If I loved Stanford before this weekend, I don’t have the words to describe how I feel about it now.
I had never been down the river. I’ve sat and stared at the reflections in it. I’ve swam in it. I’ve thrown the ball into it for the Scrapster and Doodlebug, my two delinquent Jack Russells. I’ve even created a rather amateurish artwork next to it. But I’d never taken a boat ride down the Klein Rivier.
Until Saturday. I hadn’t yet stumbled out of the Stanford Arms on Friday night (or was it Saturday morning?) when the SMS came though: “Weather permitting, see you on the river bank at bottom of King St at 10.30am. Cheers, Tim.”
Tim Hague. Photographer. Boat-builder. Chairman of Rotary Stanford. Top-notch bloke. And builder of a very nifty motorboat called “Three Summers” (it took him three summers in London to build it).
So we go for a ride on the river. And this how it looked…
We're off... and I've got no problem with the way things are going...
... and the view up front didn't look too untidy either...
Swing your gaze to the right, Hatpeople, and you'll see those holes in the rocks? Natural beehives. Serious. And people come to collect honey from them. How cool is that, hey?
I must interrupt this hi-tech slideshow to ask how we are all getting on here? Enjoying the ride? I thought so. What, you’re thirsty? Hang on, I’ll get the beers out of the cooler box. Whoop, don’t touch this! Just kidding. Here you go. Hold on, we’re about to hit the blue lagoon. If you’re lucky, you might spot Brooke Shields pretending to build a grass hut on the beach while not pretending to be buck-naked. OK. Whooosh!
Ah, that'll be the two original Marlboro men straining their eyes for a glimpse of Broo... I mean the lagoon...
And there she is! Brooke building her holiday home without municipal approval on the beach near Hermanus. What?! What do you mean you dropped your binocs in the river? All pix: Hatman
Fine. I think that all went rather well. I’m glad you enjoyed the ride as much as I did. The countryside, people. Not much wrong with it. You’ll be back behind your desks in the big, bad city this morning. It doesn’t have to be like that, you know. Make the change. And when you do, let me know and I’ll see if I can arrange a cosy little cabin on the lagoon for you.
* A wobbly-legged doff of the old hat to Tim Hague for making this all possible. Nice one, skipper!
Never mind. Make a cuppa (or something stronger, I won’t judge you), get comfy in the old recliner, take a deep breath and ease yourself into this spirits-lifting video…
I hope that you feel better now. You do, don’t you? Yes. That was quite beautiful. Glad I was able to becalm your soul.
Mind you, I could blow smoke rings at the age of 12. And dolphins are far more intelligent than me. So why are we so amazed that they can blow bubbles like that?
* Dear Hatpeople, if you look up to your right on this page, you’ll see a great big fat badge saying something about the 2010 South African Blog Awards. I’ve only been around for a year so it may be a tad cheeky of me but I’ve entered your “diagnosed SA-positive” blog into three categories: Best New Blog, Best Personal Blog and The Kulula Best Travel Blog (well, I think I’ve been parping the vuvuzela big-time for people to travel to our Beloved Country!). I wouldn’t be at all offended if those of you who quite dig reading my stuff clicked on that there badge and nominated http://www.fredhatman.co.za in any one of those three categories. In fact, were I to amaze all of us by winning something, the Birkenhead is on me down the Stanford Arms! Cheers!
The Swinging Sixties might have swung like an army of chimps on speed elsewhere in the world but, here in South Africa, life under apartheid was about as titillating as being stuck in a lift (elevator) with Margaret Thatcher.
“In the 1960s it was ILLEGAL for sunbathers of the opposite sex at municipal swimming baths to be closer than a specified distance from each other. To ensure that this legislation was enforced, an official on duty carried a ruler to assist him with his inspection. Any two persons not adhering to the specified distance were charged accordingly.”
I defy any of the boys down at the pool to keep 11 feet 6 inches away from Genevieve Morton on a hot day
I always wondered why, after asking my Dad if I could get a Schweppes Creme Soda from the pool tuckshop, I then had to walk 11 feet 6 inches over to my Mom to grab the money from her.
Now it all makes perfect sense. Doesn’t it?
* A red hat tip to the boys over at the Socialyz blog for lending me that lekker pic of Gen. Which I think they nicked from Seth.
* Dear Hatpeople, if you look up to your right on this page, you’ll see a great big fat badge saying something about the 2010 South African Blog Awards. I’ve only been around for a year so it may be a tad cheeky of me but I’ve entered your “diagnosed SA-positive” blog into three categories: Best New Blog, Best Personal Blog and The Kulula Best Travel Blog (well, I think I’ve been parping the vuvuzela big-time for people to travel to our Beloved Country!). I wouldn’t be at all offended if those of you who quite dig reading my stuff clicked on that there badge and nominated http://www.fredhatman.co.za in any one of those three categories. In fact, were I to amaze all of us by winning something, the Birkenhead is on me down the Stanford Arms! Cheers!
So you think that living in the country is easy? That all we do is plough a few furrows before parking the Massey Ferguson under a tree, haul out the old Blackberry and get on to Facebook to sow our oats in Farmville?
Well, yes, that’s exactly what most of us do. That’s how we roll out here in Stanford. But not every day. Take Wednesdays. I have to come over all corporate on Humpday. And what a hump. I can barely get my tractor over it.
I had two meetings today. Two. This entails me getting out of my Barney pyjamas at 2pm, washing my hair front and back of my bald Karoo (sounds better than Sahara) and going down the pub. That’s where we have our “informal tourism group” meetings. Informal being the operative word. No tie required. I was going to say “No Jacket Required” but that’s the name of an album by my least favourite musician of all time.
Not entirely the vibe we have going at our Stanford informal tourism group meetings
The cool thing about meetings at the pub (Stanford only does “meetings” in the pub) is that a certain amount of alcohol is required before any ideas remotely worthy of discussion are issued forth. And, boy, do we have ideas. Let’s just say that you are going to be gagging to get over to Stanford soon enough.
Moving swiftly alo… what? You want minutes? We don’t take minutes. We take hours. And you’ll have to ask the ridiculously effervescent and clever Janet Marshall of Stanford Info for the attendance register. I’m not saying who was there in case they were actually meant to be doing some work. We’re protective of each other out here in the wilderness. Reminds me of a saying I came up with a couple of months back… “One for all and all for one”. I should have patented that. It encapsulates our vibe.
So it was home to feed the dogs and the cat and neck a couple of Milk Thistles before rushing back (I was thirsty) to the Stanford Arms for the Rotary weekly meeting. This was even more exciting than usual because four young people from Knoxville, Tennessee (I love how that sounds) were there.
Now I might be breaking new territory here but I fully believe that “kids” today are nicer, better-looking and more intelligent than when I was their age. And more responsible. It’s like they looked at my generation, thought about it for two seconds, held a global conference and unanimously passed a motion to be far cooler than we were.
Erin, Stephanie, Connor and Sam are seriously nice kids. Not only have they been busy helping out with upliftment projects around Stanford but then they come to our meeting and tell us how wonderful our country is, how warm and friendly South Africans are and generally how blown away they have been by their African experience. We liked that.
I mean, we South Africans got a lot of that during our beautiful World Cup, right? But keep it coming is what I say! And now The Knoxville Four are going home to try to raise funds to improve conditions for the disadvantaged people in our area. Like I said, seriously cool kids.
Now I must iron my Barney jim-jams and bomb into bed. It’s been a tough Humpday in the corporate world. And I need to be ploughing my fields in Farmville before midday tomorrow. Yee-ha.
Did you know that Stanford, my adopted village which luxuriates lasciviously in a fold within the Klein River mountains in the Western Cape, is a cultural hotspot? No, you didn’t, did you? I thought as much. Report to my desk after class – you haven’t done your homework.
So, then you wouldn’t know that Stanford, South Africa, is twinned with New York (US of A) and London (England). Well, I’ll let you off for that one because it isn’t. Not yet. I will be having a word with the mayors of NYC and London about this. Stanford, a miniscule if perfectly formed village, doesn’t want to be twinned with the whole cities of London and New York, just the bits with which we share something in common. Like the West End and South Bank in London and Broadway, off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway in New Yoik.
Cultural twinning, you see. Because we’re a cultured lot here. You only have to witness the hilarious pantomime at the Stanford Arms after midnight on any Friday to begin to absorb that.
Welcome to the first in my weekly series of “The Stanfordians”, interviews with interesting people with whom I share the spectacularly beautiful Western Cape village of Stanford. This is a special place with special people. You may have already read me banging on here about the unique vibe of Stanford. If you have, you will know that I love living here. Well, I love it so much that I will be writing the occasional blogpost about what goes down – and you’d be amazed – in the third best-preserved Victorian village in the Western Cape.
OK. So you want to know which are the first two? Perfectly understandable. They are, apparently, Montagu and Greyton. They must be phenomenal. I haven’t visited either. I find it disconcerting to leave Stanford, even to Hermanus just 23km away, so magnetised am I by its unsurpassed beauty. I kid you not. It’s even better than that. As you’ll find out.
Anyway, here’s the first Stanfordian to answer my questions, “The Big Five” as I call them. Ready? Let’s go… wait, not before we’ve clapped eyes on the lovely Natalie Snyman, co-owner of Stanford Village Properties (one of the new advertisers on this blog – yes, that’s how it rolls in the commercial world, folks!)…
Natalie Snyman: a gentle soul whose smile enchants our village of Stanford Pic: Hatman
FH:Hi Nat, sorry if I’ve embarrassed you with my hyperbole above! Please give us a little personal background. Where were you born, schooled, shaped as a human being and when and how did you first discover Stanford?
NS: I lived in Tamboerskloof in Cape Town for many years and was a born-and-bred city girl but with a hankering for the country. Mariana and Peter (owners of the nationally renowned Mariana’s restaurant) were my neighbours in the city before they decided to move to Stanford. I was one of their first visitors after they settled here. That must have been in about 1984? I remember that there was the general dealer, NG Church and the river… I fell in love with Stanford and the lifestyle there and then. My children were eight and two years old and they loved it and still do. It was not as easy to relocate to country living in those days. In fact, country living only really became possible / fashionable about 10 years ago.
FH:You are in the property estate agency business. How did you start doing this in Stanford? And tell us why people, and especially foreigners, choose Stanford as the place to call home (holiday home)?
NS: Well, I brought two friends to Stanford on a Sunday afternoon in 2003. They were wanting to purchase a plot somewhere in the Overberg and had been driving around the greater Hermanus area since the Friday afternoon. Come Sunday morning, they thought that they would have a quick look at Stanford. I jumped in with them and we arrived in the village at about 12 o clock. We drove around for a bit and spotted a little Private Sale board. Well, after making an appointment with the owner who was relaxing at a friend`s house and drove back especially to open up for us, we traipsed in and I just fell in love… It was the first and only house that I looked at (an agents’ dream client). I was a weekender for two years and then (just as impulsively as my purchase) decided that this was where I was going to live permanently. I went to night classes at the Estate Agents Board, passed my exams and joined Homenet in Stanford. My business partner (Marianne) and I decided to open Stanford Village Properties at the end of 2008 …during the worst property recession! Stupid, clever or just crazy? Anyway, I like to think its women’s intuition. We have a very successful business and look forward to many more sales! I eventually convinced Kevin (Nat’s husband) to settle here as well and we have a fabulous lifestyle. I often think back to the days when we would buy the Country Life magazine and dream of this lifestyle. How privileged we are! I believe that Stanford chooses its people, local or foreigner. It is a “feeling“ that you get when you first arrive in Stanford.
FH: What can people expect when they approach Stanford Village Properties with a view to selling or buying a home in Stanford?
NS: I think our passion for the village shows straight away. We also have a more “organic“ personal way of dealing with our clients. Buying or selling is such an emotionally daunting experience and we try to ease that uncertainty for our clients.
FH:What is your personal experience of Stanford, Nat? What does it mean to you, what about our village gives you the most enjoyment and is there anything you miss about not living in a big city?
NS: What I love most is the fact that you can make such a difference here. I mean with any charitable work! You can immediately see the results and it’s very rewarding . I don’t miss much about the city, maybe the movies.. but it is only a two-hour drive if you really need to go to Cape Town. Most enjoyment? There are so many… walking on The Plaat (Stanford’s local beach) on a Sunday morning, chatting to all the locals at our lovely Sunset Market, drinks at the pub on a Friday and mostly seeing a satisfied client settle in happily !
FH: In your opinion, what gives our village its special vibe? And how would you describe it to, say, a Capetonian friend who had never been here?
NS: Hmmm, the special vibe is the melting pot of people who live here now. Nice mix of age, language groups and a few nice “oddies”.
FH: Nice answers, Nat. Thank you for your time. I know I speak for all of Stanford when I say that I hope we see your smile around our glorious village for a long time to come! Natalie can be contacted atStanford Village Properties.
Not all of you are totally as one with what football and the World Cup is all about. For those who could be accurately described as soccer ignoramuses to get the most out of their World Cup viewing, here is some sort of non-essential 10-point guide to what they call The Beautiful Game…
1. “Soccer” is really football. Well, this is what it is called in Britain, where the game originated, but that confused the Americans because they already had American football (grid-iron, that game they play while wearing spacesuits). So they renamed it “sarker” (ie soccer, which is an abbreviation of “Association Football”, the official British name given to distinguish football from Rugby Football which, as everyone at the Stanford Arms on a Saturday evening knows, is rugby, or “ruckby” in Afrikaans). It’s fine if you are confused… because we all are!
2. There is a saying, attributed to “a certain Chancellor of Cambridge University” and quoted in the Times of London on January 30, 1953, which goes… “Football (soccer) is a gentleman’s game played by hooligans, rugby is a hooligan’s game played by gentlemen”. This appears to be generally true although it perhaps should now be updated to “Football (soccer) is a gentleman’s game played by hooligans, rugby is a hooligan’s game played by gentlemen, apart from Bakkies Botha”. Rugby fans could also be forgiven for changing this to “Soccer is a wussy game played by sissies” due to the over-the-top rolling around in “extreme agony” executed by soccer players when they recognise the opportunity to get an opponent cautioned (yellow carded) or even sent off (red carded) after any decent tackle which is unlikely to even result in the tackled player receiving the slightest bruise.
Oh, dear. When soccer players aren't rolling around like big girls blouses trying to get opponents sent off, they celebrate goals like this. Not ideal.
3. OK. Time for some other basic rules. Football used to be played between two teams each consisting of 11 on-field players, a couple of substitutes (who replaced an on-field player if he died) and a manager who would do all the coaching of the players. It is now played by two teams consisting of 11 on-field players, at least five substitutes (who come on to replace a player if he is bleeding in any way or if he has picked up a bruise or if he is feeling tired and feels like a sip of Energade or if his hairstyle has been spoilt or if time needs to be wasted towards the end of the 90 minutes to ensure a draw or a win), a manager, several coaches (goalkeeping, defensive, attacking and general method acting), a psychotherapist, a specialist dietician and a small army of hairdressers. Plus a whole bunch of other hangers-on who I’m not going to bother telling you about.
4. Right. Now the whole point of a game is for one of the 10 out-field players (the goalkeeper, who wears a different colour jersey, generally stays in the goals to try to stop the other team from scoring) to whack the ball using any part of his body apart from his hands into the opposing team’s goal. This is called a goal. And you need to score more of them than the other team to win. If both teams score the same number of goals (eg. 1-1, 2-2 etc) after the “normal period” of 90 minutes, then the match, if is part of a knock-out competition such as the World Cup (apart from the group games), goes to extra-time (two halves of 15 minutes) and if, after that, it is still a draw, a penalty shoot-out ensues. This is a reasonably modern addition to the game to stop a replay having to take place and to indulge the modern fan’s predilection for instant gratification.
5. Fine. Still with me? Good! OK. Player formations. This was very simple back in the day. There was the goalkeeper (who wore No 1 on his back), two full-backs (No’s 2 and 3), a centre-back (No 5), two wing-halves (No’s 4 & 6) and, up front, there was a right-wing (7), inside-right (8), centre-forward (9), inside-left (10) and left-wing (11). Nice and simple, hey? Today, of course, we need it to be more complicated. The goalkeeper has stayed the same and generally wears No 1 on his back but coaches like to, depending on whether the team is playing at home or away and who they are playing against, use a variety of formations: 4-4-2 (four defenders, four midfielders and two strikers), 4-3-3, 5-3-2 or, in the case of Inter Milan’s semi-final second leg against Barcelona in this year’s Champions League (in which they were defending a 3-1 lead away from home) 9-0-1 (nine defenders and one very bored striker). With the amount of money at stake these days, it’s win at all costs, bru. Or get sacked.
6. Talking of money, which we know makes our greedy world go round and certainly makes the very professional round-ball game go round and round, we now get to the really important facts. Top-level players in the English Premier League get paid between 50 and 150 thousand pounds sterling a week. By their clubs. For playing football. Yes. That averages out at about R1.4 million a week. Can you imagine being 25, being of below average intelligence and coining it like that? That’s why many pro footballers get into trouble. After they’ve bought the mansion, the Aston Martin, the Lamborghini and the gold-plated Playstation, they often start spending the rest on naughty things, get caught out by a tabloid newspaper, have to explain their behaviour to their girlfriends and mummies and become even more famous. And then they carry on playing football, become even more famous and get paid more money. Nice work if you can get it, hey?
Victoria Beckham: Well ropey. With a WAG like this, a footballer could be excused for playing away. Or sticking to kissing his team-mates.
7. Because these players earn so much dosh for doing so little and become so famous, they usually only date topless models and then marry fully clothed models and dodgy pop singers. Yes, like Victoria Beckham (formerly Posh Spice). Even if you know nothing about football, you will know about this phenomenon. WAGs (or Wives And Girlfriends). Then famous footballer and famous wife “endorse” all sorts of washing-up products, shampoos and budgie cages and become even more wealthy and famous. And this is because many among us like to watch Gossip TV, read OK! Magazine and believe all the dross put out by agents and ad agencies who live similar lifestyles. I’m not at all jealous. No, really. But I digress… back to football.
8. By the time you read this, there will be less than two weeks to go before the World Cup opening ceremony at our magnificent Soccer City Stadium in Jo’burg. It’s a great shame that it is not called Nelson Mandela Stadium instead of being made to sound like a giant shopping mall selling only footballs. But there’s nothing you and I can do about that. What we can do is choose to embrace the 2010 World Cup being held in our beautiful country or not. It’s up to you. Unless you live here in Stanford, our tranquil oasis, and don’t buy newspapers or switch on the TV for a month. In which case life will continue pretty much as normal. But I urge you to take an interest in the most wonderful thing to ever happen to us. Buy a Bafana Bafana jersey (make sure it’s not a fake), blow a vuvuzela (but not after 10pm at night and certainly nowhere near the Arts Cafe where you’ll only upset the cappucino crowd) and at least attend the local soccer tournament being held on the village green on June 11. It’s going to be a lekker jol.
9. There will be 32 nations represented at this World Cup. They include Brazil, Italy, Germany and Argentina (who take turns to win it) and countries such as Honduras (somewhere in South America), Slovenia (which used to be part of another country and is somewhere in the Balkans) and the USA (which used to be restricted to North America but now seems to be everywhere). The 32 squads are split into eight groups of four. The top two teams in each group after the group games go through to the last 16 and start the knock-out phase until two teams are left to contest the final on July 11. I exhort you to be patriotic and support Bafana Bafana (which translates into “The Boys” in English) but you’d be delusional to expect them to make the final. But we live in hope. And we South Africans are better at living in hope than winning really important international soccer matches. So you never know.
10. OK. Please focus. This is the most important thing about the World Cup. I’m really sorry about all those locals who got really excited and turned their homes into guesthouses for one month of football in the hope of making a quick buck and becoming as rich as Wayne Rooney. It was never going to happen. And it won’t. Football fans the world over are generally working-class and won’t spend much on anything other than alcohol, take-aways and riotous visits to various brothels. They’d rather sleep on a park bench and have more cash to spend on beer the next day. No, the “Big Win” for South Africa will come in a couple of years’ time when those billions of wealthier people all over the planet, after watching South Africa show off it’s natural splendour and human warmth during the World Cup, might decide to take their holidays here. And bring aircraft carrier-loads of dosh to throw at game parks, hotels, wine estates, restaurants and fancy shops. So the real spin-offs will be felt in years to come. So much to look forward to. Be patient. Just as well we South Africans are good at doing that too, hey?
*This article was originally commissioned by Stanford River Talk, the excellent community newspaper for the ridiculously beautiful village of Stanford in the Western Cape, and appears in its June issue
We all have them. Places where we feel at peace with ourselves. Where we feel immediately at home.
This is how I feel about Stanford. And this how I felt when I first came to Stanford in March, 2008. Instantly at home. At one with the place, the people, the homes, the dogs, the whole beautiful vibe. Just like that.
But, in 2008, I had newspaper work beckoning me in Cape Town and I answered the call, leaving my dogs to revel in Stanfordian bliss in the loving, nurturing hands of dear friend Janika Dorland.
Before the year was out, however, I found myself on a work exchange at a Buddhist Retreat, Bodhi Khaya, near Stanford and the magnetism of this charming market village was again irresistible.
A scene of Stanfordian bliss... come Earth Hour this village green will be plunged into darkness, pinpricks of light illuminating happy, shiny faces
The warmth and easy friendliness of the locals in this village that time has almost forgotten made it easy for me to fit in and now I find myself once again nestling in Stanford’s roomy bosom.
I needed to forge new leads for freelance writing work in Cape Town and I have chosen to do that at a distance. The exact distance between the bustling, stimulating cultural metropolis that is Cape Town and the Western Cape’s largely undiscovered gem, just a relaxed two-hour drive away past Hermanus.
A local has gone on record as saying that “you don’t choose Stanford, Stanford chooses you”. Well, I must have done something to please the spiritual powers-that-be. I say that because, although I am not given to undue flakiness, this blessed village is certainly presided over by a celestial committee of kindred – and overwhelmingly kindly – spirits. In the physical world, it appears to run itself, nudged gently along by the nurturing minds of good folk who were chosen by Stanford’s guiding spirits to protect their legacy.
They (some locals) say that Stanford sits squarely on no fewer than seven ley lines. I must say that nobody has been able (yet) to give me exact GPS co-ordinates for them. But I can tell you that there have been times, golden moments, when I sense that I am tightly embraced by all of them.
This may be when I am walking the “wandelpad” along the edge of the beguiling Klein River, it may come as I stand on the village green (the last remaining one in South Africa) and stare at the blue-purple-green-grey Klein River mountains which semi-circle the village, while I savour a fine cappuccino on the stoep of the Arts Cafe, devour fine food on the vine-smothered verandah of Madre’s Kitchen or even as I sup a pint of locally-brewed Birkenhead ale at The Stanford Arms.
Landlord Jannie Boonzaier checks to ensure that the green light - the only traffic light in the village - is on, signalling that The Stanford Arms is open for boozeness
But, in trying to describe the specialness, the thoroughly unique vibe of Stanford, I know that I fail to do it justice. You simply have to be here, to experience it for yourself. To see whether you are lucky enough to be “chosen” by Stanford. Or temporarily entertained by its charms and then spat out, back from whence you came.
Stanford isn’t for everybody and you would be wrong to perceive any elitism in this. Many have come, been seduced by its allure… and then dumped by this ageless and graceful beauty after whom everybody lusts to have an affair.
The Stanford Galleries' Arts Cafe - the fulcrum of the village - is the best place for a coffee... and to start musing how to begin your passionate affair with the grand and elegant old lady in whose bosom you now sit
Many may find tranquil, becalming Stanford simply too small and sleepy for their tastes. And, indeed, it does appear that the village has fallen aslumber under the compelling spell of its rare natural beauty, if not the magical ley lines.
But, it falls to me to happily report, there are bright young minds working now and anew to change all of that. I have been fortunate to attend a couple of meetings in the two weeks I have been here and the torrent of ideas to pull together all of the glittering strands of Stanford’s charms and put it firmly on South Africa’s tourism must-see map is in full flood.
It is too early to divulge the plans to breathe new life into our old lady but, believe me, there will be compelling reason for people, especially those with children, to veer off their beaten track – if only for a weekend.
Stanford is stirring. Stanford is coming alive. And it starts with its annual celebration of Earth Hour on the Village Square on March 27. The village’s hour-long plunge into darkness on behalf of the environment has, in the past, been low-key, attended by locals and a few curious out-of-towners.
A highly committed woman by the name of Nadia Pheiffer has changed all of that. She and her helpers have called on some fine musicians to create a jazzy vibe around Earth Hour this year. Before they even grace the stages of the world-renowned Cape Town Jazz Festival, the likes of Geln Robertson, Chad Zerf, Piano Ben, saxophonist Les Witz and Johan Dowries will fill the dark night with their jazzy tunes. They will end the festivities with a free jazz jam session.
Much earlier, from 3pm, the High Street will be closed to traffic, allowing the traditional Sunset Market to get into full swing with Stanfords’ antiques shops and trading stores spilling their wares out into the street.
From 6pm onwards the Earth Hour picnickers will converge on the Village Green, eating and making merry until the church bells signal the onset of the hour during which a black darkness and a respectful hush will fall on the village.
I could go on. But I won’t. How much more do you want? Yes. That’s right. You’re sold, aren’t you? You should be. Earth Hour is a phenomenal opportunity for you to do your bit for our fragile environment. And allow Stanford the opportunity to choose you. Well. What are you waiting for?
