What Palmers Green will be like in 2014, probably…

The beginning of the year is the traditional time for looking into one’s crystal ball. Here are our predictions for 2014, courtesy of ‘Mystic Jewel’. All of them, I think you will agree, are almost certain to come true.

1. The Palmers Green farmers market moves to the Triangle. Enfield Council embraces this as part of the regeneration of the centre of Palmers Green and gives permission for the wider streets on Green Lanes and Aldermans Hill also to be used for stalls.

2. 

   Bread – in 2014 Palmers Greeners will go mad for it Image: freefoto.com

   Palmers Green residents become so excited by fresh produce and artisan products that new butchers and bakers open, having first lovingly restored their new premises to the appearance they would have had in 1914. A deli follows.  Then a greengrocer. All of them open until 8 rather than closing before most people even get home.

3. The fate of Broomfield House is finally decided and everyone in Palmers Green agrees that the outcome, whatever it is, is the best that can be achieved. Previously opposed factions make daisy chains together on the lawn in front of whatever is left of the building.
4. Truro House and grounds are purchased by the Council, who restore the historic 19^th century gardens right down to the New River, opening up river access with a new pocket park. A new zebra crossing links with the new developments around the library and town hall.  Palmers Greeners start getting noticeably puffed out with civic pride. Some people who don’t even live in Palmers Green start to have heard of it.
5. Jona Lewie, who had a hit with You’ll Always Find Me In The Kitchen at Parties, the only song ever to mention Palmers Green in the lyrics, opens the 2014 Palmers Green Festival. A competition is launched to write a new song about Palmers Green, to be judged by online votes based on performances of each song at the 2015 Festival. Everyone in Palmers Green buys the winning song on iTunes and it becomes the Christmas no 1. Palmers Green is widely praised as ‘one sick ‘hood’ (whatever that means).
6. The Palmers Green Conservatory runs a front gardens competition as part of Britain in Bloom. It is a precursor to the 2015 Palmers Green Garden Festival.
7. The council gives all shop owners opportunity to apply for a grant to improve the quality of their shop fronts and fascias, provided that they follow a design code that takes Green Lanes back to its original, more uniform look.
8. Railings on green lanes are replaced by tubs of hardy perennials. These are adopted by shops and kept tidy because they recognise that it contributes to the growing reputation of the area.

9. 

   Owners of black German cars in Palmers Green form a self policing group to crack down on the boy racers among their number. Said boy racers who cannot thus be reformed are required by law to change car to a pink Reliant Robin with built in speed limiter and are banned from residential streets and motorways.  A small Palmers Green workshop revives UK production of pink Reliant Robins with huge sound systems, and production goes into overdrive as robins become known as, you know,  ‘Badass’.

10. Buoyed by development, Palmers Green declares itself an independent republic, and produces its own notes and coinage with famed local artist and man about town Ralph Hutchings’ head on it in place of Her Maj. Much blues is played in celebration.

What are your Palmers Green dreams and predictions, do tell us!