One of the unexpected things about writing this blog is the emails I receive. I’ve met (in the virtual sense) lots of interesting people since I started, from people who used to live in the area to people looking to relocate. This morning I received a message from a woman in Canada. Her family name is Levenshulme and she’s looking into the origins of the name. Her husband’s grandfather was from England but she doesn’t know exactly where.

Does anyone know anything about the origins of Levenshulme? Could you point me in the right direction? Any insights greatly appreciated.

No, not the slippery, slimy little critters that ruined our plants last year.  But the ‘Safeguarding Levenshulme’s Urban Greenspace Society’ variety. Paradoxically these slugs (formally Secret Levenshulme Underground Gardeners) are on a mission to save Levenshulme’s green spaces.  They have recently applied for a license to turn the old  Chapel Street Community Centre space into a garden.

Want to get invovled?  This is how you can help:

• Keep an eye on their community website at www.slugsociety.wetpaint.com for details of their next working day.
• If you have any spare plants, please consider donating them.  In particular, cuttings of honeysuckle, clematus, virgnia creeper, roses and other climbers will be gratefully received.
• If you have the time, you might want to put a group together to work on smaller projects such as setting up a herb garden.
• If you have any experience in fund raising, get in touch!

Further details can be found at www.slugsociety.wetpaint.com

I received a lovely postcard today from Matt at Love Levenshulme. His blog is all about Levenshulme and the positives of living here. We often hear negative reports about the area but his blog celebrates the good stuff. Matt sends out postcards to people he’d like to thank for making Levenshulme that bit better. Like the people behind the ‘beautiful front garden on Broom Avenue’ and the people at Village Stores. Take a look at some of the replies at www.lovelevenshulme.com.

And thank you Matt, it was a good start to the weekend.

There are a number of eateries in Levenshulme. But when it comes to Sunday breakfast my firm favourite is Friends Café on Stockport Road. It’s particularly good if you have guests staying and don’t feel like serving up a mountain of toast. Or (and this is probably just me) for when the cat has peed in the toaster.

Like many establishments in Levenshulme the decor is eclectic. This is what I love most about it. You’ll find no showy abstracts here. Instead the walls are adorned with black and while photos of a bygone Levenshulme. These are unusually interspersed with African masks and wooden ornaments.

The tables don’t quite match but they’re clean and well tended by affable staff. Along one side of the room there’s a breakfast bar with modern, shiny stools. It’s strange how they don’t clash with the old fashioned glass fridge over in the corner. But somehow it all seems to work. Even the flowers are a quirky mixture of those long curly stems and carnations.

The food is good, the portions generous and the prices fair. And when your tea arrives it is served in a cup and not a glass.

And best of all, there’s not a three-wheel trolley in sight.

We went to bed on Sunday night, read for a little while (ooh read The Book Thief by by Markus Zusak, it’s narrated by death and is a really good read) and then dozed off. We were jolted awake at midnight by the burglar alarm going off. Not something you want to hear in the middle of the night in Levenshulme. I tried to turn the lamp on and realised that it was another power cut. This is the second one in the last few months.

The problem is that when the power cuts out there’s no way to turn off the alarm without removing the fuse. So for the next 40 minutes we (well, Lord Levy) fiddled around in the cellar trying to turn the thing off. I sat in the back room with Tori (who was whipped up into a state of excitement at the impromptu night goings-on) and Blos who had just received her flea treatment and just wanted a kip.

Finally we got back into bed but I couldn’t sleep with all the alarms going off and Lord Levy snoring like a broken bagpipe. It was not a lighthearted Monday morning.

This postcard was doing the rounds a little while ago.  It came to me courtesy of DJ Spiderman.

I was gutted when Bobby Dazzler closed.  No more kitsch ornaments – the funniest one I saw was an Olympic Torch, complete with moving fabric flame   There’s a brand new pound shop in its place, complete with shiny windows and new shelves but it’s not the same, somehow.  Oh well.

This is from a take-away menu that was pushed through our letterbox the other day.  The thing that cracks me up is the offer of a packet of cigarettes with every order over £15.  Not sure what this says about the food.  And just to put the top hat on it, the offer has been crossed out, as if to say, ‘This is what you could’ve won’.