Beeston Artways – by bus tram & train

I hope the diagrammatic map which follows speaks for itself. I have been prompted by favourable comments to have ten copies printed off A3 size which can be bought only from Mish Mash Gallery on Chilwell High Road or the White Lion pub at the junction of Station Road and Middle Street. They each have five copies for sale and I have described it as a 'limited edition map'. I will print updated copies as and when the first ten have been sold.

Simply click on the map to enlarge.

Here are two sections of the map close-up:

The map has been created to publicise Beeston's easy accessibility to a range of art venues by public transport and the fact that it has its own 'Creative Corner' and White Lion, pub both selling original works of art by local artists and crafts people. Both deserve our support.

Cafés in the news: L'Oliva, Edwards and Fusion, plus a word about the White Lion and Sergio

Beeston High Road's newest café, L'Oliva, got its first mention in the Nottingham Post back in February 2015 when the news report said it 'was a few weeks away'. It finally arrived last week and I will sample its coffee in the next day or two. I wish the new owners well, but the shopfront continues to look a little tired, with the old 'Virtual Deli' facia still in place and missing mosaic tiles on the frontage. I hope these things to not deter customers. Walking past today it looked busy.

With so many cafés and bistro type places to choose from, there is plenty of competition. I have updated my Beeston Pubs & Café map (see entry in right-hand column) to include L'Oliva.

Also, My Place café on Wollaton Road became Edwards last week, with a new owner.

Edwards is on the northern approach to Beeston town centre down Wollaton Road from The Nurseryman pub and Derby Road, and is the first café visitors see. There is parking outside. I wish the new owner well. Edwards is within a few minutes of my front door, so it does not figure on my radar, but I would encourage any shop browser to explore Wollaton Road and to have a welcome break at Edwards before returning to the shops in Beeston Town Centre.

Talking of Wollaton Road, the next time you walk down it towards the High Road think about what you would use the great white wall above the card shop to promote. I'm presently using it to promote this blog. 

How about the Beeston Express?

I will end where I started. This time with Fusion Café, which is part of Chilwell Art Corner at the western end of Beeston town centre. I blogged about Creative Corner in January (http://beestonweek.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/see-creative-corner-and-you-have-arrived.html) and said then that AJ, who runs Fusion Café, made the best coffee in Beeston and I stand by what I said then.

AJ has applied for a license at Fusion to sell alcohol every day from 10am–10pm. There is a large notice in the latest issue of the Beeston Express.

From the front, Fusion looks quite small and is located on the left-hand side of the Mish Mash Gallery. It is, in fact, bigger than it looks, wrapping as it does around the back of the gallery. I hope AJ's application is successful.

He often has private parties who book Fusion and this is clearly an important part of the café's business, so I am sure being able to sell alcohol will make Fusion an even more attractive venue than it already is.

Between March and May this year I facilitated a writing group which met at Fusion thanks to the generosity of AJ. It is a friendly venue and on the few occasions I have been there at weekends, there have always been families inside and mums outside with their buggies and children.

Fusion is the perfect place to start a visit to Beeston town centre if arriving by bus or tram. From here it is a leisurely walk into town and then down the High Road to Humber Road and Broadgate Park, from where you catch the same buses and trams.

I suspect that if I had a mind to this blog could become exclusively about Beeston pubs and cafés. In truth I do not visit them often enough because I never have the time. In my ideal world I would have cake at Fusion and Mason & Mason at least once a week and lunch at the Local Not Global Deli and the White Lion once a week as well. I like large custard tarts from Birds and Home Bakery too.

It is the first Beeston Food and Drink Festival this coming weekend (12–13 June). Unfortunately it clashes with a planned walk and Sunday clashes with the Beeston & Chilwell Garden Trail weekend. I just hope that in the midst of all this activity I will find the time to sample some of the delights on offer.

If you read this and are coming to Beeston this weekend, I urge you to visit the White Lion and the Local Not Global Deli. the folk who run these places are here every week of the year. As far as I am concerned, they make living, eating and drinking in Beeston like having a food festival an all-year event. I will end with a pic I have used before. I think of it as one of my best:

A happy Sergio at the White Lion bringing me and friends cake (real yummy cake)! He does a fantastic fish stew and lots of other good food too, drawing on his Portuguese–Brazilian heritage. If any person should be the face of Beeston food it is Sergio. He has a long letter in the latest edition of the Beeston Express (5 June 2015) about his fight to keep the White Lion open. It is worth reading.

Beeston Filmfest and life in the election trenches

Given the success of last weekend's Beeston Film Festival, I suspect next year's could be a red carpet affair with monitors announcing the next film and glam at every turn, somewhere to be seen. OK, I jest, but these things do happen. The truth is Film Festival organisers John Currie and Jamie Hall pitched the weekend to perfection. The White Lion was the perfect venue in every sense. The upstairs room where the films were shown may have seen better days, but it had the feel of an old 6d (sixpenny) cinema from the fifties (I am that old).

Next year I will be inviting my friend Alex from Edinburgh to come and stay for a long weekend so we can cruise the Film 
Festival together. Alex grew up in Beeston and returned as an adult for a few years before taking herself off to where she was born in 2013. She is into films and I know she would have so loved it.

They say a picture can speak a thousand words, so here goes…

I took this photograph of Mags, a Trent Uni student living in Beeston, as we both grabbed a bite to eat. Both of us chose Sergio's Fish Stew. It was truly wonderful and I will be going back for more very soon. The painting behind Mags is one of a number for sale at the White Lion. It is entitled 'Paris Café' by Dawn Booth, a local artist, and can be yours for £400. I wonder if the person who eventually buys it will take away some of the wonderful food aromas which fill the White Lion, captured by the painting?

My own fish stew was a picture, as I hope the photograph below proves, and I spent some time looking at it, before finally eating it as slowly as I could. All this for £5!

Throughout the day there were moments like this; people talking. On this occasion about horror films and I was pleased to learn that I was not the only person who did not watch them. I went to the first documentary session, then the family films and the comedy films session. The films generated a real mix of emotions and I will certainly be going again next year.

The person standing up is Sergio, the White Lion landlord. I have blogged about him on my parkviews blog (which has been replaced by this blog). In October 2013, I did a blog post entitled 'Cake too good to leave' and here is a pic from that post showing Sergio with cake in hand.

Somehow I have got this far without mentioning 'Beestonia', the movie made by Matt Goold and his colleagues. It opened the Festival and was fun, well produced and a great advert for Beeston. Matt tells me it will be posted to YouTube in the near future, so everyone can see it.

During one of the breaks I got chatting with Jacky Walker and Geoff Francis, who were at the film festival supporting a 5 minute film called 'Thank You Stan' about the great Stanley Matthews. Both have been involved for the last fifteen years raising support and finance for a animated film about his life. You can find out much more at their website: http://www.spiritofthegamemovie.com/. 

It was, at times, spine tingling. The chance to talk with them and share their enthusiasm and determination for a few brief minutes made going to the Filmfest worth while. Below is an image of 'Stan' from their website.

I ended my week playing the part of a foot soldier in the election campaign, delivering letters and seeing front doors close up. How I hate low level letter boxes. Posties have to contend with them every day. If I had my time all over again I would form my own political party and call it the Marginal Party and, guess what, letter boxes would be high up its list of priorities, together with 101 other tiny annoying issues. I'll stop now, I see a separate blog post coming on about the little things in Beeston which need attention and would improve the quality of our daily lives no end.

Above is an example of a letter box I do not like and below is the perfect letter box — both found today as I was out delivering for the Labour Party.

This week I hope to receive some answers from Broxtowe Borough Council to questions I had asked about houses in multiple occupation (HMOs) and comparative voter numbers in the four Beeston wards in 2011 and 2015. If I do then this will be the focus of my next blog post.