Virtual London New Year’s Day Parade

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Start off the new year with the virtual London New Year’s Day Parade 2021, with socially-distanced performances serving as a substitute for the annual parade through central London.

From 12noon on 1st January 2021 you can catch the Welcome Back message to the World featuring big name artists and cultural performance groups, streamed across the globe in celebration of the new year.

The livestream showcases performances in two iconic London locations and is accessible to watch on LNYDP’s website.

It will also be broadcast live on the London Live tv channel

You can access London Live from Freeview, Sky, Virgin or YouView. See the channels below:

Freeview 8

Sky 117

Virgin 159

YouView 8

Poetry Corner: ‘New Resolve’ by Paul Curtis

New Resolve

My New Year resolution
Was to find a solution
To my misshapen figure
And lack of vim and vigour
Though feeling rather grim
I signed up for the gym
First came the orientation
And equipment demonstration
I was told of suitable clothes
Something loose that flows
I said “the reason or the point
Of me being in this joint
And why I signed up tonight
Is all my clothes are tight”

Sourced: https:/ peculiar-poetry com

Leeds to remain in Tier 3

As announced this afternoon much of the country is to move into Tier 4, but Leeds is remaining in Tier 3

Below are the posters for information about the restrictions in Tier 3: Very High Alert and Tier 4: Stay At Home in England.
Tier 3 rules: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/tier-3-very-high-alert
Tier 4 rules: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/tier-4-stay-at-home

Take care

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A Reflective look back over 2020

Dear all,

A reflective look back over 2020

We know this year has been difficult for a lot of people, but we hope you managed to find some joy over the holiday season.

Although it has been unusual we are proud to be part of the collective effort of the community as a whole in the last 12 months. This is for us all in whatever way.

The video below (click on image below to play and select sound) is a reflective look back in pictures over 2020. It is our humble thanks and recognition of an amazing community. This includes all those in the background that are not on the images and not as visible. This being befriending volunteers who quickly adapted from face to face contact in March to telephone befriending. And to those coming back to befriending and those new to it as well who took up making vital calls to our members existing and new. And continue to do so. We salute you!

Our thanks also goes to those who got involved in other ways, such as on the allotment, sharing rhubarb, herbs, with writing and sharing memories, skills, poems, quizzes and sharing photographs. Calling on neighbours, friends, and setting up groups. Our thanks also go to those who helped in the groups, with outings and other parts of Caring Together before the lockdown too. And to students from University of Leeds for sharing their musical skills and talent prior to and for our recent festive get together. @luumusicimpactinthecommunity

A huge thanks also goes to those making cards, donating food, toiletries and face masks for all to share. Helping with bringing our newsletters together and delivering them in the community. For donating stamps for those we post. For helping with getting essentials food items and to the local shop owners for opening their shops early enabling us to collect shopping for members safely. And to local churches for emergency food parcels and weekly hot meals. Thanks to PCSO Sam for making welfare checks to some members as well. A team effort for sure.

Furthermore our gracious thanks to everyone for not just practical help but also for financial support too. Your contributions are most welcome and enable our work to continue in the community. Thank you for your full money boxes, taking part in the prize draw, to one off donations, to regular ones and to the financial help and wonderful support of Leeds City Council, Leeds Lord Mayor, Local Councillors, Health, Housing, Leeds Older People Forum @lopforum, our members, community and many many others, we truly appreciate this.

And finally our thanks go to our management committee for being our constant amongst the strangest of years, even at a time of loss for uplifting and offering support to us all throughout the year. We are grateful to each and everyone of you.

What a year! And may 2021 be kinder to us all. We look forward to getting back together again soon, and hopefully being able to celebrate our 25 year milestone. And maybe see you in our new premises once it is finished and safe to do so as well – we shall keep you posted on this!

Keep safe, Caring Together

Click on the link below and press play – click for the volume if needed too.

https://www.facebook.com/caringtogetherleeds/videos/2458171774479525

ps. no need to sign into Facebook if prompted, just click ‘Not Now’ at the bottom of the pop up if it appears.

From 7pm tonight Edinburgh’s Hogmanay Goes Online and on Screens for 2020

29 – 31 December 

7pm each night

Edinburgh’s Hogmanay is renowned internationally as one of the leading new year celebrations in the world and this year’s Hogmanay will continue to cement this reputation. With no live events planned this year, Edinburgh’s Hogmanay will, for the first time in its history, move to an entirely online celebration with a series of spectacular ‘moments’ to be watched from home.

Three short films titled ‘Fare Well’ will be streamed for free at 7pm on 29, 30 and 31 December, showing a swarm of 150 glowing LED drones dance in the wintry Scottish skies above the Highlands, with later footage of the Forth bridges and Edinburgh.

The films will air on the Hogmanay website – edinburghshogmanay.com.

Behind-the-scenes footage along with details of how the film was made will also be available on the site.

This is a welcome chance to wave off 2020 and hope for an altogether better 2021.

Gentle Lishi Tai Chi for the Over 65s – STARTING 5TH JANUARY WITH CLARE AT LISHI TAI CHI

Dear all,

Please find below some information on some free Tai Chi classes starting on the 5th January 2021. “Their regular classes are on hold due to the virus but with support from the National Lottery Community Fund, it is now possible for experienced Lishi instructors to join you, in your home, via the power of Zoom.

You can access a range of FREE classes throughout the week.”

See below link to find out more and book a class if you wish:

https://lishi.org/classes/gentle-tai-chi-over-65s/#1606130440381-dbaffb0d-bfba  

They have three days noted on the above link – find the one that works for you whilst also being mindful of their health and safety guidance towards the end of their webpage (please read). And if in doubt seek guidance where you can from your GP or health professional before undertaking any new activity.

If you need any help with accessing the class online and using Zoom, or for further info please contact Claire as noted on her website link above.

Hetty Feather from The Shows Must Go On

This afternoon at 2pm, The Shows Must Go On presents the stage adaptation of Jacqueline Wilson’s Hetty Feather!

Available for 48 hours.

Jacqueline Wilson’s best-selling novel comes to life on stage as Hetty, a feisty young orphan with an intrepid imagination, embarks on an adventure to find her true home. Infused with live music and daring aerial feats, this new musical is perfect for the whole family.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

There’s also another chance to see War of The Worlds – this is available to watch until 5th January 2021

Shared Moments: ‘A slow read’ by Oliver Cross’

Because I’m a very slow reader, I decided soon after I started reading proper books as a teenager, that I should never read the same book twice, on the grounds that life wouldn’t be long enough for re-reading, particularly since we were all due to be destroyed by a nuclear bomb.

Which was a reasonable resolution until the pandemic closed all the bookshops and left me staring blankly at piles of books I should have donated  to charity decades ago.

There are a few books, like War and Peace or The Brothers Karmarazov, which I’ll never read again but which I leave on my bookshelves as a mark of respect for their greatness and also to impress visitors, which were things we used to have in the olden days.

I’ve broken my rule against re-reading only twice; once when I re-read Muriel Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie because I came across  an old copy by accident and remembered that it has a breath-taking ending which only works if you start on page one, and (twice) when  I went again through the thousand-or-so pages of Charles Dickens’s Bleak House because, although it struck me at the time as the best novel I’d ever read, I couldn’t quite remember what it was about.

Which, even after the re-reading, I still couldn’t because  it’s arranged around a fictional chancery court case called Jarndice v Jarndice, which ruins many lives and comes to nothing at all because, by the time it’s settled , all the money the litigants had been hoping for has been gobbled up by lawyers’ fees.

It’s really more of a shaggy-dog story than then a plot, although, around the black hole which is Jarndice v Jarndice, every page is teeming with life, creating a super-vivid picture of Victorian society which takes in everybody from the landed gentry of Lincolnshire to a boy who is making a scant living out if sweeping away horse dung from a London street-crossing.

Which is not to mention Mrs Jellyby, who is so concerned with the plight of African villagers that she fails to notice that her own neglected children spend much of their time falling down stairs out of windows, or Inspector Bucket, the first proper detective in English literature, or lawyers with creepy names like Mr Vholes.

There’s also Krook, a rag-and-bone merchant who dies by spontaneous combustion, Miss Flite, who has gone mad through thinking too much about the law, and a whole crowd of characters not normally encountered in polite fiction, such as Guster, a workhouse girl who has seizures when alarmed, which happens often because her employer is an hysterical alarmist, or Phil Squod, a disabled shooting gallery attendant who can only walk if he has a wall to lean on.

Half the Bleak House characters would now only appear if accompanied by a helpline number and a solemn announcement starting “If  you have been affected…”, as if being affected might be a dangerous thing rather than the whole point of getting lost in a book.

Coincidentally, just after writing this piece, I saw, in The Guardian,   that Nigella Lawson regularly re-reads David Copperfield because it’s a great book which “always  bowls me over afresh”.  I really think that if busy Nigella can find the time to both reorganise the nation’s eating habits and re-read Dickens, I’ve got no excuse for not returning to my second-favourite Dickens novel, Little Dorrit.

Thank you once again Oliver and Merry Christmas, until next time….

 

Swarthmore Centre Leeds – is offering FREE online courses starting in January 2021

Dear all,

Swarthmore Centre Leeds – is offering FREE online courses starting in January including  Jewellery Making, languages, life drawing, painting, poetry and a range of health and wellbeing courses including Yoga and the Alexander Technique.

 

For more information visit their page at

 

Swarthmore Education Centre

Festive Prizes

A few Caring Together members got an extra surprise just before Christmas when we arrived at the doorstep with a special hamper from our ‘Festive Draw’.

All our members were entered into this free draw and 3 were drawn at random to win a hamper and another 3 received prizes of tins of chocolate or biscuits.

The hampers, which contained some edible treats, some winter warmers – hats and scarves, toiletries and more, were made up with items generously donated by Caring Together members and supporters.