We’ve been giving out some gardening grab bags to members in recent weeks.
These were given to us by Seagulls Re-use and contain compost, plant pot, seeds, gardening tools, string and gloves.
We still have a few so if you would like one let Valerie know 07483333115
Last year, the automatic entitlement for free TV licences for all aged over 75 was scrapped and anyone not in receipt of pension credit now has to pay for their TV licence.
There has been a transition period which has meant anyone who hadn’t initially bought a licence would not be given a penalty charge. This has now ended and so now if you haven’t bought a licence you could be prosecuted – although the BBC has said it will be arranging ‘customer care’ support visits initially.
If you are over 75 and not receiving Pension Credit, you will need to pay for your TV Licence, it currently costs £159 a year but there are a number of instalment options. See https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/pay-for-your-tv-licence/ways-to-pay
If you get Pension Credit and are over 75 it continues to be free but you do have to apply for it: https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/for-your-home/aged-74-and-over-aud3
If you are under 75, nothing has changed and you still need to buy your licence.
You need a TV licence to watch or record live programmes on any television channel in the UK or if you’re watching something live using an online streaming service on any type of device.
If you are over state pension age and not receiving Pension Credit, it is worth checking if you might be entitled to it, you can find out more at gov.uk/pension-credit. You can use the online Pension Credit calculator which will provide you with an indication of how much you might get.
Dear all,
Around 55,000 people Leeds have been classified as Clinically Extremely Vulnerable and were advised to shield for much of the last year. Many others who are not on the Govt list but still feel they are vulnerable re the virus may have been following similar advice.
Now that most restrictions are over and things are opening up, many people may be feeling a bit anxious about life returning to normal. Please keep taking extra care and move at a pace that feels comfortable to you.
CEV summaryThere is still support available in Leeds, both from the council and from a number of other organisations – including Caring Together. Lots of information is in this booklet from Leeds City Council – if you are registered as Clinically Extremely Vulnerable you should recceive a paper copy of this in the post
Community Support for CEVs Booklet PRINT (040821)
The Edinburgh Festival is back this year after being cancelled in 2020 and runs till 30th August. But those of us who are not likley to be travelling north of the border can still take part this year as a number of the events are online – and quite a few are free!
The link above takes you straight to the free online events for more information and the full programme go to https://www.edfringe.com/
Anyone over 18 who still hasn’t had both doses of a covid vaccine can go along to the pharmacy at Oatland Drive, Little London between 9am and 5pm tomorrow.
No appointment needed you can just turn up but for a second dose it must be at least 8 weeks since the first.
They will be using the Moderna vaccine
Or, you can get the Astra Zenica vaccine (over 40s only) at The BAME Health & Wellbeing Hub (formerly known as the Fredrick Hurdle Centre), Reginald Terrace, Leeds, LS7 3EZ. Between 10am – 3pm.
Weddings aren’t what they used to be, which is a relief for people who don’t like sexism, crude humour, drunkenness, ill-fitting outfits, unimaginative food or seething family tensions.
None of which were even hinted at the wedding of my grandson Sam and my new relative Mrs Becky Cross, mainly, I think, because all the youngish people I know (especially Sam and Becky) are more sensible than I ever was, not to mention more thoughtful, intelligent, enterprising and – which, I realised at the wedding, is the most important social virtue – much kinder too.
So, in keeping with the kindly mood established by the happy couple (‘happy’ being, so far as I could see, an accurate description rather than a wedding cliché), everybody was nice to each other, enjoying the company of, in many cases, strangers and delighted by the just-in-time end of the Covid lockdown.
Which could sound dull but really isn’t, particularly when you consider that the alternative might be a wedding in Walford, Emmerdale or Kabul during the massacre season.
This ceremony was in rolling green countryside near York in a set of old and very attractive agricultural buildings repurposed to look completely unlike the cramped and charmless register office where I was married in the 1970s and which, as I remember, mainly overlooked the council’s rates department.
Since then, and excluding pandemics and climate change, much has changed for the better. English wedding-goers have started to understand the concepts of smart-casual clothing, ecologically-aware confetti-throwing and acceptable hair arrangements (as a reminder of how bad things were, you could look at wedding pictures from the 1970s and 80s, after first reading a trauma warning).
Other things didn’t need to change; bridesmaids in uniforms so glamorous that you could imagine them breaking into a West End dance routine, a bride wearing a lovely white dress with a lacy train which was so definitively a wedding dress that it couldn’t be repurposed into anything else and its future is secure.
There was even a wedding cake tiered, though not in the usual way, by Sam, who, unlike most men in the last century, knows how to bake very well.
But I think the most impressive improvement was in the quality of the wedding speeches. These have been, in my experience, minor ordeals to be got through with the aid of stiff drinks. Here, everybody, especially Sam and Becky, said what they had to say very wittily and intelligently and without recourse to boorishness, cheap cracks or showing-off.
Taking the long view, which, at my age, isn’t quite as long as it used to be, I can see, based on the wedding speeches alone, a union of two families who, being blessed with rare intelligence and goodwill will continue to enrich each other’s lives, just like the Montagues and Capulets didn’t.
