Local News
Local Events – see below
Local Activities
• Summer Solstice yoga at the Shalbourne Pavillion on Wed 21 June 9.30 – 10.45am (£10). Then 9.30 – 10.45am Mondays till 17 July. Visit the website or contact Maura at [email protected] or on www.facebook.com/TranquilFlowYoga more more info and to book.
• Year 11 and 12 students – there’s still time to sign up for the NCS Challenge this summer in Newbury, Reading, Bracknell, Wycombe and Slough with residential weeks away. Great fun, experience and very affordable. Contact the local NCS team on 07908 904 861 [email protected] or visit ncsthechallenge.org!
• free weekly Sunday cycle rides with fitness trainer Ricardo Defazio. Meet 12 noon at Seeds 2 Glory Wellness Barn in Stype just south of Hungerford. All abilities welcome.
• Dutch Mini Masterclass (scroll down to find) 7 – 9pm Weds 28 June at Martin & the Magpie florists in Hungerford
• Sewing Playground’s summer workshops Learn to Sew (Sat 17 June), Reversible Child’s Pinafore Dress (Sat 1 July).
• St John’s Marlborough Adult Education Classes:
Sat 24 June 09:30-12:00 Cookery Master Class: Pasta £30 per person including ingredients.
Sat 1 July 09:30-11:30 Floral Art: Summer’s Bounty £40 for 3 wks. Provide your own materials.
Sat 1 July 10:00-16:30 18 Stance Tai Chi Qi Gong £60 one day course.
• cookery classes at Honesty just south of Newbury include The Amalfi Coast, Vietnamese and Eastern Mediterranean Summer Entertainment.
Reviews
• Jenny recommends Pestco Pest Control: ‘Robert dealt with our wasp problem straight away – we’re very relieved.’
• Roger recommends Butler Toll Financial Advisors “Their careful manner has resulted in my feeling more in control of my finances and better informed about future options. I am glad to have found them.”
• can anyone recommend a dance band to play at a fundraising event in November in Hungerford? Please reply to this.
Special Offers
Still time to take advantage of Lambourn Valley Dental‘s 20% discount on replace metal fillings with white fillings on bookings before 30 June. Call 01488 757654.
Motoring
• we wanted to donate our old off-the-road Ford Focus to Newbury College but we didn’t have a way to get the car into Newbury so big thanks to ND Services for offering to pick it up for free so the Level 1 & 2 mechanic students can practice on her. She seems happy in her new home…
• due to expansion, ND Services in Lambourn Woodlands is recruiting mechanics, technicians and HGV drivers – see job section below.
• Peugeot 405 Estate for sale – 140,000 miles, one owner. £200 ono.
• eastbound M4 between 13 and 12 will be closed overnight (9pm – 6am): this Sun 18 June, Fri 23 June and Sun 25 June. See this week’s Local News for more roadwork (and police) updates.
Items for Sale
• very good quality pine table and matching 6 chairs £100.
• 3 single beds available. Offers accepted.
Property
• lovely self-contained Kintbury annex for rent from one night to long-term rental.
• upstairs flat for rent (sheltered housing) in Marlborough available now. Applications are invited from residents of Marlborough and district who are over the age of 55 years and can live independently.
• three-bedroom end of terrace cottage to rent in South Fawley. Lovely rural location just five miles from Wantage. Well behaved pets considered.
• Eclipse Cleaning offers a full service end-of-tenancy cleaning service.
Local Jobs
See the Penny Post website for local jobs including: Part-time HR Administrator, Sheepdrove • `Part-time KS1 teacher, Hungerford (closes 23 June) • Mechanics, Technicians & HGV Drivers ND Services, Lambourn Woodlands • Part-time Driver, Hungerford • Finance Officer Watermill Theatre (closes 21 June) • Summer Assistant Kennet Horse Boat Company in Kintbury • Student Reintegration Manager and Pastoral Support Assistant, both in Hungerford • Part-time Parish Clerk, Froxfield • Delivery Driver, Hungerford • Classical Music Sales Assistant, Hogan Music, Newbury • Bar Staff, The Pheasant in Shefford Woodlands • Library Trustees, Hungerford • Occupational Therapist, West Berkshire • Massage Therapist, West Berkshire • Cleaners, West Berkshire • Charity Shop Volunteers, Hungerford • Homecare Assistants, throughout West Berkshire.
• congratulations to Newbury’s IBM apprentice Sarah Naylor and her team who came fourth this week in the finals of National Apprentice Team of the Year 2017.
Local Businesses
Animals & Agriculture • Automotive • Family Life • Food & Drink • Health, Beauty & Wellbeing • House & Garden • Legal & Professional • IT, Media & Web • Visual & Performing Arts • Retailers • Travel & Tourism • Tuition & Training
Please support the businesses which support Penny Post!
• thanks to Green Machine Computers nr Ramsbury for my new (refurbished) Dell laptop for £260 inc 12-month warranty and one-hour technicial support to transfer data.• Claire Burdett at the The Media Marketing Co explains the recent exciting Changes at Twitter. Don’t miss her Instagram Masterclass on Thurs 22 June and a workshop on SEO (how to get top Google ranking) on Thurs 29 June.
Competitions
• Still time to enter our novel-themed June Quiz with the prizes kindly donated by the Hungerford Bookshop.
Four-legged Friends
• gorgeous blonde Labrador puppy for sale. Seven weeks old, male. Kennel Club registered.
• thanks to PP reader Barbara Kilpatrick for her advice on ticks. If you’re walking your dog in the woods or where sheep/deer have been do wear boots with your trousers tucked in and long sleeves as the ticks are serious and will crawl up your trouser leg or arm without you seeing them.
• the mighty River Lambourn seems to be drying up (already). it’s currently so low that Nimbus the cat managed to catch a duckling this week. Luckily the mum didn’t seem to notice as she still had five left but I always find it heartbreaking. Here’s a reminder of the RSPB bird feeding tips for cat owners.
Charity Plugs
• our sons, Adam and Toby, and I are attempting to climb one mile ie 160 times up the 10 metre wall at Reading Climbing Centre on Sat 24 June to raise money for our trip to Ghana next Feb to support the small Action Through Enterprise charity in Ramsbury that helps tackle poverty in Upper West Ghana (that sentence is nearly as long as our climb…). We would appreciate any support! Please see here for more details.
• great initiative to launch a parent and baby group in a local care home for the elderly needs £750 to get it off the ground
• volunteers needed to improve the wooded area along the canal towpath in Kintbury. Please meet at the cabin just down the towpath (towards Hungerford) from the carpark on Weds 21 June 11am – 3pm. For more info call Chris Trigwell 01488 683170
• Jo Fielder (and her MS MonSter) has just one day left to complete her Ridgeway Challenge to raise £10,000 for the MS Society and Riding for the Disabled Assoc. MS sucks (my Mum had it for 25 years) – please support her here.
• the ATP floodlight project at John O’Gaunt School Hungerford is desperately needed by local teams which rely on the ATP for winter training. Over £11,000 needs to be raised. All donations will be matched by Greenham Trust – please support the project here
• there is still time to donate children’s and adults’ summer clothes and shoes for refugees to be shipped to Serbia (now instead of Greece who have sourced what they need) at end of June. Click here for drop-off point details. Thanks to everyone who has donated so far.
• see this week’s Local News for a list of just some of the people who’ve helped to raise money for good causes recently (if you know of any person or organisation that deserves a mention in this way, let us know).
• the Hungerford Cancer Support Group would like to thank everybody for there support and donations at our recent coffee morning. We raised a total of £330 for the Rosemary Appeal.
Green Fingers
• June gardening tips can be found here.
• living next to a stream that is nearly drying out makes you very conscious of not wasting water. I try to minimise evaporation by covering the soil with large leaves. Plastic sheets on seed trays also speeds up germination. Also saves time in not having to water pots so much.
• do the men in your household pee on your compost heap? According to The Daily Telegraph this practice is advocated at National Trust properties where staff are encourage to use a ‘pee bale’ which is then added to the compost heap. My mother used to ask the vicar to oblige (because we didn’t have any men in the house and male pee is slightly less acidic than female pee) whenever he happened to pop round at sherry time . Also saves litres of drinking quality water if you don’t have to flush.
Seasonal Snippets
• this week’s recipe: Beetroot Risotto with Walnuts & Provolone by Ollie Hunter from The Wheatsheaf in Chilton Foliat
• I’m pretty omnivorous but after randomly snacking from the fridge this morning I can testify that brie and cherries does not make a good combination…
• when you go to a petrol station do you ever stop to consider where the fuel has come from? Rob Chicken explains about the underground fuel pipeline network that runs from Bristol through our area to London.
• top tips on how to get on telly by Hungerford’s diminutive dynamo Jane Buckle who has auditionned for Simon Cowell and has lots of advice on how to prepare for the X Factor, talent agencies and how to treat celebrities.
• if you’re getting married this summer and nervous about your first dance – don’t worry as Alison from Cheek2Cheek Dance can help (and she is very affordable).
• there are plenty of local walks, cycle and horse riding routes to enjoy this summer – this great interactive North Wessex Downs map helps you find them!
• see this week’s Local News for usual slices of life ranging from neighbourhood plans to porcupines, from Newbury’s forthcoming road-safety campaign to favourite chords and from father’s day to Hungerford’s new tri-service centre.
• quick reminder that HADCAF starts on Friday 30 June (until Sunday 16 July) with over 50 events spanning the full gamut of art and entertainment. See the HADCAF website or the Penny Post website calendar for more information. One of the first events – and one not to be missed – is the Swindon-based, award-winning Wessex Male Voice Choir performing at John O’Gaunt at 7pm on Saturday 1 July.
• our son Adam is sitting his last GCSE on Friday, so bringing to an end several months of increasingly stressful bickering with him about the relative merits of Physics or English revision and Youtube or Facebook. Even though it’s been a good few years since my husband took an exam he’s been full of good advice – shame he didn’t follow it himself back in the day. All is revealed in You May Now Turn Over the Paper.
See below for a selection of upcoming local events.
Penny
[email protected]
Local Events
Fri 16 June
Big BBQ at Hungerford Care Home – 12.30pm onwards all welcome. Entertainment with Julie Hunt from 2pm
Sat 17 June
Swindon Civic Day offers ‘Open Doors’ at four of Swindon’s treasured heritage assets: Milton Road Baths, the Railway Village Museum, The Baker’s Arms.and a big get together at the Central Community Centre
Hungerford Youth Centre Fun Day 11am – 3pm inc BBQ, circus skills, live music, Water Wars. Free entry.
Newbury’s Big Conversation 12 – 2pm Newbury Baptist Church. Please bring food to share for lunch and join in the conversation – what is good about Newbury…and what could be better?
East Garston’s Big BBQ from 5pm at the Village Hall
Sun 18 June
Harey 8 Mile Run 10.30pm starts at Hungerford Rugby Club with kids fun run first
Kintbury Yard Sale 10am – 1pm Kintbury Jubilee Centre. Sell your stuff! Grab some bargains!
Father’s Day Lunch at The Bear, Hungerford
Father’s Day Lunch at Blandy’s in the stately setting of Inglewood nr Kintbury
Weds 21 June
Watermill Touring Production: Nesting opens Weds 21 June in East Garston Village Hall
click here for full tour dates in Aldworth, Padworth, Bradfield, Aldbourne, Shrivenham, Cold Ash, Brill, Hungerford, Hampstead Norreys, Eastbury, Uffington, Ashampstead and more…
Sat 24 June
Wantage Farmers Market 9am – 1pm – lots of lovely local produce
Grove & Wantage Extravaganza 12.30pm Grove Rugby Club OX12 0FL
Cinderella Murder Mystery at Wilton Windmill
Violin Bonanza – 6.30pm East Garston Village Hall family friendly performance. All welcome.
Coming Soon…
Fri 30 June Jazz in the Park, Hamstead Marshall with 2 fabulous local singers – Steph Richardson with Andy Kennedy’s Quintet and Harriet James with Pearl, TN
Fri 30 June – Sun 16 July Hungerford HADCAF Arts Festival with over 50 events spanning the full gamut of art and entertainment
