Meant to post this last week. Look out for some more posts about the mysterious world of the allotment gardeners!

This is the life ..taking it easy …drinking coffee whilst watching other plotholders beavering away…cheers..ben

Please find attached the West Yorkshire Trading Standards Newsletter Scam Alert. This weekly alert will outline trending fraud patterns during the current COVID-19 pandemic and what we can do to stay protected. Unfortunately there has been an increase in reports of scams, doorstep Crime and business complaints all relating to the COVID-19 pandemic here in West Yorkshire. This news alert will give you an indication of the current situation here in West Yorkshire.

Last week, (13/04/2020 – 19/04/2020) WYTS had 31 COVID-19 complaints and queries. A further 39 intelligence reports were submitted through our intelligence database relating to COVID-19 during this time period.

Thank you

The Covid19 Trading Standards Team

Covid-19 Scam alert issue 4 24.04.2020 – Copy

Dear all, please below a message from Sam,

See attached picture as a little reminder of what I look like to those who know me, and an introduction to those who don’t.

I’m Sam Pemberton (or PCSO Sam to Lisa) and have worked in Little London and Woodhouse for the past 11 years. I’m still looking forward to a time when we can catch up in person at the groups or events at Caring Together, but until then, stay safe and wash your hands!

And if you manage to get to your front door or garden gate to clap with the rest of the country at 8pm tonight, why not wave to that neighbour you’ve never quite got around to chatting with. Most people are in the same situation as you and will also be feeling isolated, that wave might make all the difference to their day.

And remember, every day may not be good, but there’s something good in every day.

PCSO Sam

This week’s offering from National Theatre at home will be Twelth Night, starting from 7pm tomorrow – Thursday April 23rd (and coinciding with William Shakespeare’s 456th birthday). It will then be available for 7 days.

More information here https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/nt-at-home

Or go directly to the you tube channel:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwNvC8sFTEU

How did you do?

See the answers below:

1 Pink

2 Spain

3 A beard tax – is it still a tax?

4 Interrobang

5 Laughs

6 Constipation

7 Charlie Chaplin

8 France

9 Frog

10 The Day Watch

11 False

12 England

13 Scoobert Doo

14 San Francisco

15 Zeedonk

Take care from all at Caring Together

Well actually, just about everybody, but the lockdown has given many of us time to empathise with those overlooked, unemployed  or under-employed  workers who, without being regarded as ‘key’, still do worthwhile jobs and  are essential to hopes of  ever getting back to normal – dog groomers, club  bouncers, church organists, window-dressers, children’s entertainers and sports journalists, for example.

Sports reporters, even in protected staff posts, now face particular difficulties during what should be their prime time – the  Easter weekend.

They have been landed with the embarrassing task of having to create articles based on little more than speculation, stirred-up controversy and trips to the archives. They must long for the days when, in football or rugby at least, nothing much mattered except happenings on the pitch, managers getting sacked and scorelines.

Not that I’m a sports fan; I just like talking to people who are. They seem in to have a more engaged and balanced view of life than, say, vicars or events organisers. In all my years working for newspapers, I don’t recall ever having arguments with my colleagues in sports department.

I’m sure I sometimes exasperated them because I know very little about English footballers who peaked after 1966 or the off-side rule, but they were generally forgiving, as if doing a job that suited them had given them a kind of inner calm rare in newspaper offices.

My school sports experience was traumatic because, being dyspraxic, meaning physically awkward to a diagnosable extent, I couldn’t throw, kick, catch, jump, run or even change into my games kit with any degree of success. I tried and tried but got nowhere and eventually the whole school, especially the PE  teachers, concluded that my uselessness was the result of a kind of sullen perversity rather than the good, honest  uselessness it really was.

Then, when I moved to the sixth form, I finally met a sensible sports teacher.  He watched me in a session in which I was supposed to hone my football skills and took me aside afterwards to tell me, in the kindest possible way, that he thought it would be altogether better if he never saw me on a sports field again.

Instead, he said, I should spend Wednesday afternoons in the gym doing weight training or whatever I felt comfortable with, which turned to be a little weight training interspersed with reading, smoking and eating Mars bars.

It’s because of that teacher that I like sporty types, even though I can’t join them, and is why I feel that in these terrible times, overshadowed by death, the suspension of sports matches should still be a matter of regret.

By Oliver Cross, Caring Together member

‘Monday Mind Workout’

Please find below some questions to ponder whilst having a cuppa.

I will be hosting a weekly online ‘Monday Mind Workout’ from Monday 27th April@ 11am. If you wish to know more, or be added to the list then please email me: lisa@caringtogether.org.uk

1 What is the most common colour of toilet paper in France?

2 If you dug a hole through the centre of the earth starting from Wellington in New Zealand, which European country would you end up in?

3 Henry VIII introduced which tax in England in 1535?

4 What is the correct term for a question mark immediately followed by an exclamation mark?

5 The average person does what thirteen times a day?

6 Coprastastaphobia is the fear of what?

7 Who entered a contest to find his own look-alike and came 3rd?

8 In which country are there six villages called Silly, 12 called Billy, and two called Pratt?

9 Native to the Caribbean, what sort of animal is the mountain chicken?

10 What nickname was given to Rembrandt’s The Night Watch after being over-restored in the 1940s?

11 True or false: You can sneeze in your sleep

12 Which country has the most tornadoes by area?

13 What is Scooby Doo’s full name?

14 Where was the fortune cookie invented?

15 What is the cross between a donkey and a zebra known as?

Answers to follow tomorrow

Thanks to Edinburgh Evening News