LivingLife - September 2022 - Issue 46

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Issue 46

September 2022

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ALSO INSIDE

SCENE BY YOU CUPCAKE GIVEAWAY PUZZLES IN PARIS

83 year old takes a dive!

Local resident takes to the skies for charity

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Welcome

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FROM THE EDITOrS Welcome to the September edition of LivingLife Magazine, the little magazine that packs a punch, full of local relevant content, helping to keep the community connected!

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Check out all our puzzle answers online at: www.livinglifemagazine.co.uk/puzzles

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local sky dive for charity golden ticket competition shefford community hall naked running! cupcake giveaway-your voucher! clifton walking group breast cancer awareness spot the specs! scene by you

DISCLAIMER The opinions expressed in LivingLife magazine do not necessarily reflect those of the editors, publisher or their agents. Whilst every reasonable care is taken to ensure the accuracy of information included within this publication, the publishers take no responsibility for any errors or omissions in LivingLife Magazine. The content is not to be reproduced in any form without permission of the publisher.

| John McBurney |

| Andrew Martin |

September derives from Latin word ‘septem’, which means ‘seven’, as it was originally the seventh of ten months in the oldest known Roman calendar, the calendar of Romulus c. 750 BC. Nowadays it is the ninth month of the year and in the northern hemisphere usually considered the first month of autumn.

In this edition we have our regular contribution from Mike Bullock from Spider Runners and this month it is all about ‘Naked Running’!

There’s no need to blush, the article isn’t about running through the fields in the buff, it’s about the benefits we can get from going back to basics - getting rid of the technology and expensive gear and embracing the wins we can all take from a little adventure in the countryside.

Our amazing cover photo this month was provided by Bridgette Whittaker, an 83-year-old thrill seeker from Shefford, who completed a tandem skydive for charity helping to raise funds for British-Ukrainian Aid. After several delays, the skydive eventually happened on 15th July. Inside, you can find out all about it.

GOLDEN TICKET ALERT! ONCE AGAIN… IT’S A ROLLOVER! The July ticket was not claimed, as such the prize pot for September is an almighty £75! Make sure you have a good rummage through the magazine and find that lucky golden ticket!

As always, there are lots of community events taking place over the next couple of months. Please have a flick through the magazine to find the posters which contain all of the relevant event information.

Finally, please support your local businesses, and if you do use the services of any of the wonderful businesses listed in the magazine, then please do mention LivingLife!

till next month

John & Andrew Next Copy Deadline 10th September for our October 2022 Issue Phone us 01462 414265 Email us admin@livinglifemagazine.co.uk visit us online www.livinglifemagazine.co.uk Like us on Facebook @Livinglifemagazine Follow us on Instagram @Livinglifemagazine

Please pass to a friend, recycle or compost after reading.

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charity

BRIDGETTE IS ON TOP OF THE WORLD! ack in the May edition of the magazine we brought news B of an 83-year-old lady who was attempting to jump out of a plane as part of a charity skydive. Well, she has only gone and done it!!!

Bridgette Whittaker, from Ivel Road in Shefford, successfully performed a tandem skydive at Sibson Airfield in Peterborough and at the same time raised lots of money for Ukraine.

We caught up with Bridgette to find out how the ‘big jump’ went…

“My original jump was scheduled for 2nd May, however, due to a change in the regulations for my age group this caused a delay. Then the weather took a turn, with lots of rain, then too much wind, and then not enough wind, and this meant further delays. Eventually, we got the green light and on 15th July we were blessed with lovely weather - sunny blue skies and just the right amount of wind!

Our aircraft took us up, high above the clouds, it was soon time to jump!

On my previous skydive I had my eyes closed for the duration, but on this occasion my skydive instructor, called Andy, told me to “Open your eyes”, and with my eyes open it really did feel like I was in space.

The whole experience was amazing! I can’t really explain it, it was absolute fantastic feeling. It was eerily silent, no birds, no nothing.

I remember looking down, and could see land, vast amounts of land, and it made me think to myself, how can man kill another man, how can nations attack other nations, when we have all this splendid earth below us? We have been given this beautiful land to do something with it, not to kill and destroy it.”

Bridgette is still on track to hit her £1000 fund-raising target. If you have not had chance to support Bridgette, then you can still sponsor her by simply visiting: https://gofund.me/1040194c where you can donate.

British-Ukrainian Aid supports people in any part of the world who are the victims of war or natural disaster, trouble, or catastrophe in particular by the supply of medical aid to such persons and organisations caring for them.

Bridgette added, “I would like to thank Chris & Hannah for kindly sponsoring me, they are the new owners of the Thornton Arms public house in Everton.

Also, thanks to LivingLife for kindly covering my charity skydive in their publication.”

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Can you find the Golden Ticket?

Keep a keen eye out in this magazine for this month’s Golden Ticket.

If you find it simply give us a call and quote the code on the ticket to claim the prize.

Prize fund Sponsored by...

Roll over

Current priz e

£75

It looks lik this, and w e ill be attached inside a mag

Monthly cash prize of £25! If this it is not claimed, then the prize fund will roll over to the following month!

The ticket will be loose in the magazine and have a unique 5 letter code. To claim, simply call us on 01462 414265. Winners agree to being published in LivingLife Magazine. Call must be received before the expiry date on the ticket. The editor’s decision is final.

Photography

Camera Slide Close Up Telephoto Colour Tint Contrast Tone Darkroom Tripod Developer Enlarger Filter Flash Frame Negative Overexposure Panorama Positive Print Processing Shutter Find the words associated with photography in the grid and the remaining letters will spell out a related phrase 10

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community

Contribution thanks to

Maggie Baker

SHEFFORD COMMUNITY HALl

Shefford Community Hall Committee

A date for your diary and more

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hefford Community Hall will be holding its Annual General Meeting on Friday 30th September in the hall (next to the fish & chip shop). Please come along and show your support for the facility and give your views on how the hall is run. Tea/coffee and cake will be available from 7pm and the AGM will start at 7.30pm.

As its name suggests, Shefford Community Hall is for the benefit of the whole Shefford community. The hall has charitable status, and it is run by voluntary trustees and a management committee. The committee needs some new members to help keep the hall running efficiently, so why not consider joining the management committee? It’s interesting and rewarding but not particularly onerous. The committee normally meets just once every three months (at a time of day that accommodates all members wherever possible).

For those new to the area, the hall was built in the early 19th century as a school room and vacated in the latter part of that century. In 1911 it was purchased by the church (St. Michaels and All Angels) as their parish rooms. In 1998 the church announced it was to be sold for residential building. At that time the hall was in a poor state of repair. A public meeting was held and at that meeting a committee was formed who then negotiated a lease with the church to run the hall for the Shefford community. Since then a lot of improvements have been made to the building and grounds.

The updating of the building continues. A baby changing station has just been installed and the committee have further projects in the pipeline, some of them quite ambitious.

Bookings for hire of the hall are being taken again following the ‘Covid years’.

Please see the website

www.sheffordcommunityhall.co.uk for hall hire details and also for information about regular activities.

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FITNESS & WELLBEING

NAKed running?

Time to take it all off!

Contribution thanks to

Mike Bullock Spider Runners www.bit.ly/spiderrunners

orry to disappoint, but this month’s article isn’t about running through the fields in the buff….

Sexpensive it’s about the benefits we can all get from going back to basics; getting rid of the technology and gear and embracing the wins we can all take from a little bimble in the countryside, with friends or solo, whether it be a short walk or a lung-bursting sprint along the canal.

No-Tech

Once you switch off the gadgets, and simply run for enjoyment, it’s amazing how much you suddenly notice… fish basking at the surface in the river, foxes skulking behind the bushes or that footpath sign you’ve never seen before… adventure awaits once you embrace Naked Running.

Pocket the Phone

We always recommend taking a phone for safety but turn it onto silent and zip it in your most inaccessible pocket… once you resist the temptation to check your Facebook or take a selfie, and just focus on your run, you’ll be amazed.

Mental (and Physical) Health It may sound strange, but constantly fixating on how fast that last run was, can actually damage your mental health. Don’t get me wrong, targets are good in any sport, but a lot of coaches swear by the 80/20 rule, whereby 80% of your runs are done at a gentle pace. I’m more a fan of 60/20/20, where the last 20% are Naked Runs…no pressure, no disappointment if you don’t hit that goal, just focussed on making yourself and your buddies happy.

And SMILE at everyone you meet….Scientists have proven that a big grin reduces the perceived effort you experience during exercise, and if you can combine it with a jaunty wave to that passing dog-walker then everyone’s a winner.

Mindfulness We often find a forest or lake and practice mindfulness techniques. Doesn’t matter if you stop & sit or continue your run, just clear your mind of all your stresses and just let the experience wash over you. It’s overwhelming how good it makes you feel…nature’s ultimate legal high.

Boost-a-Buddy How many times do you listen to your friends? I mean really listen?? How are they really coping with all the challenges being thrown at us every time we turn on the TV? Most of our running is with friends from Spider-Runners, and after all the loneliness of lockdown, 14

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Quick Crossword Across 1 Demand (6) 4 Smaller (6) 9 Hair cleanser (7) 10 Spin (5) 11 Freight (5) 12 Advantage (7) 13 Always (11) 18 Tolerant (7) 20 Arrive at (5) 22 Expel (5) 23 Apparent (7) 24 Dismal (6) 25 Floats (6) Down 1 Bug (6) 2 Step (5) 3 Prop up (7) 5 Consumed (5) 6 Accomplished (7) 7 Tell (6) 8 Mixture (11) 14 Exterior (7) 15 Appearance (7) 16 Scatter (6) 17 Phantoms (6) 19 Insert (5) 21 Bypass (5)

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Answers now online: www.livinglifemagazine.co.uk/puzzles

we realised just how lucky we were to be able to have so many friends to chat to. Sometimes it’s about the best cakes, but more often than not it’s about life’s challenges, and having one ear on the conversation and one ear on the next phone-ping is only doing half-a-job . You can tell the naked running approach works, as we sit in the café chatting for hours after our runs. It costs me a fortune in Lattes, but our friends have become GREAT friends.

Jeffing Founded by the famous coach jeff Galloway, in 1973, Jeffing is a combination of running and walking. Not only good for beginners or those returning from injury, but you’ll be amazed how much further you can go when you’re not stressing your body so much, and a perfect partner for Naked Running.

Coffee & Cake When we Naked-Run, we don’t have any GPS to tell us how far or how fast we’ve gone….we measure it in cake-shops!!! Rather than ‘We’ll run 5 miles today’ it becomes ‘We’ll run to that place with the best Cream Teas’. I can’t tell you if it helped my overall fitness, but I can certainly tell you my whole mental health gets a proper boost.

So give it a try… there are no fixed rules, but there’s no halfway, there’s no semi-naked, so ditch the Tech and Go Naked today.

Mama & Papa Spider Please support your local businesses -Don’t forget to mention LivingLife

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community

Contribution thanks to

SHEFFORD COMMUNITY FESTIVAL

Ian Deavin 07860 218334 www.sheffordcommunityfestival.co.uk

The Shefford 100 – Great Cupcake Giveaway short while ago I was wondering what more A the festival could do for Shefford this year and this bit of fun came to mind – let’s give away 100 cupcakes!

Fortunately the festival has friends who are willing to support such flights of fancy – friends like Livinglife who agreed to include the adjacent voucher and like the team at Rose’s @ Duck Lane who agreed to provide the cupcakes, and to distribute them to the lucky first 100 people who take in an original voucher on the basis of one cake per person, per voucher on the 17th September, between 9.00 am and 2.00 pm.

So it is simple – find the cupcake voucher in this copy of LivingLife and take it to Rose’s – if you are one of the first 100 at the right time then you can claim a cupcake – and knowing what Rose’s cakes are like then it will be delicious!

So do enjoy the Community Festival again this year with our best wishes. *Shefford Community Festival, LivingLife and Rose’s at Duck Lane accept no liability in respect of the cakes or their provision.

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community

Contribution thanks to

Karen Hicks

clifton walking group

Please contact for info:

Suzanne I’ons -07933709006 ionssuzanne@gmail.com

W

ith Summer well underway and the group walking local footpaths, there are so many options for eagle-eyed foragers. The first of the blackberries are glistening like jewels in the hedgerows; blackberry picking has always been a popular pastime, but did you know that blackberry syrup makes a fab mixer for a pink gin? Or use them to flavour vinegar for a salad dressing!

Down by the Ivel, Himalayan Balsam, long considered invasive, is in full flower. Feel free to collect flowers or seeds, which taste like walnuts and can be eaten raw. They cook up to make a great dahl or can be used toasted in cookies; I shall be trying both recipes very soon.

Hazel trees are laden with a good crop of nuts this year, they are ripening nicely but beware squirrels beating you to the harvest.

The hawthorn berries for jelly will be ready soon, as will sloes for gin making, but further on the Rowan tree is dripping with orange red fruits that make a good jelly to serve with lamb.

On the ground there is plenty of red clover.

As kids we ate butter, sugar and clover flower sandwiches why not try it? Tansy is growing bright yellow along the edge of the cornfield, you need only a couple of leaves to flavour an omelette. There is wild fennel and wild marjoram on the field edge too. Who needs a herb garden when the countryside offers of much?

I love walking in the late summer with so much wild food growing along the way and the promise of more to come later in the year.

Happy hunting!

Himalayan Balsam

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health

Contribution thanks to

Jaqui Derrick

BREAST CANCER AWARENESS

Care Coordinator Ivel Valley South Primary Care Network

#breastfootforward

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reast cancer is the most common type of cancer in the UK, mostly affecting women over the age of 50, but younger women, and men can also get breast cancer. About 1 in 8 women are diagnosed with breast cancer during their lifetime. Remember, when breast cancer is spotted early, treatment is more likely to be successful. Thanks to research, treatments are kinder and more effective than ever.

Go to: www.nhs.uk/conditions/breast-screeningmammogram/how-to-decide-if-you-wantbreast-screening/ to find out more about: -How do I decide if I want to have breast screening?

-Am I eligible and when will I be invited?

-What are the benefits and what are the risks?

You will automatically get your first invite for breast screening between the ages of 50 and 53, and then you’ll be invited every 3 years until you turn 71. If you have previously been invited but missed the opportunity to have your breast screening, you can book to attend your nearest clinic by calling 01582 497599.

Please visit to find your nearest breast screening service: www.nhs.uk/service-search/other-services/ Breast-screening-services/LocationSearch/325 Article by Jaqui Derrick, Care Coordinator, Ivel Valley South Primary Care Network (supporting Larksfield, Arlesey, Lower Stondon, Shefford and Flitwick surgeries). If you are a registered patient at one of these surgeries and need information about breast screening services, please email blmkicb.carecoordinator.ivs@nhs.net.

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Spot the Specs.....

Sponsored by:

Let our tricky puzzle put your observational skills to the test.

Can you spot the 10 sunglasses in the image?

You can a find the answers at www.livinglifemagazine.co.uk/puzzles

Paul Adler Optometrist, 50 High Street, Stotfold, Herts, SG5 4LL Tel: 01462 732393 www.eyezone.co.uk 26

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SCENE BY YOU Your chance to share your favourite photos

Submit your photo for the next edition www.livinglifemagazine.co.uk/myphotos

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2 5 A big thanks to this month’s submissions

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Christoper Baker

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John Day

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Peter Stephens

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Linda Parcell

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Rebecca Bithrey

Bee Orchids

Lightning over Stotfold

Chicken of the Woods Millenium Green Red Admiral

Hummingbird Hawk Moth in our garden

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money saving

Bargain Hunting Looking after the Pennies!

Contribution thanks to

Andy O’Brien Henlow Resident

don’t need to tell you that food prices are shooting up – you know that. But I’ve become a Isport/hobby. bit of an expert in supermarket saving. I’m not saying it’s easy but I think of it as a combined Every evening, my local supermarket reduces the price on those items nearing their ‘sell by date’. Nothing seems to be off limits: fresh salads, lamb chops, curries, and scotch eggs (there’s always lots of scotch eggs – does no-one eat them anymore?)

By 6.30pm I’m in the supermarket, basket in hand and hovering. I normally loiter around the lowfat yogurts; you don’t often get interrupted by anyone wanting to buy one.

It’s also useful if you can appear to be engrossed in something. For example, although I appear to be debating the merits of ‘low fat’ versus ‘no fat’, I am in reality waiting for ‘The Door’ to open.

It is through this door that he will come (and it’s always a ‘he’ at my supermarket), carrying with him a device loaded with bright yellow stickers.

He will then start looking at the sell by/best before dates on the fresh items, removing them to a separate trolley for the mass repricing. He won’t start the labelling until all the necessary items have been selected and is likely to disappear back through the door if you ask: “Oh, are you going to be reducing that?”

Now, I find it useful at this stage to reposition to a more advantageous spot. By that, I mean a place where you can clearly see what he is doing, while still managing to appear engrossed in some other items on offer. I peruse those little pots of olives and garlic that cost an absolute fortune; these never seem to be reduced.

A crowd of fellow bargain hunters will now have begun to gather. I always have to resist the urge to charge forward, elbow them out of the way and shout: “Get back, I was here first.” I don’t know what stops me really...one day you’ll probably hear about it on the news: “Woman threatens shoppers with a French stick over a penny off.”

Items are now scanned, reductions made, stickers stuck and the ‘treasure’ is put into the reduced item area. The crowd erupts into a scramble of clashing baskets, grabbing hands and hard elbows.

I hold back: waiting for a pause, a gap, a chance to get something...anything!

Finally, the crowd parts and I can see my chance.

Two tubs of spicy couscous, two egg salads, a Madras curry and several cartons of fresh soup. No scotch eggs tonight.

I share the soup with a young woman who has a toddler in tow. She graciously lets me have both pots of couscous and I allow her two egg salads.

We leave the curry for someone else. I spot the reduced chicken breasts in a fellow shopper’s basket and resist the urge to grab them and run for the tills.

I’ve already saved a fortune...I think.

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I B E E A C E E I E C O E O B T B E F R B E I I E T R T C T F E I T Y B T M I E C F I A N U L R I I R G E A W G E A I N E R E B T C L E F F I E BERET BAGUETTE METRO FRANCE WINE EIFFEL BICYCLE

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TREE &

GARDEN SERVICES

Tree Surgery Felling Crown Reductions Pruning Stump Grinding Hedge Maintenance Garden Clearance

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