St John the Baptist Church Garsdale has sustained its small flock or congregation over many years alongside the chapels in Garsdale, providing a large venue for weddings, baptisms, funerals, concerts and other special events in addition to its weekly services. Now, like other buildings of similar age, it needs structural repairs, which will maintain the building in good order for many years to come, and prevent the rapid deterioration in internal décor which has blighted the building for so long.
  The church needs its roof removing and underfelting in order to prevent further repeated ceiling collapse. The walls will then need the rapidly deteriorating plaster removing and replacing with lime plaster
and permeable paint.
  The first (roof) phase of work will cost in the region of £40,000. To say that the congregation are feeling outfaced would be a huge understatement. The churchwardens are exploring the possibilities of grant aid but the current "financial climate" in terms of funding for church projects like ours is not good.
  The folk of Garsdale have always helped and supported St Johns' fundraisings with generous goodwill, and as fundraising efforts step up, hopefully many will become involved. We hope that the wider communities in the Sedbergh area will also support the fundraising events. If you would like to help or if you have a good fundraising idea, please tell me about it.
  We're starting on September 30^th 10am with a "sheep rustle": a sponsored walk by a motley flock of (folk dressed up as) sheep from the top to the bottom of the old parish - Garsdale Station to Longstone Fell car park. Will you sponsor a walker? If anyone would like to take part, you will be very welcome. Please phone Bill for a sponsor form.    Bill Mawdsley (Churchwarden)

  Sedbergh Auction Mart:  As I write this it is being widely reported that Sedbergh Auction Mart site has been sold for £1.5M - no doubt more will become known in due course.  Many of you will remember the public meeting which I chaired at the auction mart in early May.  We were delighted with the expressions of support we received that evening.  As a result, I and a group of other farmers made a formal bid for the site of £550k.  Obviously we are disappointed that our bid was not accepted.  After a detailed analysis we came to the view that this bid represented an accurate and realistic valuation of the site with its present planning use.
  It would be invidious to list everyone who helped us put our bid together but it would also be quite wrong not to mention John Handley who has given excellent leadership to the farming group.  We have had help from the highest levels within the agricultural industry and that enabled us to put together a fully costed business plan.
  Looking forwards rather than backwards, we will not know what plans there are for the site until we know who has bought it.  The Yorkshire Dales Local Plan, which was drafted when I was chairman of the Planning Committee would not support open market housing or local housing on the site.  The only way housing could be put there would be if South Lakeland District and / or the Housing Corporation were to provide funding for affordable housing.  The Conservative group on SLDC is opposed to this on this site and has a motion to that effect on the next agenda of Full Council.  I would be astonished if anyone would oppose it.  The Conservative group remains committed to the continuation of Sedbergh Auction Mart on the present site as the preferred option.
  Meanwhile as farmers, we are actively examining other locations to run an auction mart or collection centre and might well be putting in plans very shortly on one particular site.  However, make no mistake: we would have preferred to have continued on the existing site.  Individually and as a group, we are likely to oppose a change of use on the present site.
  Joss Lane Car Park:  At last SLDC has agreed to grant a lease of Joss Lane Car Park to Sedbergh Parish Council.  This is the culmination of several years extremely hard work for myself and former councillor Paul Winn.  While we would have liked to have continued with free parking for locals that was never an option.  You will see elsewhere in this Lookaround that Car Park stickers are going on sale from 1st September at £35 and £52 depending upon intended usage.  Please make use of this scheme as the Parish needs the money from these stickers to make the venture pay.  I know the tickets sound a lot compared with what we have had in the past, especially if like us at Fellgate, you have two vehicles, but as a community we all need this scheme to work.  The alternative if it doesn't work is no local stickers and a bill for £270 for an SLDC Pass for every vehicle.
  Loftus Hill Car Park:  The lease on Loftus Hill Car Park expires at the end of 2006 and SLDC will not renew it.  This was another reason why the Parish decided to take over the running of Joss Lane Car Park.  As most of you will know this is owned by Sedbergh School, in fact it was part of the original grant of lands to the school in 1525 under the name of Schoolhouse Garth.  Steve Longlands, Dorothy Blair, Hillary Hodge and I have attended a meeting with the new Bursar to discuss details of the Parish taking over this car park.  If this happens it is our intention to run the same regime on Loftus Hill as we will on Joss Lane.  That will require a new ticket machine.
  Centenary of Queen's Gardens:  Please come along on September 3rd.  It is a hundred years since Florence Anne Upton-Cottrell-Dormer gave the gardens to the community.  If you haven't been in the gardens for a while please go down and have a look.  Lets just hope we have a good day with some decent late summer sunshine.
  Yorkshire Dales:  At the Annual Meeting, Carl Lis was re-appointed and Chairman and Jerry Pearlman as Deputy Chairman.  In a new venture in "governance" the park appointed a group of member champions.  I am now "Corporate and Democratic Core Member Champion".  This area includes the financing and performance management of the park.  In many ways it continues the work I have done last year and this year concerning performance assessment within this and other national parks.  We are the first park to go down this route although I don't think it will be long before others follow.
  Closure of Access Land:  During the very hot weather there was a week or ten days when the Howgills and Baugh Fell were closed for public access because of fire risk.  I guess the risk would have been somewhat greater on the Howgills than on Baugh Fell.  I know some people were unhappy about this but the threat of burning was very real.  You will have seen the incidents in the Peak District and in Spain on the television news.  I know it's a pain, but we don't want that sort of thing up here. KL

  What a scorcher, it was the hottest July on record in some regions. It was certainly reminiscent of 1976. I recorded 14 days when the maximum reached the 80sF with a highest of 83.5F. The minimum temperature was 52.3F. We did have a couple of days at the start of the second week when the maximum was only in the low 60sF. There were 5 days when the minimum was actually as I took the readings about midnight. The minimum was 61.2F.  On the 19^th the temperature was 72.0F at this time of day!! Not a comfortable night for sleeping so they say but I hadn't noticed! During the day, in full sun, temperatures between 115F and 120F were logged. Wind speeds were typical for the month except that on 13 days it wasn't blowing from its usual north westerly direction. An easterly of 42 mph was the maximum recorded on the coolest day. Rainfall was a mere 1.97 inches. Not typical for a normal July but it made hay timing
feasible.
  How have the wildlife faired? Well for the first time in 4 years we have had some baby blackbirds. In fact 2 clutches but only 2 fledged in the second. I wonder if this reflects the dry weather making it difficult for the parents to find food as the worms would have retreated from the surface. We have a second clutch of swallows in the kennels. House sparrows have had a bumper breeding season, it seems, as it is not uncommon to see 30 or 40 feeding on the drive. They have emptied the bird feeder by lunchtime then they go and clean up in my pheasant pens so I lose both ways.  We are over run with rabbits at present and no signs of myxomatosis reducing the numbers. There is quite a bit of badger activity at present with me following them around with a camera. Butterflies are scarce as yet but the buddleia is coming into flower so let's hope we see some shortly.

  "Health warning Slovenian hospitality can severely affect your waistline!" says Emma Aylett, one of the 8 singers and instrumentalists who came with us for our tour of Slovenia over the first week in August.
  "I knew that I had eaten one too many dumplings, I had lost count at eight, but I just couldn't resist another. Looking back, I think that they created a protective layer, which usefully soaked up the copious amounts of wine we drank at the Vineyard (where we went to sing with our friends the Ljudski Pevci iz Stranice.) So now, while I should be concentrating on work, I find myself thinking wistfully of Slovenian dumplings, and the tomatoes that actually had a tomatoey flavour, the cottage cheese, that fantastic chantrelle mushroom omelette at breakfast and the wine that tasted of nectar. Really, though, I'm missing the amazing generous spirit of the people that fed us so well."
  We stayed at Medved in Skomarje where Joze still talks fondly about the time the Cautley Carollers stayed and sang in his guest house. This beautiful mountain village looks down on the clouds in the valley - and sometimes the rain on the towns below - and houses the wonderful Skomarje singers who came to Joze's house for a choir practice. They afterwards joined us for a ceilidh where we all sang in both Slovene and English, and with some help from the fiddle, banjo and keyboard, joined in folk dances from both our countries.
  Other highlights included a concert at the Bled Ethnomusic festival after rowing out to the island, making a wish while ringing the bell and "power walking" round the lake - "never knowingly overtaken" as Emma Watton says; Our concert in the mountain-top hotel at Rogla, where we drew on the liguistic skills of our company to provide songs and introductions for our international audience in Slovene, Croation, French, German, Georgian and English - delighting an elderly professor who came with Igor Cvetko from Ljubljana who said that in 76 years he had never heard English people singing and speaking in Slovene; Our singing in the mass (and after) in a hilltop church near Zrece after following the procession of the Virgin Mary from under the Lipa tree; And a party we went to afterwards where we had to dance and sing through another party to get to it. Photo below
  It was a wonderful tour, a programme of events kindly arranged by Zdenka, tailor-made for people who like nothing more than joining together with like-minded people over good food and drink to make music together - the truly international language.
  Emma again: "There were many moments during our trip to Slovenia which were really life affirming - a reminder of what life should be about. Such as sitting around a table with Slovenians separated by language but united by songs and smiles; Joze's beautiful granddaughter singing the Wild Rover; the look of happiness on Slovenian faces when David introduced us in Slovene; the moments when the eight of us singing our hearts out created something quite beautiful; being engulfed by a party and treated as if we were old friends, and the tears in the eyes of Slovenian singers as they sang songs I didn't understand. It was a fantastic experience and a wonderful reminder about why singing together has always been, and hopefully will remain, such an important and beautiful thing for people to do."
  We'll be meeting many of our friends from Zrece again when 30 of their singers visit us for the Folk Carols Festival in December. And we'll be boosting our repertoire of English folk songs with a workshop over the first weekend in September. As ever, everyone is welcome to join us - I look forward to singing with you soon.

David Burbidge,  Farfield, Sedbergh 21166,  www.lakelandvoice.co.uk