Thursday 11th June 2020 – Day Seventy Nine
Good morning all, hope that your night was a good one.
Yesterday I attended a training session (via Zoom) with Camden Carers (as part of carers week awareness). It was very useful and interesting. It is estimated that unpaid carers save the economy £132 billion per year! Being a carer (for an elderly parent, a sick partner or a dependent child) can be difficult. If YOU are a carer and need help in any way, please ring 020 7428 8950.
Here is the link for more information:
What can I share with you today?
FOOD / SHOPPING
Thank you to everyone who has forwarded their wonderful support and comments to me regarding the Food Bank Project organised by Covent Garden Community Centre / 7 Dials Club. It is really gratifying to hear that so many people are benefiting from the service:
Foodbank – We are flexible with regards to who we can help. If you fit the following criteria, please register.
- Self Isolation due to symptoms
- Isolation due to vulnerable or shielded status
- Income reduction because of lockdown & crisis measures
- Income reduction while waiting for benefits to arrive
- Homeless
Go to Registration Form
Just a reminder. If you (or know of anyone) who cannot go out because they are vulnerable, self isolating or for any other reason and need help with food etc.
Assistance can be found on the government web page. The form is rather long, but is fairly straightforward. If you (or know of anyone who needs support) please let us know.
Here is the link:
ART & CULTURE
From Chris B:
Live from Covent Garden featuring The Royal Opera and The Royal Ballet.
The first concert will be hosted by the BBC’s Anita Rani and the Royal Opera House’s very own Director of Music, Antonio Pappano. Scheduled for 13 Jun 2020.
From Jane:
A little bit of news from Soho.
There’s a picture exhibition called “Someone in Soho” with pictures on the walls of Soho House, Greek and Romilly Streets, Bistro 1, Romilly/Frith Streets and more on the Dean Street Townhouse (and opposite) on Dean Street. They’re great pictures taken by Richard Piercy (formerly of Zest Chemist on Berwick Street, and on the executive committee of the Soho Society). People might like to see them when walking through Soho on the way to the market, Camisa and other shops that are open!
HEALTH
Every Monday at 6pm Christine Coker is inviting you to a scheduled aerobics Zoom meeting.
The cost is only £1.00 per session, but the first session is a free taster!
Topic: MON – Retro aerobics – 6PM
Time: This is a recurring meeting Meet anytime
To Join Zoom Meeting
Please email John for the link
Payment link below:
https://www.paypal.me/
From Central YMCA – New upload from Declan!
Join Declan for a short technique workshop focusing on hip extension, strengthen your glutes and core muscles.
INFORMATION
From Steven D:
Last week you passed on a well-intentioned but misleading suggestion regarding Zoom.
Here is the correction: If you want to access a Zoom meeting through your landline telephone, instead of your computer, you must first obtain the relevant telephone number from the event organiser. You should not try dialling the meeting ID number which is not a phone number, even though it may look like one. Your call to the Zoom telephone number is not free like Zoom itself. It is only free if you happen to have a free calls package. If not, you could end up paying as much as £20 per hour.
From Janet Am: Poem of the week: Pablo Neruda’s “i ask for silence”.
In I Ask For Silence, Pablo Neruda illustrates how the power of poetry can overcome death & leave a lasting legacy.
The use of metaphors, imagery & allusion illuminate how a memorable legacy can be effective & convey a message after death.
I Ask for Silence, Pablo Neruda
Now they can leave me in peace.
Now they grow used to my absence.
I am going to close my eyes.
I want only five things,
five chosen roots.
One is an endless love.
Two is to see the autumn.
I cannot exist without leaves
flying and falling to the earth.
The third is the solemn winter,
the rain I loved, the caress
of fire in the rough cold.
Fourth, the summer,
plump as a watermelon.
And fifthly, your eyes,
Matilde, my dear love,
I won’t sleep without your eyes,
I won’t exist without your gaze,
I adjust the spring
for you to follow me with your eyes.
That, friends, is all I want.
Next to nothing, close to everything.
Now they can go if they wish.
I have lived so much that some day
they will have to forget me forcibly,
rubbing me off the blackboard.
My heart was inexhaustible.
But because I ask for silence,
don’t think I’m going to die.
The opposite is true;
it happens I am going to live.
To be, and to go on being.
I will not be, however, if inside me,
the crop does not keep sprouting,
the shoots first, breaking through the earth
to reach the light;
but the mothering earth is dark,
and, deep inside me, I am dark.
I am a well in the water of which
the night leaves behind stars
and goes on alone across fields.
It’s a question of having lived so much
that I want to live a bit more.
I never felt my voice so clear,
never have been so rich in kisses.
Now, as always, it is early.
The light is a swarm of bees.
Let me alone with the day.
I ask leave to be born.
LIGHTER SIDE OF LIFE
From Jerry: (shared words of wisdom – designed to make you think)
Today at 7AM, I woke up feeling ill, but decided I needed the money, so I went into work.
At 3PM I got laid off. On my drive home I got a flat tire. When I went into the trunk for the spare, it was flat too. A man in a BMW pulled over, gave me a ride, we chatted, and then he offered me a job. I start tomorrow.
Today, as my father, three brothers, and two sisters stood around my mother’s hospital bed, my mother uttered her last coherent words before she died. She simply said, “I feel so loved right now. We should have gotten together like this more often.”
That’s all for now!
You can contact me on 07759 646507 in case of an emergency
Be safe
John