Art Ahead

Wow – Feast Week already. We are in for a real treat later this week as the Village Art Exhibition opens in the Church. The village artists have been painstakingly applying their watercolours and pastels over the last year in preparation for this wonderful event.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But an even greater artistic treat lies ahead as two village artists open their studios to the public as a part of the Cambridge Open Studios month. Mike Westbrook and Pauline Bunyan have open studios on the 19th/20th and 26th/27th July. And just down the road – don’t miss Nigel Payne’s open studio in Madingley on 5th/6th and 12th/13th July. If you are not familiar with Cambridge Open Studios you are missing one of the best events of the summer. You can read all about it at www.cambridgeopenstudios.co.uk and visit the studios during the four weekends of July. Look out for the yellow flags

Grafitti On The Bridge

We have been alerted to the fact that the famous Blue Bridge over the A428 between Dry Drayton and Hardwick has been damaged with grafitti. The police are now aware, so would no doubt be interested if anyone sees further damage taking place or recognises any of the art work in the photo below. Unfortunately they probably won’t be interested to know which dog walker leaves the piles of dog excrement on the bridge, which, combined wiith the grafitti, start to make this one of the less attractive wonders of Dry Drayton.

Downs and Ups on the Village Website

After receiving reports of what appeared to be spurious material on the village website, it was found that hackers had destroyed the databases holding information on events in the village and the village voice. All the event information has now been re-keyed into a static page on the site, making updates by those other than the webmaster no longer possible. The village voice has not been replaced. However, we welcome your comments and suggestions and any content for the web site via this blog.

The Village Plan

There was a point last week where I didn’t think I’d be writing another entry to this blog. In fact the way that a dark blue Seat overtook four cars coming towards Dry Drayton along the Madingley Road on a completely blind bend may have left more than one of us unable to do anything at all! This road is potentially lethal as you cannot see round the bends through the hedgerows and as it still attracts large vehicles and idiot fast drivers who overtake on bends. The only safe thing to do is to keep your own speed down and be prepared for the unexpected on every bend.

Anyway – enough moaning – on to the two exciting developments in the village this week. First the grass has been cut again at long last. But of far more significance is the arrival with our June Newsletter of the first draft of the Dry Drayton Village Plan, prepared by Neil Harris, Nick Irish and Roger Swain. There are some interesting and no doubt controversial proposals contained therein – especially on allowing the village to grow by 50%, encroaching on the hallowed greenbelt, and introducing a range of attractive new ideas which will no doubt lead to an increase in the Parish precept. There is much to commend the draft plan, which will no doubt lead to a greener and more interesting Dry Drayton. The writers are seeking our views from now until 1st September – you can contribute to the debate by giving feedback on this item or contacting the writers – their e-mails are in the draft document – if you need another copy of the document, it can be downloaded from www.drydrayton.net

Before the cut..