Viewing all items in Resource Category: Looking at You

Full marks to Jamie Oliver for his Channel 4 series, ‘Keep Cooking and Carry On’.  He showed us how to make tasty meals with basic ingredients and a minimum of fuss. The pandemic prompted other encouraging responses. One mother in the ‘at risk’ category said her adult children thought she was immortal until now. Now...

All sorts of themes are chosen for the Chelsea Flower Show, but this year’s theme turned out to be scarily appropriate for the Spring of 2020:  loneliness and mental health. For, according to Sue Briggs, RHS Director General, “many feel they need gardening in their life now more than ever before, for their mental and...

When mowing your lawn, avoid cutting your dandelions.  That is the advice of the president of the British Ecological Society, Prof Jane Memmott. It will help to save the bees. She explains: “Dandelions are a fantastic source of pollen and nectar for the early pollinators in particular. If they were rare, people would be fighting...

A leading terminal illness charity, Marie Curie, advises that euphemisms are not helpful, and that using direct language about death is the best approach when in a hospital or while talking to children. The euphemisms include: ‘popped their clogs’, ‘kicked the bucket’, ‘passed away’, ‘pushing up daisies’ and ‘leaving this mortal coil.’ Matthew Reed, Marie...

The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) has called on people to allow flowers to grow on their lawns, instead of insisting on smooth green surfaces. The reason is because nearly 7.5million acres of meadows and pastures rich in wildflowers have been lost since the Thirties, thus removing a vital source of food for pollinators, many of...

Here is some good news for us all: if you are feeling low, get moving. A recent study at Harvard has found that even just half an hour of exercise a day can lower the risk of depression by 17 per cent. So – even though we are told to stay home at present, do...

One good thing about staying at home is that you cannot be tempted by food that you see in restaurants, bakeries or the shops. This may be a good time to lose that weight you’ve been trying to shift for years. One good way of doing it seems to be the 5:2 diet. A recent...

When you go out for your daily exercise, don’t text anyone. It is safer for you. A recent study has found that people who text while they walk are twice as likely to have an accident or near miss with a car, as those who are talking on the phone. The authors, from the University...

People used to say ‘bless you’ if you sneezed. Nowadays they might say something ruder! We live in troubled times. Some say that the expression started in Rome, when plague broke out. Sneezing was one of the plague’s main symptoms, and Pope Gregory I suggested that a tiny prayer in the form of saying, “God bless you”...

Here is a curious thing: people who plan for their death actually seem to end up living longer. A recent study of terminally ill patients found that those who discussed with their doctors their preferences for end-of-life care, went on to live significantly longer than those patients who did not. The study was carried out...

When someone on the train is using bad language Euros, koruna, yuan, or dollars in the collection plate Let’s plant a tree Those meetings at your workplace Rise in people living alone It’s hardly the London Marathon, but it could save your life How well do you get on with your neighbours? Are only children...

But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Colossians 3:8  Suppose you are on a train, enjoying the journey while you browse our latest parish magazine. You then hear a passenger nearby swearing at the top of their voice down...