Alconbury December 2022

Travel

Five places to travel solo

By Solange Hando

While once the prospect of exploring a new country completely alone would terrify most of us, nowadays solo travel carries with it a strange allure, infused with ideas of adventure, storytelling and personal growth.

Solo travel has soared in recent years, with more and more people choosing to challenge the norm by holidaying alone. Films like ‘The Beach’, ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ and ‘Wild’ have paved the way for this growing trend and the travel industry has followed suit. In 2022, the world is more geared towards solo travel than ever before, with many package holidays, hotels and excursions designed specifically with the lone traveller in mind. But what are the benefits? From making new friends and learning more about yourself, to indulging in complete unashamed selfishness, the rewards are countless. First off, there’s no denying that it’s so much easier to meet new and interesting people. Travelling with familiar faces generally means you’re less likely to venture out of your circle to chat with potential friends or travel buddies. When you’re on your own, however, making friends happens so naturally you won’t even need to think about it.

What’s more, if you’re looking for time by yourself, there’s nothing like a spot of solo travel to help you on your journey of self-discovery. ‘Finding yourself’ is a cliché, and while solo travel may not lead to a ‘Eureka’ moment of self-realisation, it could certainly help you discover new passions, hobbies and aspirations.

While you can obviously book a solo trip wherever you choose, when it comes to travelling alone, there are some destinations that come up trumps. Here are five of our top picks.

Ireland

Ireland is the perfect place to start if you’re new to solo travel. With many of the home comforts we’re familiar with in the UK, including the English language, this is a country that’s famous for the welcome it extends to strangers. Pull up a stool in a traditional Irish pub, offer to buy your neighbour a pint and you’ll have a friend for life – or at least for the evening. Stay a while and you might get lucky and catch a Celtic music session. What’s more, Ireland’s stunning breadth of nature – particularly along the Atlantic coast – leaves you plenty of room for self-reflection.

Thailand

Thailand’s tropical beaches are a stalwart of Asia’s traditional backpacking route. With a terrific range of tours, good transport options and international cuisine, it’s one of the best places to start a welltrodden solo adventure around South-East Asia. Whether you choose the Gulf coast to the east or the Andaman coast to the west, you’re bound to find fellow travellers to bond with. Plus, it’s not known as ‘the land of smiles’ for nothing! The people of Thailand are, for the most part, warm and welcoming towards foreign visitors and will often go out of their way to help you out.

Ireland

New Zealand

If you’re nervous about the safety aspect of travelling solo, New Zealand will certainly put you at ease. Kiwis will tell you their country is one of the safest in the world, but it’s the dazzling landscapes, buzzing towns and cities and friendly people that truly make New Zealand a mecca for solo travel. Popular with backpackers, nature enthusiasts, and thrill-seekers striking out on their own, the country is a haven for anyone who loves the great outdoors and one of the best places to meet fellow, likeminded travellers.

Indonesia

The setting for one third of Elizabeth Gilbert’s solo travel memoir ‘Eat, Pray, Love’, there’s no denying that Indonesia has a special magic about it. Bali is the archipelago’s most popular island for solo travellers, but its neighbours Lombok and the Gili Islands are close competitors. If a spiritual and artistic awakening is what you seek, Ubud definitely needs to be on your radar. It’s where Elizabeth Gilbert found love and true peace, and it remains a wonderfully laid-back place for solo travellers to relax, reflect and recharge.

Costa Rica

Solo travellers from the US have been heading to Costa Rica for years, and Europeans are finally starting to catch on. As the world’s greenest, most biodiverse country, there’s no better place to reconnect with nature – the country’s pura vida (pure

life) ethos is apparent wherever you go. It also has a reputation for being one of the happiest countries in the world, and it’s easy to see why: from white-water rafting down rivers to zip-lining through gorgeous rainforests, Costa Rica is packed with outdoor activities to please your adventurous spirit.

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New Zealand

Indonesia

New Zealand

Countdown to Christmas The Origins of the Advent Calendar

I loved the arrival of the Advent Calendar when I was growing up. Every year we had a cardboard one from Woolworths, printed with a Christmas scene, each little door opening to reveal a tiny picture such as a teddy, a reindeer or a bauble. My brother and I would take it turns to be ‘odds’ or ‘evens’. I always wanted to be ‘evens’ so I could open the Christmas Eve door which was always slightly larger and had a picture of the Nativity or Santa on the roof of a snow-covered house. When some of the kids at school started boasting about their ‘chocolate’ Advent Calendars we begged my dad for one and eventually he gave in. We were disappointed when we realised that once the chocolate was removed there was no picture, just an empty space where the chocolate had been. The ‘open’ chocolate Advent calendar had all the charm of a mouth with missing teeth. We never asked for another one.

The Advent calendar originates from Germany. It began with German Protestants marking the days of Advent either by burning a candle or marking a wall with chalk. This morphed into the practice of hanging a devotional image every day and ultimately to the creation of the first known wooden Advent calendar in 1851. The first printed calendars appeared just after 1900. Small doors were added in the 1920s. Often short bible verses were hidden behind the doors alongside the picture. During the World War ll cardboard rationing put a stop to advent calendars but when hostilities ceased Richard Sellmar of Stuttgart obtained a permit from the US officials to begin printing and selling them again. He designed a calendar based on a German winter town scene. By the 1950s, they were mass-produced and affordable and exported across the world.

By Kate McCarthy

Chocolate Advent Calendars might seem like the new kids on the block but they have been around longer than you might think. Fry and Son produced the first chocolate Advent calendar as early as 1958 and Cadbury popularised them in the Seventies.

Lego got in on the action in 1998 with a set that contained a Santa Claus minifigure and simple brickmade structures, which could be finally reassembled into a bigger model or scene. They’ve produced at least one every year since. My oldest teen begs me for their Harry Potter one every year.

Over the past decade Advent calendars have gone ‘luxury’ and become a key marketing strategy for many companies. This started around 2010 when Selfridges department store launched a beautythemed Advent calendar with the cosmetics giant L’Oréal. It was filled with product samples from fragrances to body creams. There is now a advent calendar catering for pretty much every taste, most of them marketed at adults rather than children.

There are advent calendars for gin-lovers, tea-lovers, and nail-polish addicts; there is even one for pets, and they are not cheap! Some cost upwards of £150! It’s all a worlds away from Sellmar-Verlag, now run by Richard’s grandchildren, which still produces traditional card Advent calendars to this day. The company’s most popular advent calendar is still Richard’s original design, called Little Town.

A few years ago my husband (knowing my love of traditional Advent Calendars) bought me a wooden one which is reusable and is a beautiful Christmas decoration in its own right...in fact my teens actually argue over which one of them will inherit it when I die (that’s the festive spirit guys!).

However you choose to mark the occasion...Happy Advent!

How to save in the post-Christmas sales Money Saving

Use a price checker

Not every deal is a great deal, and if you use sites such as pricespy.co.uk or uk.pricerunner.com you can see if a particular product is cheaper elsewhere. On Amazon you can use camelcamelcamel.com to view a product’s price history to see if it’s really a bargain.

Be flexible

You probably won’t get great discounts on the very latest products, but if you’re willing to be flexible you can get a lot of money off devices such as phones, TVs and other gadgets by settling for a different colour, for last year’s version or for a slightly different model.

Pay cheaply

Sometimes buying on credit means interest charges will be more than you’re actually saving, but some pay-later schemes don’t charge interest at all. If you’re not buying something outright, go for the cheapest borrowing available to you with the lowest APR – and look online for discounts for any retailer you’re considering buying from. It’s not a bargain if you don’t need it

You see something with a big discount, and it

looks such a good deal you buy it without a second thought. But if you didn’t need it, or you’ve convinced yourself you like it when really it’s not ‘you’, it’s going to be a waste of money.

Stocking fillers Technology

We’re all watching our money this year, and that means when it comes to Christmas presents we’re perhaps being a little more careful with what we’re buying for the people we care about. But you don’t have to splash the cash to get great tech gifts for family, friends or colleagues. There are stacks of great gifts for every kind of person.

If you’re buying for someone who’s mad about music, wireless Bluetooth speakers can be great buys. Amazon’s Echo Dot speaker is a good choice of smart speaker, currently £25.99, and the JBL Go 3 is a fun and very small speaker that’s easy to take anywhere. It’s around £30. We’re also very impressed by the Earfun Air headphones, which are an incredible bargain at £33.95. If you’re buying for kids, Belkin’s Soundform Nano (£29) sounds great, comes in fun colours and has a volume limit to protect their hearing.

Phone and tablet accessories can be great gifts too, whether that’s a genuine leather phone case (typically £30 to £60), a Popsocket phone grip (around £11 for the nicest ones) or an AirTag or Tile tracker (£20 to £35) for someone who’s always misplacing their purse or their keys.

There are lots of clever gifts for outdoor types too, including self-cleaning water bottles with UV light (around £49), multi-tools to cope with every conceivable kind of task (from £20) and solar lanterns (from around £20).

If the person you’re buying for would rather cook in a kitchen than halfway up a mountain, there are some great cooking gadgets for relatively low prices including the Thermapen instant-read thermometer (£39), which has saved many of our meals from over- or under-cooking, and the brilliant Stirr automatic pan stirrer, which you can use to prevent sauces and stews from sticking to the pot while you go and do something more interesting. And for coffee fans there’s the excellent AeroPress coffee maker (£31), which makes delicious coffee incredibly quickly without making it bitter. There’s a mobile version too, so the lucky recipient can get great coffee wherever they may roam.

Stirr Automatic Pot Stirrer

The Stirr is a simple solution to a common problem: some things stick to your pots and pans if you don’t constantly stir them, but stirring is often very time consuming and extremely boring. Stirr sits in the pot and uses cooking-grade nylon legs to do the stirring for you. £20-£40, amazon.co.uk

Apple AirTag Apple’s AirTags and its main rival, Tile trackers, can be attached to keys, put in purses or snuck into schoolbags to make it easy to find them again if they get lost, misplaced or even stolen.

The battery lasts for months. £35, Apple.com

Official Samsung Galaxy S22 leather case

Cases don’t just look good: they help protect your pricey phone so you can get a better trade-in price when you replace it. Official leather cases are often quite expensive but that’s not the case with Samsung.

From £24, amazon.co.uk

Gerber Truss Multi-Tool

You can spend huge sums of money on multitools such as the famous Leatherman, but brands such as Gerber make excellent alternatives that deliver all the key features for considerably less money. Other brands may be even cheaper. £40, amazon.co.uk

JBL Go 3

This little speaker has excellent go-anywhere energy and it’s not so loud that you’ll get complaints from the recipient’s nearest and dearest. It sounds great for its size, it’s really affordable and the battery life is very good. £34, uk.jbl.com

Little gifts that’ll bring big smiles this Christmas

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What's On

WHAT'S ON IN DECEMBER

1, 8, 15 & 22 DECEMBER

Riverport Singers 10.15-11.15am

The Corn Exchange, St Ives Community choir for people living with dementia, their carers, family and friends.

Tel: Agi 07757 811802 Email: agipeach@icloud.com Web: facebook.com/ riverportsingers

1, 8, 15 & 22 DECEMBER

Huntingdon Male Voice Choir

7.30pm

Abbots Ripton Village Hall

Huntingdon Male Voice Choir is always pleased to see new singers. No formal audition and you do not need to be able to read music; all you need to do is sing a few notes so the musical director can determine which part of the choir suits you best. Web: www.hmvc.org.uk

1, 8, 15, 22 & 29 DECEMBER Bingo

7.30pm

Alconbury Sports & Social Club Eyes down for the weekly Bingo session!

Web: www.assc.org.uk

2 DECEMBER Christmas Fair 3-7pm

The Manor House, Cambourne Free entry

Come along to The Wildlife Trust BCN headquarters to celebrate unique, locally handmade arts, crafts and gifts. Children's activity area. Mince pie and mulled wine for the adults to help bring on the festive cheer.

2 DECEMBER

St Neots Local History Society

7.30pm

Eynesbury Primary School

SNLHS members free, visitors £4 ‘One place, one time, one life: Lord Fairhaven’s life at Anglesey Abbey’ by Helen Ackroyd, a National Trust Speaker. Web: www.stneotslhs.org.uk

2, 9 & 16 DECEMBER

Great Fen Little Bugs 10.30am-12pm

Great Fen Countryside Centre, Ramsey Heights Wildlife Trust BCN child member £5, non-member £7 A fun and sociable morning of exploration and discovery for preschool children and their guardians. Web: wildlifebcn.org

3 DECEMBER Saints Crafters 9.30-3.30pm Free Church Hall, Market Hill, St Ives Art and craft fair. Buy original and handmade items direct from the crafter. Email: saintscrafters@gmail.com

3 DECEMBER Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire Hardy Plant Society 2pm Weatherley Centre, Eagle Farm Road, Biggleswade ‘Wildlife Gardening’ with the Wildlife Trust. Christmas food after the talk. Visitors welcome – small charge. Web: www.hpscambsandbeds.co.uk

3, 10 & 17 DECEMBER

Snowflake Family Workshop 10am-4pm

Grafham Water Visitor Centre £5 per person

View real snowflakes through a microscope and use them as inspiration to design a stamp. Use your stamp to make Christmas cards, gift tags, and wrapping paper. Led by science-art educator Katie Bironneau. No booking required.

3, 10 & 17 DECEMBER

Visit Father Christmas 11am-4pm

St Neots Museum Tickets £6. Visit Father Christmas in his specially decorated Christmas grotto at the museum and take a present home! Call to book. Tel: 01480 214163

5 DECEMBER

St Neots Astronomical Association 7.30pm Paxton Pits Visitor Centre Observing evening. Non-members welcome - first meeting free. Web: snaa.co.uk

6 DECEMBER

Hail Weston Wildlife and Gardening Group 7.15pm for 7.30pm

Hail Weston Village Hall

Members £1, non-members £3 Festive evening with cheese and wine. Raffle. hwwgg@yahoo.com

6 & 13 DECEMBER

St Neots Sinfonia 7.45-9.30pm Eynesbury Junior School, Montagu Street, Eynesbury Rehearsals are every Tuesday in term time. Tel: 01480 212298 Web: www.stneotssinfonia.org.uk

6, 13, & 20 DECEMBER

St Neots & District Camera Club 7.15pm for 7.30pm Bowls Club, St Neots Regular talks and competitions. www.stneots-camera-club.org.uk

7 DECEMBER

Brampton Flower Club

7.30pm The Priory Centre, Priory Lane, St Neots

Tickets £15, club members £12.50 An evening of floral artistry from Jacqui Arnold, a talented national demonstrator and floral designer. Arrangements will be raffled. Selection of stalls. Email for tickets. Email: Margaret.horne@me.com www.bramptonflowerclub.com

7 DECEMBER

Buckden Local History Society

7.30pm Millard Suite, Village Hall

Visitors £4, children free

‘A Victorian Family Christmas in Peterborough’ by Liz Davies. Meets first Wednesday of each month. New members/visitors welcome. Annual membership £16. Web: www.buckdenhistory.co.uk

The deadline for What’s On entries is 9th December. What’s on entries to whatson@villagermag.net

WHAT'S ON IN DECEMBER

7

& 14 DECEMBER

St Neots Choral Society

7.30-9.30pm. Eynesbury Junior School, Montagu Street, Eynesbury Rehearsals are every Wednesday in term time.Tel: 01480 212298 Web: www.stneotschoral.org.uk

7,

14, 21 & 28 DECEMBER

Kimbolton Bridge Club. 10am-12pm Mandeville Hall, Kimbolton Meets every Wednesday for friendly, social bridge. Players of all standards are welcome with or without a partner. Just turn up!

8 DECEMBER

If I was Father Christmas

10.30-11.30am St Neots Museum Free entry. Join for fun, free history activities for children and take home an art creation too! Sessions are aimed at children aged 3-4. Children under 2 can attend but do not require a ticket. Booking essential. stneotsmuseum.org.uk

8

DECEMBER

Ghost Walk

7.30pm St Neots Museum Tickets £7. Discover the haunted buildings, ghostly secrets and spooky stories of St Neots on a Ghost Walk! Walks start at the Museum and lasts approximately 90 minutes. Tel: 01480 214163 curators@stneotsmuseum.org.uk Web: stneotsmuseum.org.uk

10

& 17 DECEMBER

St Neots Farmers & Craft Market 8am-1.30pm. Products from local food producers and craft makers.

12 DECEMBER

Perry WI

7.30pm Sailability Club House, Grafham Water Centre Christmas meal. Tel: Jakki Spall 07703 431900

16 DECEMBER

Kimbolton Community Cinema

Doors open 7, film 7.30pm

Mandeville Hall, Kimbolton

The Railway Children Return. Tickets available from Bytes Café (Mon/Fri mornings), online or on the door. kimbolton.cinema@gmail.com Web: www.ticketsource.co.uk/ mandeville-hall-kimbolton

17 DECEMBER

Carol Concert

6pm St Mary's Church, Eaton Socon Joint concert with St. Neots Choral Society and St Neots Sinfonia. Wellknown carols, Christmas-themed works and readings. Children are welcome to join the percussion section for a special work!

20 DECEMBER

Greensands Writers' Group 7-9pm. Join Greensands Writers' Group for a monthly online meeting. greensandswriters.wixsite.com

20 DECEMBER

Dementia Café

10am-12pm

St Ives Free Church, St Ives £2.50 per person. For people with dementia and their carers. Tel: George 07725 588145 Web: facebook.com/ stivesdementiafriendlycommunity

23 & 23 DECEMBER

Creating Christmas Baubles

11am-3pm.

St Neots Museum

Child tickets £4.50, adults free Use tools and objects to make amazing Christmas baubles to take home with you! 40-minute session suitable for ages 4+. Book online Tel: 01480 214163 curators@stneotsmuseum.org.uk Web: stneotsmuseum.org.uk

31 DECEMBER

New Year’s Eve Party 8.30pm-1am

Hinchingbrooke Country Park Adults £25, Under 16s £12 Join in the celebrations seeing in the New Year in the Country Park. Drinks on arrival, live music, reasonably priced bar, buffet and a glass of bubbly at midnight. Web: www.ticketsource.co.uk/hcp

Knight: Gardendesignideas.co.uk

Don’t forget the garden

A rewarding and warming task at this time is to add compost on beds to form a mulch, provided the soil is not frozen. Ensure the soil is damp and this will help to keep roots warm and lock in a little moisture ready for potential drought in the future. It will transform the look of your beds and make you feel good too.

Winter pruning

It’s also a perfect time to prune woody species such as acers, figs, vines and deciduous shrubs, before the sap starts rising. Pruning is carried out in order to remove dead, damaged or diseased parts and to control the growth of something that might be a little too large for the space it occupies. It is also the best way to define the shape of a plant, and at the right time of year pruning will help to create flowering and fruiting branches for the next season. Not everything should be pruned at the same time, however. Plum trees and other prunus species, for example, should never be pruned during winter because it increases the risk of silver leaf disease. Spring flowering shrubs should be pruned in late June or early summer just after flowering –otherwise, their flowering shoots will be removed. Many plants will benefit from being pruned around August when their growth has slowed, but evergreen shrubs tend to grow best when they are pruned in spring, just at the beginning of the growing season. In the past, a fresh cut on a tree or shrub would be sealed using pruning paint. We now know that pruning at the correct time of year allows a cut to heal naturally and this is preferable.

A great symbol of Christmas

One of the many symbols of the season that we all love is the fresh Christmas tree - it is never adequately replaced with plastic. The Norway spruce was once the traditional British choice but because it has a tendency to drop its needles, it has been nudged down the popularity chart by ‘non-drop’ varieties. The blue spruce, as it is known, generally holds onto its spiny needles until the end of festivities and beyond. The Douglas fir is also a good choice because it also holds its needles well –although it can be rather expensive. Undoubtedly, the bestselling tree of the ‘non-drop’ variety is the Nordmann fir (Abies nordmanniana). This fast-grower can reach heights of up to 30m in the wild, so it’s perhaps best not to plant it outside the kitchen door once it has done its duty indoors.

Of course, there is no point in planting a tree that has been cut from its rootstock. But containergrown or trees freshly dug from the field can often transplant rather splendidly. Bear this in mind when you are making your choice.

Caroline

Another month and another homeless rabbit in need of a loving new family

Mabel was signed over into our care after her previous owner, for reasons beyond her control, could no longer keep her. She’s roughly one year old, spayed, vaccinated and microchipped ready for a new home to go to, hopefully before Christmas! She’s a very sweet natured rabbit who is eager to come over for a strokes and a bit of a fuss. She was previously kept as a house rabbit, but absolutely loves to run and hop round a secure garden; although she regularly comes back over to you to make sure you’re still there! Her most favourite thing of all though, is digging! While not all rabbits dig, digging is normal, instinctive behaviour that it good for their welfare. To avoid having the whole garden dug up, a designated area can be created with loose soil and added sand for Mabel to dig. Small treats or veggies can be hidden in the digging area to encourage her to use it.

Mabel was previously a lone rabbit but we’d love to find her a home where she can be a companion to a lonely male bunny. Rabbits are extremely social creatures so are happiest and most relaxed when in the company of other rabbits. This stems back to the ‘wild rabbit’ instinct whereby rabbits rely on their companions to warn them against predators, but also to keep them warm in the winter. Mabel can be rehomed with a neutered and vaccinated male. Unfortunately you can’t put rabbits in a hutch together and hope they get on, rabbits must be bonded which can be a fairly lengthy process. They are introduced gradually so they can get used to

each other and become familiar with each others scents, and can take anything up to a week, however once bonded the rabbits will be much happier and will have a friend for life. This year seems to be the worst year for rabbits the RSPCA has seen. Unlike Mabel who although is looking for a new home, is currently happy living in foster care, there are currently 104 rabbits in England waiting for a rescue space – and that is the National RSPCA alone, not including local Branches like ourselves who have our own waiting list, or other animal charities in the same position. Sadly these animals are much more complex pets than recognised, needing enough space, enrichment and company to live a happy life, but when happy they make the most wonderful pets!

Contact us for more information about Mabel or for other animals we have for adoption you can visit our website, www.rspca.org.uk/local/bedfordshirenorth-branch or for anything else you can email us at info@rspca-bedfordshirenorth.org.uk; call the office on 01234 266965; or write to us at 9 Thurlow Street, Bedford, MK40 1LR. We are a small, local Branch working within the remit of the National RSPCA, largely run by a team of dedicated volunteers and are entirely self-funded.