Following on from the great success of the Christmas appeal for our charity of the year, I am launching another plea to your generosity in the form of an Easter Bunny appeal to provide Easter eggs and treats for the food bank recipients.

The time of this latest lockdown and the impact of home schooling has hit hard for so many families and the number now receiving support from the Bildeston Support Group foodbank is 17 families.

I am asking for donations of Easter eggs, chocolates, Easter biscuits and cakes. If you have any gift bags into which we could pack the goodies these would also be appreciated.

If you would prefer to donate money then I will use it towards this appeal to make up the goodies bags appropriately for each family.

Please could you bring your donation to me at Low Barn, Church Road by Sunday March 28th or if you would rather, I can pick them up from you on my daily walk.

My thanks in anticipation and as ever, I am here if you just need someone for a chat.
Stay safe,
Jo Silburn

Bildeston Health Centre continues to undertake the covid vaccination programme run collaboratively with our two local practices, Constable Country Practice at East Bergholt and Hadleigh Health Centre. The two hubs will be Hadleigh and East Bergholt.

We are not writing to patients to invite them due to the short notice required to deliver the programme, instead we are calling our patients from the surgery by telephone to invite you to attend either the Hadleigh or East Bergholt site. This may change as we move through the cohorts. Please can we request that you do not call us, we will call you. Please help us by waiting for your turn according to the Government’s guidelines. Patients will be invited following the strict criteria we have to follow. The first cohort, patients aged 80 and over, have been called and we are now working our way through the next cohort of 70 and over. We cannot vaccinate you earlier outside your cohort. Please be patient with us, the roll out of the covid vaccination programme requires a lot of planning in order for us all to deliver safely and efficiently while we continue to deliver our normal service.

FAKE NHS TEXT
A dangerous fake NHS text has been circulating, telling people they’re eligible to apply for the
Covid-19 vaccine. It takes you to a fake website and asks for your personal details, which the
scammers then use to access your bank. Please take extra care during this vaccination period and delete any suspicious texts or emails.

There is nothing like personal experience to bring home the true impact of major events on our lives. As we enter February and this phase of our fight to beat the virus, it’s put into perspective by borrowing a phrase from Churchill, “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

The first personal experience was the decision by the Bugle team to suspend printing the January and February Bugle, the first time since it was established in November 1990. A sad and difficult decision given what it takes to produce the Bugle. Even though we now have the printer housed in Chamberlin Hall which collates, folds and staples, it still takes from 9.00 in the morning until 5.30 in the afternoon to print them all. We normally work in pairs on a rota through the day, finish the folding and bag them up before handing them over to the wonderful
team of deliverers. Given the need to stay indoors, social distance and not put anyone at risk we had no alternative. We are very grateful for the digital version on the village website but fully appreciate not all our villagers have access to the internet. We hope to be back printing the Bugle as soon as possible.

The mass vaccination roll out continues. I drove my 95 year old father-in-law to East Bergholt Constable Country Health Centre for his vaccination. We were not the only ones from Bildeston in that priority group, who had agreed to travel there for the jab. It was very well organised, even though the day was blighted by awful weather, bitterly cold and driving rain and the most elderly, and some infirm, of our community queued outside. Days later it was my turn. Again, along with many others from Bildeston, vaccinated at East Bergholt. The whole experience has been very good indeed, with excellent service from our own Health Centre staff and superb organisation at Constable Country Health Centre. Seeing the mass vaccination at local level brings home the dedication, expertise and professionalism of the NHS staff supported so well by an army of local volunteers.

Heartfelt thanks to you all.

At the other end of the age scale, I helped remote learning for my youngest grandchildren. Perhaps more hindrance than help! Complete days of school lessons planned and delivered by teachers working from home, leading ‘Zoom’ meetings with classes of children. A day in an infant classroom is hard work at the best of times, emotionally and physically, to replicate that on line is quite a task.

The work that has gone into helping to make sure our children do not lose their natural curiosity for learning, is astonishing and we need to pay tribute to all the teachers working from home whilst trying to retain a sense of what it would be like if the children were in their classroom with their teacher. Not every child’s remote learning experience has been so positive. The system relies on each child having access to a decent device and then quality experiences being planned
and delivered on a consistent basis. The ones I saw, from a teacher who lives in Bildeston, were very good indeed.

While we all MUST follow the national guidance to stay at home and stay safe, we must also make sure we take care of ourselves and interact as much as we can from a distance or by helping others. It’s a serious message – take care of yourselves each and every day and follow Public Health Suffolk’s five ways to wellbeing to improve your physical and mental health while we stay at home.

• Connect with others. Take time to call a friend or family member. It’s important to stay in touch with others however you do it, and sometimes simply talking
  about how you feel can make a big difference.
• Be active. It can improve your physical health, help manage stress and anxiety and generally make you feel better.
• Learn. Take the opportunity to think about learning a new skill or pick up something you have enjoyed doing before. More classes and courses are also
  available online now than ever before.
• Take notice. It’s all too easy to become immersed in the constant, and everchanging media coverage surrounding coronavirus (COVID-19). Take a break from watching, listening or reading news stories and use the time for the things you enjoy. Techniques such as mindfulness can be helpful.
• Give. Giving your time and energy to others is extremely important, never more so than now, and can pay dividends for your mental wellbeing. Whether it’s looking out for and helping a neighbour, or registering to volunteer to offer support in your community, there is plenty you can do.
• Treat all ‘foreign’ items (food packages, parcels etc) coming into the home as potential threats, wipe them and then wash your hands thoroughly.