Simply Brightlingsea Issue 60

Issue 60

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A Declaration of Love A history of the Valentine card

At the primary school I attended, a decorated post box (i.e., a paper-covered cardboard box with a slit cut in it) would appear in the entrance in February and we were encouraged to post

Valentine cards to our friends. I don’t know if this dubious ‘popularity contest’ was repeated in other schools but I do remember the thrill when I finally received a card!

Armagnac, which uses the phrase, ‘Je suis desja d'amour tanné, Ma tres doulce Valentinée,’ (old French) which translates to, ‘I am already sick of love, My very gentle Valentine.’

The earliest surviving Valentine missive was written by a French man Charles, Duke of Orleans during his imprisonment in the Tower of London, following his capture during the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. It was a tender poem to his wife, Bonne of

The earliest example of an English Valentine dates to 1477 and was a love letter was written by Margery Brews to her fiancé John Paston. Margery refers to John as her ‘right well-beloved Valentine’ and implores him to marry her despite the fact she can’t convince her father to increase her dowry. Marriage had little to do with romance in the 15th century, but apparently they did eventually tie the knot!

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Something akin to a modern greeting

card for Valentine’s Day appeared in the 1700s. These cards were handmade, and usually hand-delivered by slipping them under a door. Romantics who found it difficult to commit their feelings to paper could actually buy booklets of verse suggestions.

The oldest printed Valentine’s Day card in existence can be viewed in York Castle Museum. It was printed in London in 1797 and features elaborate floral patterns, cupids and doves. It was hand-coloured because colour printing was not available in the 18th century, and the verse reads, ‘Since on this ever Happy day, All Nature's full of Love and Play. Yet harmless still if my design, 'Tis but to be your Valentine.’

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To Advertise in Simply Magazine: 01206 233717 F any information or to submit an article or advert contact David Cook: For Call: C 01206 233717 Out Of Office: O 07734 171985 EEmail: SimplyColchester@gmail.com Head Office: H Simply Magazine, 1 George Williams Way, Colchester, Essex CO1 2JS

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Issue 61: 27/02/22 Issue 62: 27/03/22

Simply Magazine assumes no liability or responsibility for any inaccurate, delayed or incomplete information, nor for any actions taken in reliance thereon. The information contained about each individual, event or organization has been provided by such individual, event organizers or organization without verification by us. The opinion expressed in each article is the opinion of its author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Simply Magazine. Therefore, Simply Magazine carries no responsibility for the opinion expressed thereon. Any form of reproduction of any content without the written permission of the publisher is strictly prohibited. For information on advertising or submitting a article please email David Cook at: Simplycolchester@gmail.com or call 01206 233717 / 07734 171985

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A Good Read

expertise in fixing radios makes him a valuable asset to the Nazis as they track down the resistance.

Doerr deftly interweaves the lives of these two youngsters, and along the way shows us how against all the odds, people mostly do try to be good to one another.

All the Light We Cannot See - By Anthony Doerr Marie-Laure is blind. She lives in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where her father works. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris forcing father and daughter to flee to the home of Marie-Laure’s reclusive great uncle, carrying what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.

Werner Pfennig, is an orphan, growing up in a mining town with his younger sister, learning about the world through a crude radio they find. Werner's

This book is built on beautiful imagery.

Both in the literal sense - vividly evoking 1940s Paris and Germany - and the metaphorical as it's woven through with scientific and philosophical references to light, to seeing and not seeing, and the differences between the two. It's the beautiful and harrowing story of two childhoods torn apart by war. We learn how Mari-Laure and Werner are both forced along paths they did not choose due to their desperate personal circumstances.

There is a running theme of interconnectedness, of invisible lives running parallel to one another yet sometimes coming together in the strangest of ways. Marie-Laure and Werner are from different worlds, yet each influences the other.

All the Light We Cannot See is a

haunting novel. The elegant prose and engaging, heart-breaking stories will remain with you long after you've reached the final page. The title hints at the fact that just as we only see a small part of the electromagnetic spectrum, so we are only ever aware of a fraction of the spectrum of history. But if we could look deeper, we'd see the untold stories and they would be beautiful and strangely luminescent in their own right.

The Invisible - By Tom Percival This is another book about untold stories and human connections. Tom Percival has blended gorgeous illustrations with his simple, clear prose in this picture book which is perfect for bedtime reading. Isabel is a happy child whose parents love her and each other but the family is struggling financially. They slip through society's cracks and descend into poverty. Isabel discovers that poverty brings a cloak of invisibility. Noone seems to see her, though she can see more than ever before. She begins to notice the other invisible members of society, and she begins to understand that alongside invisibility poverty brings something else...loneliness. Isabel decides that she will do something to

Today we use the Gregorian Calendar, a solar calendar used in the international standard for Representation of dates and times.

In Roman times though the calendar had a quite different structure. It originally consisted of 10 months rather than 12. There were 304 days in the year; six months had 30 days each and four months had 31 days each. Then the Roman king Numa Pompilius decided to bring the calendar in line with the lunar year and added January and February to the original 10 months. The king did not want months with even numbers of days though, because the Romans believed even numbers were unlucky. To this end he subtracted a day from each of the 30-day months to make them all 29. The lunar year consists of 354.367 days, but he didn’t want to round the number down to 354 because that

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The book has modern social themes, but rather than being unremittingly grim, or alternatively, ridiculously upbeat and positive, Percival uses his light touch to show us the humanity and love that exist between people everywhere in society, and how we can all make a difference, whoever we are. The beautiful, heart-warming ending doesn't rely on a lottery win, or a fairy godmother but on Isabel herself showing the way. The author has drawn on his own experiences growing up in poverty to create a gentle and thoughtprovoking window into a world that for many of us goes entirely unnoticed. This is another book that will stay with you and one which children will delight in hearing again because it has the magic of a fairy tale with none of the schmaltz.

Word Search

30 Days hath September…

“I wonder why February is the only month that has 28 days…” my teenage son mused one day. It got me thinking.

tackle the problem.

would make the entire year unlucky, so he rounded up to 355 instead. Now he had six months with 29 days and 4 months with 31 days, giving 298 days, and leaving 57 extra days to be divided between the two new months.

Mathematics dictated that one of the months would have to have an even number of days because the sum of any even amount (12 months in this case) of odd numbers will always equal an even number - and he needed the total to be odd. So, the king chose February as the unlucky month.

Over the following centuries the calendar has been altered several times.

February has been shortened at some points, and sometimes a leap month was included, but eventually February has settled at 28 days, with the addition of a leap day every four years.

And the answer to my son’s question?

February has 28 days because of superstitious Romans!

Aristotle

Crick

Feynman

Hahn

Maxwell Rutherford

Bell

Curie

Fleming

Hawking

Newton Tesla

Bohr

Darwin

Franklin

Hubble

Nobel

Boyle

Edison

Galileo

Kepler

Pasteur

Copernicus

Faraday

Goodall

Linnaeus

Planck

Answers on page 8

The Story of The Devil's Footprints

In February 1855 one of the UK’s greatest unexplained mysteries occurred. Yet few people outside of Devon have ever heard about the mystery of the Devil’s footprints.

On the evening of February 8th, a heavy snowfall blanketed the entire South Devon countryside. The last snow fell around midnight, and the following morning early risers were shocked to see a mysterious trail of footprints stretching for hundreds of miles in a straight line.

Reports came in from Dawlish, Exmouth, Lympstone, Teignmouth and Topsham and everyone reported the same phenomenon. It was as though some creature had raced through the countryside leaving behind them tracks that no-one could identify.

The tracks were exactly 8 inches apart, and approximately 2-3 inches long. Although they were shaped like a hoofprint they appeared to have been made by a two-legged rather than a four-legged animal. Bizarrely they passed over rooftops, along windowsills and through solid walls.

In one place they reached a river and reappeared on the opposite side, two miles away!

A rumour started that it was the devil roaming the countryside in search of sinners. Clergymen were keen to suggest this was indeed the case, and parishioners became scared to go out after dark.

The footprints were reported in the national press at the time, which sparked some lively correspondence including plenty of theories; that the footprints were made by an escaped kangaroo, a badger (because their hind footprints fall exactly into their front footprints so give the appearance of a two-legged animal), and even a large balloon trailing a rope or a chain.

Yet none of the theories could explain away everything the Devon residents

reported that night, so the myth of the Devil’s footprints persisted. It even inspired the 2014 film; Dark was the Night.

Modern day psychologists have mooted a possible explanation for the events in the concept of ‘social contagion’ or ‘social epidemic,’ when an idea spreads by suggestion..

Journalist and author Malcolm Gladwell proposes three rules of social epidemics. First is ‘the law of the few,’ which involves influential people helping to tip an idea into widespread popularity. The clergy in 19th Century England would certainly have been influential in this regard. Secondly is ‘the stickiness factor’ which suggests that some ideas are more contagious than others. The idea of the Devil racing through the countryside would have been both exciting and terrifying.

Finally, there is ‘…the importance of the cultural environment contributing to the spread of an idea.’ In 19th Century culture people were certainly more God-fearing and so more likely to be influenced by the Church.

A more modern example of social contagion occurred in Holland, in 1978. A panda was reported in the press to have escaped from Rotterdam Zoo, which resulted in 100 sightings of the animal all over Holland, in spite of the fact the poor beast had been killed by train just a few yards from the zoo!

In this case the authority of the press placed the idea in people’s minds, while excitement and anticipation caused them to perceive dogs and native wild animals as the panda and each ‘sighting’ triggered another… contagion in action. This phenomenon is also frequently observed with UFO sightings and other paranormal events.

Across 1 Spectacles (7) 5 Foot joint (5) 8 Apologise, redeem (5) 9 Die (7) 10 Surveying method used to calculate distance (13) 11 Sound reflections (6) 12 Petrified prehistoric remains (6) 15 Sweets and chocolates (13) 18 Heathrow or Gatwick (7) 19 Common blood pressure medication (5) 20 Layers (5) 21 Captures, seduces (7)

Down 1 Enormous, colossal (5) 2 Eradicate, prohibit (7) 3 American name for canine guides for the blind (6, 3, 4) 4 Element with symbol Na (6) 5 Person who excavates historic remains (13) 6 Brownish-olive (5) 7 Without pause, endless (7) 11 Bewitch, enthral (7) 13 Rainbow (7) 14 Effigy, figure (6) 16 Courage, fortitude (5) 17 Slang name for US citizens (5)

Quick Crossword

Whether a myth or just a trick of the mind, the Devil’s footprints remain an intriguing event and we’ll probably never know what really happened!

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To Reverse Ageing, Think Blue What are Blue Zones and what can they teach us about ageing?

As a nation we’re obsessed with ageing. We try to turn the clock back with lotions, potions and sometimes Botox and fillers.

Yet some nations seem to have solved this issue without resorting to cosmetics or surgery. These people live in the world’s so-called Blue Zones. The term ‘Blue Zones’ refers to geographic areas in which people have low rates of chronic disease including heart disease, diabetes, dementia, and several types of cancer, and enjoy life spans more than a decade longer than people elsewhere in the world. The concept of Blue Zones grew out of the work done by researchers Gianni Pes and Michel Poulain. The five Blue Zones are: Ikaria in Greece, Okinawa in Japan, The Ogliastra Region in Sardinia, Loma Linda in California (which boasts the highest concentration of Seventh Day Adventists in the US), and the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica.

Dan Buettner, who is an author, explorer, educator, and endurance cyclist, studied these regions intensively and concluded that the inhabitants all shared certain characteristics.

They exercise – but not at the gym, and they don’t run. Instead, they live in environments that encourage movement. They walk, garden, and tend to use manual tools rather than electric ones, when working in the house and garden.

They live with purpose - The Okinawans call it ikigai and the Nicoyans call it plan de vida; both roughly translate to "why I wake up in the morning." A sense of purpose adds several years to your life span.

They take time out – Everyone, even those living in Blue Zones experience stress. Stress is the leading cause of chronic inflammation

and is associated with every major age-related disease. The Blue Zone populations understand how to deal with and diffuse that stress.

Okinawans take a few moments each day to remember their ancestors, Adventists pray, Ikarians take a nap, and Sardinians do happy hour!

They follow the 80% rule - The Okinawan’s have a 2,500-year-old Confucian mantra, ‘Hara hachi bu’, which they recite before meals. It reminds them to stop eating when their stomachs are 80% full. The 20% gap between not being hungry and feeling full could be the difference between losing weight and gaining it. People in the Blue Zones eat their smallest meal in the early evening, and then they don't eat any more for the rest of the day.

They eat a plant-based diet -The people of the Blue Zones eat mainly plants and beans, limiting meat to

small portions a few times per month.

They drink moderately – Apart from the Adventists, all the people living in the Blue Zones drink alcohol regularly.

Moderate drinkers actually outlive non-drinkers. So, keep to one to two glasses a day, preferably drunk with a meal and with friends or family They have a community - The world's longest-lived people chose - or were born into - social circles that support healthy behaviours. For example, Okinawans created moais - groups of five friends that committed to each other for life. Research shows that smoking, obesity, happiness, and even loneliness are contagious, so healthy social networks are essential for long life.

So, if you are interested in living a longer, and healthier life…think blue!

puzzle solutions:

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FREE WheelPower Sports Festival is coming to Essex this March The WheelPower Sports Festival will welcome disabled people of all ages to the Northern Gateway Sports Park, Colchester on Thursday 10 March for a day of sporting fun and activity.

Organised by the national charity for wheelchair sport and supported by the Rotary Club of Colchester, this upcoming event provides a fantastic new opportunity for anyone with a physical disability over the age of 5 to play sport,

meet new people and be more active.

During the all-day event at the Northern Gateway Sports Park (Colchester) participants will have the opportunity to try a variety of different sports, whilst being supported throughout by qualified and experienced coaches.

The confirmed sports so far will include wheelchair tennis, sitting volleyball, boccia, cricket, and hand cycling, so there will be a wide variety of different activities to enjoy from beginning to end.

“We are really looking forward to

bringing our Sports Festival to Essex and transforming the lives of more disabled people through sport and activity. The most important thing about the day is for everyone to have fun and to go away with new skills and knowledge to help you to continue playing sport and be more active in the future.” Emily Weller, Head of Sport WheelPower.

The WheelPower Sports Festivals support disabled people of all ages to discover sport in a safe and welcoming environment. People such as Nicki from Kent, “I have attended many WheelPower Sports Festivals before

and they are really well organised. I tried several new sports and I would recommend the event to others. You don’t need to worry about being too young or too old, it’s about self-belief, so come along and give it a try.”

The WheelPower Sports Festival is open to both groups and individuals, and booking forms are available to download via the charity’s website www.wheelpower.org.uk/sport-events For more information about this event please email sport@wheelpower.org.uk or call the WheelPower sports team on 01296 395995.

Colchester Borough Council’s annual tree giveaway returns for its 15th year!

The annual ‘Trees for Years’ giveaway, where Colchester Borough Council gives away trees for free, returns this month for its 15th year with a brandnew way for residents to get their hands on free native trees.

Residents are being offered a big helping hand to green-up their gardens, with 15,000 free native trees, shrubs and fruit bushes chosen for their ability to promote wildlife in gardens and value to our local bee population available to residents.

The annual event was postponed in 2021 due to Covid restrictions but returns with a new click and collect system this year. Designed to make it easier for residents to collect from a location suitable to them, this new system will also minimise crowds as there will be five venues available across the borough, all with a different collection date.

An online form is now available on the website at www.colchester.gov.uk/ trees-for-years/ where residents can

select up to three trees at one of five venues across the borough, and then select a time slot for collection on the date relevant to that venue. The five venues are: •

Highwoods Country Park Thursday 17 February

•

Highwoods Country Park - Sunday 20 February

•

Marks Tey Village Hall - Wednesday 23 February

•

Hythe Community Centre Thursday 24 February

•

St Anne’s Community Centre Friday 25 February

•

Tiptree Leisure World - Saturday 26 February

Trees available include: silver birch; holly; hazel; beech, red stem dogwood, yellow stem dogwood, and for residents with less garden space, there will be a variety of shrubs including blackcurrant

and raspberries. All trees are bare-root and range in height from 50cm to 1.2m. Residents can also access a free planting guide online.

The trees are only available to borough residents, who will be asked to provide a valid postcode when filling in the form and email confirmation when collecting. Residents should also bring their own bags.

Now in its 15th year, the scheme has been made possible thanks to £2,000 sponsorship from idVerde, which works in partnership with the council to maintain the borough’s green spaces, and through the Colchester Woodland and Biodiversity project.

Rob Wilson, of idVerde, said: “We are extremely pleased to support Trees for Years once again. Not only is this a great scheme to help residents and community groups to green up their gardens for free, but the day is always a great opportunity for our team to meet and get to know Colchester’s residents.”

Cllr Simon Crow, Portfolio Holder for

Environment and Sustainability, added: “A big thank you to idVerde for their continued support and sponsorship of this inspiring initiative, which gives residents a chance to help create a greener borough.

“We’re delighted to be able to run the event this year, after last year’s event had to be postponed due to Covid restrictions. We hope the new way of registering for and collecting trees will make this initiative even more accessible to residents across the borough.”

To find out more about the event and access the online form visit https:// www.colchester.gov.uk/trees-for-years/.

If you need additional help to book online, don’t forget about the Digital Access Support Team (DAST) who can work with local people to use any online services they need: 01206 282452.

Alternatively, if you are unable to access the internet and need help completing the online form, please call 01206 282266 Option 1.

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Garden View This month - Contain your excitement

become really established and give me a running a start.

For me February marks the real beginning of the gardener’s year. Seed sowing starts in earnest, and we can begin to plan to bring the patio pots alive. As a gardener I do raise a lot of my plants from seeds in cold frames and greenhouses. But there is no right way to approach this. If you’re super busy and time in the garden is short, wait until late February and purchase fresh, well grown young plants from the garden centre. Yes its more expensive but it might be worth it in time and energy saved.

I use containers of all sizes but generally the large ones provide more impact. If they are to large and heavy to move easily, plant them with hardy bulbs or permanent shrubs or trees.

You can then add seasonal geraniums and pansies etc around the core planting. Small, moveable containers can be planted with bright bulbs and specimen plants that can be brought to the front as they reach their peak with flowers or foliage. If you have a sheltered frost-free area for a cold frame or poly cover you can plant early, keep safe from the worst of the winter weather, and then bring them out when the frosts have finished.

The patio is a great place to indulge your creativity. Do you want a brilliant chaotic colour palate or a cool tranquil colour scheme, or maybe even monochrome calming greens in many textures of foliage. I think of patio pots like soft furnishings in the house… changing things up can transform the mood.

While containers are conventionally planted in autumn and late spring, they can actually be planted at any time of year, and I like to get a couple planted up in February so they can

Good trees for larger containers are conifers. There is such a huge variety of shapes and colours to choose from. For patios its best to choose more compact, well-groomed shapes in bright greens or yellows. Groups of three or five pots containing contrasting shapes and colours work very well together. Alternatively go for similar shapes in a variety of sizes and colours.

Because February tends to be quite wet drainage can be an issue. As a guide, patio and decking surfaces should be dry, or only wet if it’s rained recently. If a patio or decking is constantly wet it’s likely that algae and moss will start to grow which can look unsightly and make the surface dangerously slippery to walk on. Use a strong yard brush and approved

detergent to keep hard surfaces clean and safe.

As anticipation in gardening provides much of the pleasure take the garden furniture out of storage this month and clean it up…then you can enjoy a cup of tea on sunny days and watch your patio begin to wake up.

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Community groups invited to get involved in Covid commemoration evening People from the emergency and frontline services as well as representatives from voluntary groups who played a key role in supporting Colchester residents through the pandemic are also being invited to attend the evening being staged at the Mercury.

Community groups across the borough are being invited to organise ‘watch along’ events to enable local residents to come together for a special Covid commemoration event being staged on Saturday 26 March.

The event, Commemoration – Remembering and Celebrating the Loves, Lives and Losses of the Last Two Years, is being developed by the Mercury Theatre in partnership with Colchester Borough Council. It will be staged between 7.30pm and 9.30pm, including a short interval.

However, the event is also going to be live streamed via Colchester Borough Council’s YouTube channel, Youtube. co.uk/ColchesterCBC, so as many people as possible can watch it. The show will also be live captioned for those who are deaf or hard of hearing.

The evening of songs, music, readings, poetry and special performances is being staged free of charge by the Mercury Theatre. There will also be performances from local groups and professionals.

The council has written to a range of community groups and parish councils to encourage them to stage their own events in keeping with the commemoration feel and invite people from their local area to come together, get involved and watch it live.

It is designed to give people the chance to remember any loved ones they may have lost during the pandemic, as well as thanking those who helped support those suffering from Covid and the families of those who have been bereaved.

For example, Colchester Borough Homes are already planning an event at Greenstead Community Centre for local residents to come together and watch the show. More information on this will

follow shortly.

Events could either be planned to watch the show live or on another date as it will be available on the YouTube channel following the live performance.

If people don’t want to attend any of the locally organised events, they can watch the show from their own homes on the council’s YouTube channel.

Other special events are also being planned throughout the day around the Mercury Theatre to support the evening, which is being developed together with the High Steward of Colchester, Sir Bob Russell, The Bishop of Colchester Roger Morris, Hunnaball Funeral Directors, and the Colchester Garrison.

The Mayor of Colchester, Cllr Robert Davidson, said: “The last two years have been a very difficult and a trying period for all of us and it is right that we have time to remember those we have lost and thank those key services and our communities who have unselfishly helped support us through the pandemic.

“This performance promises to be a poignant and uplifting reminder of how we all came together to support each other and that, while we are still living with Covid, Colchester can look forward to a better future.

“We want as many people as possible to be able to watch the event when it is being staged and we encourage community groups and others to look at staging events where it can be streamed live.

“We hope many take this opportunity to do just that, so that we can all come together to remember and look forward.”

People can register an interest in acquiring the limited tickets to the show at the Mercury through the theatre’s website or by visiting the Theatre’s box office.

More information about the events being planned on 26 March and the schedule for the event in the evening in the Mercury Theatre will be announced in due course.

Quick Crossword Puzzles

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To Valentine or Not to Valentine?

February 14th is Valentine’s Day. My husband and I don't celebrate Valentine's Day. There, I said it. Before you dismiss us as a couple of old cheapskate cynics, whose relationship is on the rocks, we're both in our late thirties, have been married for twelve years, we rarely argue, and we laugh a lot. We just don't feel the need to celebrate Valentine's Day. Five years into our marriage we realised that fancy restaurants, or weekends away mean less when everyone else is there doing exactly the same thing at the same time just because its February 14th. So, we stopped.

We do like to do something romantic during February, but to be honest we like to do something romantic at least once in every other month too. Here are our favourite ideas, not restricted to February.

We cook a meal. Not just a run of the mill, any night of the week meal. We each choose something from one of our cookbooks (main course and dessert) and we set aside an evening to create it. We arrange it around the kids’ sleepovers with grandparents or friends. It's our night and we buy good wine, dress up and enjoy each other's

company and the process of creating (and eating) a delicious meal.

Write a poem…or a song. My husband writes bad poetry...I'm not joking, it’s terrible and stems from him insisting that poetry is not poetry unless it rhymes! I love poetry and once joked that if he loved me he'd write me an ode. So, he did, and it was awful...but it did rhyme. Periodically he repeats the process, and the results are always hilariously bad. I stick them in a scrap book because as dire as they are, they hold a great deal of meaning for me.

Movie marathon - The Die-Hard films might not be everyone's idea of romantic film fodder, but we love them and every so often we have a day where we watch all of them backto-back and buy in lunch and supper.

Sometimes we do the Star Wars Trilogy (four, five and six...were there any others?), or the Lord of the Rings series (extended version), or the Bourne films. The point is, it's an event. We set aside time to do it.

Recreate a date - One of my favourite dates from before we were married was when my husband took me stargazing on a clear night. He was an amateur astronomer in his teens

and knew his way around the night sky. We lay on top of his car, covered in blankets clutching binoculars while he told me stories about the constellations and encouraged me to look for shooting stars and the International Space Station (ISS)!

Sometimes we recreate that, and I still get a buzz when I see the ISS moving

swiftly across the sky. What favourite date could you recreate?

If you love Valentine’s Day then you do you. But ask yourself, do you make Valentine plans with your partner just because that’s the thing to do? If so, perhaps it’s time to make a change.

Sudoku

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DR DANIEL J BATEMAN • DR SAMIR B PATEL • DR JAMIE NIGHTINGALE DR BHAVINI MUIR • DR THAMARA GUNASEKERA 40 STATION ROAD • BRIGHTLINGSEA • COLCHESTER •ESSEX • CO7 0DT Tel: (01206) 302522 • Email: colne.medicalcentref81116@nhs.net www.colnemedicalcentre.nhs.uk • facebook.com/Colnemedical Extended Access

Appointments are available at the University Health Centre, Rowhedge Medical Practice, Tiptree Medical Centre and Colne Medical Centre. Please contact the surgery for further details.

National No Smoking Day No Smoking Day is an annual health awareness day in the UK which is intended to help smokers who want to quit smoking. The first No Smoking Day was on Ash Wednesday in 1984 and it now takes place on the second Wednesday in March so the date for this year is 9th March 2022.

Alresford Service Update I am very pleased to announce that services will resume at our Alresford Branch site on Monday 31 st January. We have been busy updating the dispensary and reception areas.

Clinics available will include: Practice nurse clinics for dressings, smear tests, asthma checks, contraceptive advice, b12 and depot injections, pneumonia, suture removal, shingles and flu vaccinations and leg ulcer checks.

HCA clinics for health checks, blood tests, blood pressure, diabetic checks, flu vaccines and simple dressings.

GP telephone clinics, please book via the main reception line 01206 302522 or using online access/ NHS App. If a face to face appointment is required the doctor will arrange it directly with the patient.

Nurse Practitioner face to face appointments will be available to book in advance on a weekly basis. Our nurse practitioners can prescribe, make referrals and help with most problems. If you require a sickness certificate you will need to consult with a GP Opening times will be 8.30am -12.00pm, Monday-Friday. A receptionist will be onsite to help with any queries and book appointments and the dispensary extend their opening hours to match.

To book an appointment please call the usual reception number or visit the practice after 31 st January.

These clinics are available to all of our registered patients.

Thank you for reading Katie Pirie Practice Manager

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