By Lou Yates
Many people wonder what happens to the food bank items collected every Saturday at Crystal Palace Food Market. So, on a cold snowy Tuesday morning I went on a ride along with the indomitable pair of women, Karen and Laura who set up and run the market, to see what happens to it all. We headed to St Luke's Church in West Norwood with the goodies donated from last Saturday's market. Contributions are usually much bigger Karen assured me (awful weather tends to dent the footfall at the market) and she also took care to show me the not- so- good items that sometimes end up in the donations bucket stationed at the Haynes Lane end of the market. A sad uncooked chicken lurked dangerously at the bottom of a carrier bag.

By Lou Yates
It is coming up to our first year in the meadow down at St John's Church on Auckland Road and we can't quite believe how time has flown! The space feels so lived in now, and a structure is there, whether plants are blooming in it or not. The three big beds are now ticking over with green manures, onions and winter salad / greens. We can now sit back and think about our successes and dare I say it failures over the last 9 months.

On Sunday morning I set off to Hampton Court on the ungodly 8.33 from Gipsy Hill, to my volunteer induction at the Britain in Bloom garden at the flower show.

After a bit of a search for the garden entrance which has no signs up yet, I make it into the site, get given the obligatory Hi-viz jacket and head off to find the other volunteers. All around, people swarm with determination, all in Hi-viz, all so important they can't raise a smile. Buggies dash by, trade vans buzz past and the occasional truck squeezes into a space. Instructions are given and red-faced lackeys dash off, hidden under a teetering pile of boxes or crates.