Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to you all! I hope that you had a lovely Christmas and continue to have all your wishes met in 2016. Important question: did you stay dry? I should explain, in case you haven’t seen pictures of the terrible weather that the UK has been experiencing, large parts of the UK have suffered from bad flooding over the Christmas period. So many people have been affected; my heart goes out to every single one of them. Here is York, where byhelen is based, has also been badly hit: with the two rivers, the Foss and the Ouse, both breaching their banks and flooding back into the city. In large parts of the city people and out of their homes as the clean-up starts and small business have been affected as visitors choose to stay away from city centre. If you are visiting York, it is very much open, please come as support our amazing independent traders.

I am luckier than lots of people in the city; the flood touched my door-step, but didn’t, this time, make it into my home. I am so very grateful for this. My home was saved, this time, because of sandbags and the amazing community spirt, that we repeated see in the Bishy Road area of York. My home was saved, this time, because of an amazing group of people from a mosque in Batley. These amazing people, drove to Cumbria (all ready badly affected by flooding,) and decided that people there were getting help, so they decided to come to York and help us. They spent the day in our area helping move sandbags to protect streets and homes and offering support to all. They came back two days later, to make sure that we were still ok. We were. I can’t thank these wonderful people enough...

In all the devastation of the flooding, the sense of community shone through and York, despite what Mother Nature was throwing at her, remained as beautiful as ever…