onionbagblog

To @15QueenStreet! …early on a Thursday evening to celebrate the first birthday party of @ColchCircleMag. They certainly know how to party hard, these Sunny Colch types. No surprises that the 11:07 was the carriage awaiting the return of @AnnaJCowen and I back to Wivenhoe.

Twelve months ago and it was the very same location where @ColchCircleMag chose to launch, explaining to an appreciative crowd @15QueenStreet what the plans were for the publication.

Many of the same faces were present one year on, as well as a healthy mix of advertisers and local business support. Those bills don’t get paid on a love of art itself, dontchaknow.

With the formalities of a thank you and a looking ahead speech, I was then left to fondle around in the corner of the boardroom @15QueenStreet with a six foot paper mâché chap who was extremely gifted in the trouser snake department.

Cripes.

It turns out that the totem pole todger is something to do with The Big Draw, another in the many expanding creative events that is coming out of *shhh* the Cultural Quarter in this part of town.

Keeping it with all things artistic and it was very much a mixed multimedia evening, as I’m sure our friends @firstsite across the back garden would have it. Which basically means I mixed my booze and continued my fraudulent behaviour of pretending to understand all about art.

The good folk from @FilmColchester were there capturing the evening, with an array of equipment that was competing with the totem pole todger for creativity and adaptability.

Wivenhoe local @samking13245 seems to be ever present around Sunny Colch of late, using his considerable filmmaking skills to carry out the very important task of capturing snapshots of social history. A bloke with a bottle of Budd may not be epoch forming, but it is most certainly social, Comrades.

It was good to finally, finally catch up with the Gingerbread Lady, aka @gingerbreadmaid, or even Emily to her friends. Lady Ginger is another Wivenhoe local who has just moved back to the town after a decade away doing the London thing.

It’s not where yer from, it’s where yer at, etc…

Anyway, having cornered the Gingerbread Lady - and nowhere near the totem todger I might add - I questioned her about her gingerbread recipe, something that has started to get many local folk tongue wagging of late.

In the best of home cooking traditions, it was reassuring to find out that it is a family secret that has been passed down through generations of ginger. A local element is important - eggs are sourced in Wivenhoe from the esteemed @_thebikeguru_ and his back garden birds.

I found some familiar ground upon meeting @ekittl for the first time - a fellow @15QueenStreet flexi member who also works in local schools. She is about to undertake the rather unenviable task of National Novel Writing Month in November. We compared daily word counts, and much like my experience with the totem todger, I felt rather inferior.

Breathing space was by now becoming slightly tricky. All best parties end up in the library.

Blimey.

Well, not quite. A quick bypass through the reading space @15QueenStreet and the back garden was the hot (and cold) spot for the evening. It is only now with the open space of @firstsite giving access to the area that you can appreciate how this part of town is being transformed.

The garden had been decorated in bunting, all put together by the Stitch ‘n Bitch crowd, another initiative coming out of @15QueenStreet. Conversation got a little twisted with @edpattle. Apologies. We *will* share that ballcuzi together soon.

Time flies, and so does the 11:07 back to Wivenhoe. Was it really a year ago since @ColchCircleMag first stood up @15QueenStreet to generate interest and cooperation?

Chin chin.