Recommendations

• Karen Salmon recommends Blandy's at Inglewood "The food was excellent, the staff were polite and extremely good and the atmosphere was relaxed and leisurely."

• Lynda Parker recommends Wasing Wellbeing & Yoga on the Wasing Estate. "Brilliant, friendly yoga in a lovely location. Recommend to all abilities."

Local activities

• My Wild Life Photography Competition is taking entries until 31 Dec.
• All welcome to join zoom Bookends Book Club Mon 10 Jan: My Sister the Serial Killer.
• Emergency First Aid at Work and Basic Life Support courses in Marlborough 12 Jan.
• Hundreds of online courses with The eLearning Marketplace (based in Newbury) from languages, IT and photography to fitness, nutrition, maths and face-painting.

Eco News

• See here for more eco news.

More Christmas...

Guest Blogs

Good causes

• This week from the Volunteer Centre West Berks – tons of help for voluntary groups.
• Volunteer Trustee Directors needed by Newbury Almshouses Trust.
• Action for All's December news includes tips on keeping warm, training for Village Halls and community buildings.
• If you know anyone who has, or is thinking of, borrowing money from a loan shark to get through Christmas, there is help on hand from stoploansharks.co.uk.

Property and land

• Specialist machined timber can give an extra lift to external and internal work on your home – see latest news from FORT Builders Merchants at Membury.

• For sale: four-bed house, Hungerford. £435,000. Brearley & Rich.
• For sale: three-bed house, Woodborough. £695,000. Brearley & Rich.
• For rent: three-bed flat, Thatcham. £795pcm. Nina Clark Lettings.
• For sale: one-bed apartment in Kintbury. £235,000. Audley Inglewood.
• For rent: ad hoc workspace, Hungerford. £20/day Hungerford Printing Company
• For sale: Eden Retirement Livings Pearl House in Newbury offers spacious apartments and penthouses with 24/7 concierge, restaurant, club lounge and parking.
• For rent: one-person office, Hungerford. Flexible terms. lauren@broadmead-estates.co.uk or call 01488 686004.
• Landlords wanted, particularly with two/three-bed houses to rent.

This week's jobs

Save the date: Thur 6 Jan 2022  Recruitment Open Day at The Retreat, Elcot Park for reception, chefs, spa, housekeeping, front of house, managers.

This week's jobs include: part-time admin & finance officer, part-time dog walker and pet sitter, site officer & minibus driver, foreman/site manager, full-time marquee rigger, returns administrator, hairdresser, barber, nursery school cook, workshop-based mechanics, bar and wait staff, chefs, kitchen porters, housekeepers, drivers, lifeguards, warehouse operatives, forklift operators, unit managers, cleaners, LGV drivers, personal care assistants, heavy-recovery operator, service manager, carers, recreation assistants, facilities manager, nurses and laundry assistants.

Volunteering is good for the CV (and the soul) See local volunteer positions avaialble.

This Week with Penny

• I'm still thinking what to cook for Christmas with one vegetarian-nearly-vegan son, one very-much-meat-eating son and Brian and me somewhere in the middle. It's got to be Ottolenghi to the rescue. Charred brussels sprouts with lime dressing and basil sounds just the ticket. 

• West Berkshire Council has just announced that they are suspending garden and food waste collection from 28 December until 10 January. So frustrating when Christmas creates the highest volume of food waste all year and it really shouldn't go in the black bin. If you start making space in your freezer now, then you will have room to freeze your leftovers after Christmas. And whatever you really have to throw out you can still put it in the green bin and during winter temperatures it shouldn't smell over the couple of weeks until it is collected.

• A friend in Newbury fell for a scam this week when the email account of the builder she was using got hacked. The hackers asked her for a £1,200 deposit and it looked so real she paid it. The builders then told her it wasn't them who asked for the money. The bank eventually refunded the money but she had to explain why she hadn't realised it was a scam. There was just one extra full stop in the email address used by the hackers.

• I have to switch off the news about the recent child abuse cases, especially when one politician said Arthur's tragic case reveals the pressure some families' experience during lockdown. Hello – didn't they listen to support agencies at the very beginning who were predicting these tragedies would happen? Now the restrictions are coming back in, here is a reminder on how to stay safe at home if you are vulnerable to domestic abuse.

• "Write about what you know" is a commonly dished-out piece of advice. One of the things we know about here in the Lambourn Valley is sewage: so Brian has written a song about it, All this Water. If you let it play on, the next items are four songs he wrote about and during lockdown, each one of which now sadly seems relevant again.

Sat 18 Dec

Sun 19 Dec

Christmas Food & Craft Market Inkpen
Watercolours by Chris Boulton, The Bae

New Year's Eve

Dates for the Diary

Penny & Brian
penny@pennypost.org.uk