump clean out of the water. Watch out for the heron who flies in hoping to get in on the action.