Latest news with #TeddyBearsPicnic
Rhyl Journal
05-08-2025
- General
- Rhyl Journal
Towyn: St Mary's Church reopens after refurbishment
St Mary's Church was closed for six weeks while a rotten floor was replaced. The project followed two and a half years of investigations and planning, involving collaboration with the Aber-Morfa Mission Area, the Diocese of St Asaph, and provincial support from the Church in Wales. The Reverend Janet Crane, vicar of St Mary's Church, said: "We are delighted to have the church open and fully operational once again. "It's been a long process finding a solution to the rotting floor and ensuring we had funding in place to carry out the work. "It was a real team effort. "Now we can concentrate on ensuring the church is open and welcoming to everyone. "We held our Summer Fayre last weekend and we look forward to a Teddy Bears Picnic on August 12." Sunday services have now resumed in the main church building after being temporarily relocated to the vestry. Last month, the church held its first Pet Service in more than 20 years, welcoming five dogs, one cat, a hamster, and a ferret. Rev Crane said: "The most troublesome was the hamster who insisted on kicking the sawdust out of its cage, all over our nice new floor. "It was easily cleaned up though and we were delighted to welcome the local community back into church." READ MORE: Rhyl fitness club ladies raise more than £1,600 for Cancer Research UK As part of its outreach, St Mary's Church offers essential hygiene products every Friday through a scheme launched during the pandemic in 2020. Plans are also underway to open a community pantry to help address food insecurity in the area. St Mary's is part of the Aber-Morfa Mission Area, which includes churches in Rhyl, Rhuddlan, and Bodelwyddan. The Mission Area is one of 20 within the Diocese of St Asaph, which is one of six dioceses in the Church in Wales.
Extra.ie
17-07-2025
- Climate
- Extra.ie
Things to do this weekend -- July 18 to July 20
While last weekend saw the country in a status yellow high temperature warning, this weekend is forecast to be a little more unsettled with sunny spells and scattered showers throughout. This Sunday will be a big weekend for Cork and Tipperary GAA fans as the county hurling teams face off in the All Ireland Hurling Championships at Croke Park. For those who aren't interested in the hurling, there's plenty of things to get stuck into with the family out and about… This Sunday will be a big weekend for Cork and Tipperary GAA fans as the county hurling teams face off in the All Ireland Hurling Championships at Croke Park. Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile Here are five of the best activities to do this weekend. You can check out more family days out and summer events on YourDaysOut. Dublin, July 19 and 20 The Rose Festival returns to St Anne's Park, Dublin this weekend to mark 50 years of the Rose Garden. The weekend event is family-friendly and free, and promises to be a fun event featuring live music as well as kids' entertainment, crafts, food stalls as well as yoga, tai chi and a dedicated bike park. Gates open from 10am to 6pm on both days. Pic: YourDaysOut Mayo, July 12 to 20 The culmination of the Ballina Salmon Festival takes place this weekend with plenty of fun for kids of all ages. On Friday, the youngsters can bop along at Baby Boppers or try paddle boarding at the Quay, while Saturday features a fun fancy dress disco was well as rockets and slime workshops. Sunday is the final day of the festival with a Teddy Bears Picnic taking place at Tom Ruane Park. Attendees to the event can expect plenty of music and games as well as a sensory hour for some quieter play. Pic: YourDaysOut Dublin, July 19 and 20 This one is for the Lego fanatics in your life! Brick Feile is the biggest LEGO fan event in Ireland and returns to CityNorth Hotel this weekend with stunning custom models, giant brick pits, a live big-build and creative challenges for all ages. Attendees are invited to check out the displays from take part in fun builds, shop rare sets and help raise important funds for Fairy Bricks. Pic: YourDaysOut Meath, July 19 and 20 If fairies are more your scene, why not step into the magical world at Loughcrew Gardens with fairy trails, unicorns, puppets, storytelling and circus fun. Attendees can enjoy crafts, bubbles, vintage games and enchanting performances from 12pm to 6pm daily. The weekend promises to be a spellbinding weekend for little believers with big imaginations. Pic: YourDaysOut Kildare, July 20 Barretstown opens its gates for an exciting family day on Sunday with a range of activities including canoeing, archery, face painting, dancing, mini golf and more! Fossett's Circus will be on hand on the day, putting on three performances throughout the day (11.15am; 1.15pm and 3.15pm). Admission to Barretstown Big Picnic is free, though the Circus is a ticketed and should be booked in advance. Pic: YourDaysOut is Ireland's leading platform for discovering things to do with a booking system built for Irish businesses with local support and at no extra cost.
Irish Independent
11-07-2025
- General
- Irish Independent
Pics show Cork teddy bears taking over a popular donkey sanctuary in a fun day for the little ones
In addition to their owners, the cuddly Bears brought along mums and dads, nanas and granddads, to visit the donkeys, enjoy a picnic in the open air and take part in many of the fun activities on offer. Mother Nature was benevolent and the sun drenched Knockardbane farm provided the perfect setting for a wonderful family day out. Since the Donkey Sanctuary opened in Liscarroll in 1987, staff have loved and cared for over 5,600 neglected and abandoned donkeys from across Ireland. Every donkey taken in to the Sanctuary is guaranteed a life of loving care and for many, it is the first time in their lives that they have felt loving hands and heard kind voices. Great care is taken to ensure that each donkey has individual attention. 'Today we have over 1,500 donkeys and mules in our care, around 400 of these donkeys reside in private guardian homes throughout the country as part of our re homing scheme and the remainder of the donkeys are based across our four farms in the Liscarroll area,' a staff member explained. The Donkey Sanctuary's mission is to transform the quality of life for donkeys, mules and people worldwide through greater understanding, collaboration and support, and by promoting lasting, mutually life-enhancing relationships. The free-to-visit Sanctuary has something very special to offer, whether you're looking for a family day out or to spend some quality time with the donkeys. Visitors can explore the scenic walkways and meet the resident donkeys. The visitor information centre at the Sanctuary is the best place to find out about the amazing work staff do.. Staff who organised the Teddy Bears Picnic said: 'A massive thank you to over 1,000 people who joined us for our Teddy Bears' Picnic at our Open Farm last Thursday, The event was a sell-out and we were thrilled to see so much support for donkeys in Ireland.'
Powys County Times
08-07-2025
- Powys County Times
Teddy bear picnic brings free travel to Welshpool railway
Children bringing their teddy bears to Welshpool & Llanfair Light Railway this weekend can ride for free. The popular family-themed Teddy Bears Picnic event will take place on July 12 and 13, offering a variety of attractions. As well as free travel for children accompanied by a fare-paying adult, the event features a Teddy Trail, Ted's Story Time, a chance to meet the railway's own Teddy Bear family, and a Name the Bear competition. At Llanfair Caereinion, the tearoom, shop, Connections Visitor Centre, and the Cloverlands Model Car Museum will be open. The museum boasts a collection of more than 8,000 model cars. The free travel offer is valid on any train service over the weekend. Return trains will be pulled by the railway's fleet of steam or heritage diesel locomotives. They depart from Llanfair Caereinion at 10.30am, 12pm, 1.45pm, and 3.30pm, and from Welshpool Raven Square at 11.45am and 1.30pm. The line is expected to be busy, so travellers and their teddies are encouraged to book in advance.
The Guardian
27-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Digested week: It's summer, and I am a burnt smorgasbord for every bug
Peak bear performance was attained today, at Wildwood Devon near Ottery St Mary (also peak British placename performance, but that need not detain us here). Two five-year-old European brown bears, Mish and Lucy (no relation), escaped from their enclosure at the park and headed straight for its cafe's food stores, where they happily ploughed their way through a week's worth of honey before being gently lured back home with a bell and some other snacks, whereupon Mish promptly fell asleep. It's perfect. The Teddy Bears' Picnic (what a big surprise in the woods it must have been, especially to whoever was responsible for keeping the enclosure secure!), Winnie-the-Pooh, a suggestion of Paddington in the eminent reasonableness of it all, plus European brown bears being by far the cutest and most childhood-teddy-like of all. This is the good news story we need. Enjoy it. The year is shaping up … badly. Mish and Lucy were originally rescued from an Albanian snow drift. I am on my way to Devon to ask them for directions back there. Summer, the vilest of all seasons is properly here. Once again I appear to have neglected to get my air-conditioned bunker built in time and so I am stuck on this boiling isle, whose architecture, culture, working and retail hours are designed to cope only with temperatures of 'brisk' and below. I was born in a cardigan. That is how I need to live. Not least because when I am forced to expose skin to sun it not only burns but makes me an instant smorgasbord of haemo-delights for any and every passing bug. I say passing – I'm pretty sure some of them fly in specially, a date on their little bug calendars saying: 'Mangan meat feast begins'. Bastards. Venomous little bastards. From now until the end of August, I am an ambulant mass of swellings, slippery with hydrocortisone cream and stuporous with anti-histamine meds. 'Does not cause drowsiness' they say. They do if you take them by the boxful, fools. This year I plan to pay my child to rub me lightly with sandpaper all evening to relieve the itching, and to invest in a mosquito net while I draw up the bunker blueprints and break ground for 2026. People of Britain. *shakes head sorrowfully*. People of Britain, you are upsetting the brave asset management companies of this country. News breaks that we are saving too much. In cash, of all things! Instead of investing in stocks and shares – thereby helping the economy, and asset management companies – we are insisting on having ready access to a certain and definable store of our money so that we can ride out personal and professional crises as well as the boring, ongoing one apparently without end known as 'the cost of living'. Will no one think of the global funds and their traders (I hope I'm using these words correctly – could a rich person check)? If we all just keep hold of our cash and use it to pay for basic goods and services, where's the excitement? Where are the ecstatic highs and perilous lows of playing the markets? Is the economy just supposed to manage without our contributions? We're there to serve it, remember, not the other way round! I love the world of finance, in which everything is turned upside down and everyone looks at you as if pound coins are sentient and that this is exactly the way things are supposed to be. It enables me to look at the nugatory balance in my determinedly current account paying no interest and feel that at least I am by my simple absence from the FTSE 100 sticking it to The Man. 'What do you want for your tea when you come on Friday?' Mum asks me on the WhatsApp family chat because my sister and I taught her how to use the app after Dad died, heedless of the consequences because we weren't thinking straight. 'Chicken and mushroom, please.' 'No.' 'But you said you'd made some last week?' 'That was for the freezer.' Sensing the need for back up approaching, my sister joins. 'Are you saying – that it can't come out of the freezer? Does it have to stay in the freezer for ever? I remind you that we have power of attorney come the day we have proof your mental faculties have deteriorated to dangerous levels.' 'Not for ever. But it hasn't been in there long.' 'So – like not being able to sit on the sofa for two hours after you've plumped the cushions, we can't eat food from the freezer until it's been in there long enough for you to revel in the results of your labour?' 'Also, I've only done portions for three. There'll only be two of us.' '…' says my sister. '…' say I. We're having a Co-op fish pie. Break out the bubbly and throw on your glad rags – the wedding is about to begin! Jeff Bezos and his money have arrived in Venice to join with fiancee Láuren Sanchez in holy matrimony, at an estimated cost of between £34m and £41m, or about two hours and 40 minutes of the Amazon founder's earnings. It has everything a wedding should have. The Kardashians, a newly-single Orlando Bloom, and widespread protests at the multi-billionaire essentially renting the entire city for the three-day nuptial event. You have to hope, though, that at its heart it is the same as every other wedding. And I do believe that money cannot buy certain things. It cannot buy, I suspect, guests who truly want to take three days out of their busy lives and in uncomfortable shoes to watch two people say some vows in a church, however garlanded, and then be forced to celebrate their bliss for hours and hours thereafter, no matter how free-flowing or top quality the booze. Money can't buy an absence of boring relatives or freedom from the fear of being seated beside one. Above all, of course, money can't buy love. Though I am sure this precious state of grace is absolutely at the core of this extravaganza. The rest is noise. Especially from the Kardashian table, I suspect.
