As we are now registered as a Charity we are busy making plans for your future support and putting processes into place to allow us to work efficiently – oh get us sounding all professional! 
So, what we need from you is to please join us and become a member, this is a very simple process. When you join, we can then get in touch with you and ask you how we can best support you. We will also be looking at members locations to map out our activities. You can join for free or you can make a donation when you join. Here is the link: Join Us
Thank you xxx

Very many thanks to everyone who organises the Harpole Live and Let Live Meat Raffle and to everyone who buys a ticket. This raffle is organised every week in
Harpole and raises money for local charities – what a great idea and what a great village. They have donated a smashing £200 to us to help us support everyone affected by Parkinson’s in Northamptonshire.

The Committee is looking forward to organising activities for when we are safe to get back together – and we really would like to match the activities to your needs.
Our idea’s so far are:

Wednesday Walkies and Friday Frolics – up and running – well walking with poles to be more accurate! Please join us if you want. We are wishing to get back to some normality and we want to see friends we haven't for so long - so we have decided to make walks a permanent fixture..... (unless the rules change!)
Wednesday and Fridays Walkies at 10:30 am meeting at Racecourse Pavillion - Kettering road. plenty of free parking next to the pavilion. We are observing social distancing by keeping 2 metres apart and wearing our masks during any
closer exposure - such as when Sylvia sells her plants, delicious jam and AMAZING CARDS - made by Pat Warren - from the boot of her car!!! Fools and Horses style

(all proceeds going to Northants Parkinson's People)
PLUS when there are more than six of us, we split into two groups - which is what we usually do anyway.
If you would like to join us, please bring your camping chairs and a flask so we can all sit and have a catch up after the walk. It would be nice to see a few old friends but….
Please only consider joining us if you can confirm you are COVID-19 symptom-free and/or outside the infection isolation period if you have had symptoms or contact with an infected person.

Virtual Pub Quiz   Every 1st Saturday of the month. 11:00 am Zoom in with the in-crowd. Several rounds of General Knowledge, Music and Pictures. A bit of a social at the end. Use any of the contact methods above to get your invite.

NBC will grant a reduction on Council Tax if a resident at the property is disabled, and there is an extra room, or an extra bathroom or kitchen to meet the special needs of the disability, or if you use a wheelchair indoors. The council will reduce the bill by putting the home in the valuation band below the one it currently is in. If the property is in band A, the charge will be reduced by the equivalent of one-ninth of band D charge. Council Tax law defines a “disabled resident” as someone who is substantially and permanently disabled, whether by illness, injury, congenital deformity or otherwise.

From my experience with both of these benefits, the outcomes are not always consistent. Sometimes the “disabled resident’s relief” will be granted on the evidence of a separate bedroom alone, sometimes this will not be enough. With the council tax exemption for “severely mentally impaired” the outcomes seem to be equally as inconsistent. Parkinson’s does not cause severe mental impairment per se. I know of individuals who do not have severe mental health problems but do have Parkinson’s and have applied, and been granted this benefit. So either is worth applying for.

South Northants link:
https://www.southnorthants.gov.uk/info/12/council-tax/108/council-tax-discounts/2

Over the past couple of years, I have developed quite a passion for fruit trees. I think the seeds were first sown in my mind when I watched an Alan Titchmarsh programme on growing fruit trees in the smallest garden either directly in the ground or in pots. In particular, Mr Titchmarsh was extolling the merits of growing a lemon tree. That was it! I became hooked on the idea of growing my own lemon and sitting with a gin and tonic with a large slice of same in it! You can imagine my delight when in November 2016 my husband gave me a small potted lemon tree with an actual lemon on it. it was placed in the conservatory and cosseted and admired by me. I can see Bob’s face now rolling his eyes as I checked on the status of the lemon every morning. The following year I potted it on to a slightly larger pot. Then Monty Don popped up on tv saying to put potted lemon trees out in the garden in summer. So that’s what I did. Then in the autumn, it was repotted into a bigger pot. Monty had advised moving the tree into a greenhouse for winter which we did with a bit of difficulty because it was now quite heavy. The following spring out came the tree and it was tended with loving care. I think I went a bit too far with the attention as all the tiny lemons (size of a thumbnail) turned black and dropped off. Overwatering was the culprit. I was upset, to say the least. All too soon winter 2019 was nearly upon us and it was time to protect the tree. However, it had grown so much that I decided it would have to take its chances outside. I bought a large fleece bag with a drawstring tie. Then trimmed the top branches back by a foot and popped the bag over and pushed the pot against the fence for shelter. I watered it once a month throughout the winter.
Spring 2020 arrived along with an unwelcome visitor (I mention no names but suffice to say it ends with the number 19), and, as a consequence, many of us have spent more time in the garden than previous years. The lemon tree cover was removed, a few browned leaves trimmed off and a good drink of water. Special citrus food was purchased and administered with its weekly watering. The result is that at the moment I have about 20 lemons nestling in amongst the branches. I am amazed it is still producing flowers. Lemon trees do not have a season they can flower any time. I’m not sure how long before I can pick one but I will check weekly when the cover is on.

It has been a bumper year for fruit. Most of you already know about the number of plums I had this year on my semi-dwarf Victoria. Many of my friends and neighbours have had a bumper crop too. I'm wondering if it is anything to do with the lack of pollution over the last six months? I have also had quite a lot of cox’s pippin apples from a dwarf tree. My next addition will be in November when I will be planting two pear trees against the fence, remember… the one I painted green.

This month Doug regales us with a tale from his childhood. And as all childhood adventures require a cover illustration we have dug up (no pun intended) an old photo of Bridge St Station in Northampton where Dougs adventure started.

Dear Readers,
This ìs a tale of (in my mind at least) daring-do and grown-up adventure. The start of the school holidays was upon us or would be in two weeks. This was the new Elizabethan era or so everyone kept calling it. It seemed to imbue all with new confidence particularly with the young. So, on a bright July morning in 1952 (just after my 9th birthday). I was taken to the railway station in Northampton by my mother, where she spoke to a friend of my Dad, who was the guard of the train to Peterborough.
Yes, people, I was going on my own to spend 6 weeks with my aunt and uncle in a little coastal village called Titchwell, near Hunstanton, Norfolk. As the train pulled out I saw my mother waving and I duly waved back. I then started to look around me, it was one of the old corridor steam trains.
After a while, as we approached Earls Barton the guard came by, enquiring if I was alright and I told him that I was marking of each stop as we passed through them. The journey was going to plan as Wellingborough, Oundle went by and we arrived at Peterborough. I knew that I would have to change trains then. So picking up my suitcase and making sure that I had everything, ticket, money, suitcase, backpack, sandwiches, comic and my raincoat thus encumbered with this load I alighted on Peterborough station.
I now had to wait about 45 minutes for a train to Hunstanton. As I sat on a breezy station I heard on a crackly tannoy: “the 12.45 to Hunstanton via March and Wisbech is now leaving at 12.58. from platform 6. Well, that meant that my train was now late and going from a different platform. I promptly went in search of a porter or someone in charge after I finally found one and he snootily said that ‘yes young man the train for Lynn and Hunstanton is running late and is from platform 6, but you’ll have to hurry’, thankfully the chap who the snooty man had been speaking to, just took my suitcase said ‘come on sunshine I’m going that way I’ll make sure you catch it’. So we hurried off and I did indeed catch the right train.
So I continued on my journey, thinking about this event now it must have had some effect on me as I have always been independent and looked after myself. But back to the tale. My journey carried on through March, Wisbech and Kings Lynn past the Royal residence of Sandringham, finally arriving at Hunstanton and there waiting for me was my Aunty Poppy, waiting in her mode of transport: a pony and trap. I kid you not, that was her transport, and we arrived at my aunt’s house which was the cottage next to the Forge. This was because my uncle (Philip) was the local blacksmith. I had a great holiday there in the village of Titchwell.
About 6 years ago I went to see if the place had changed. I found that the village is still there on the coast road, about 4 miles out of Hunstanton and just before you get to Brancaster. I also found that the old forge has gone and has been converted and extended with the old cottage.
But it was indeed a great holiday and a grand adventure when I, a 9-year-old lad, was allowed to set forth and travel over a hundred miles across the country on my own. Heaven only knows what Social Services would make such an occurrence happening today. I should imagine that my mother would now at this time be severely castigated for allowing such a thing, but my mother was a kind and a loving mum, it was just that in the world at that time, it was considered to be a more understanding place and I think was better for it.
Doug

Recipes Of the Month
We have TWO recipes this month both will, in their own way warm you up 
Brioche and Jaffa cake Pudding

This recipe is a great winter treat. I'm definitely going to experiment with this and will be adding some Baileys in the egg custard sometime.

Ingredients

Chilli Jam

 

As I type this paragraph people are fighting in the isles for the last toilet roll - Again. The supermarkets announced there will be no shortages so long as no one panic buys, this has triggered panic buying so there are shortages. you couldn't make it up, could you?
I am now in the billionaire tax bracket, well I pay about the same as Donald Trump. That reminds me, a rat has just been awarded a gold medal for bravery (good for him) for detecting landmines in Cambodia. 
And if all this news is too much for you, Radio Northampton DJ's were discussing AND TRYING Cannabis tea this morning, I was driving at the time but a quick google just now shows it is made in Northamptonshire and is by all accounts very relaxing.  
 

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