Everyone must know what a favourite Williams Homebaked biscuits are with the Frost Magazine team,  but it’s really  interesting to learn about some of their stockists too. To the right of the image of the scrumptious biscuits you will see an ancient olive tree – heavens, even older than our editor, Margaret Graham. This amazing olive tree fronts Bents Marget Garden, where you will now find some Williams Homebaked.

The Bents story begain in 1937, when Alfred and Margaret Bent began to cultivate and sell roses grown in the front of their terraced house in Glazebury, Warrington.

This immediately attracted Margaret Graham, because she is bore of the year when roses are mentioned – yep  she lives and breathes her own Old English babies, using them in mixed beds. So she determined that Frost Magazine must  find out more.

After the war, Alfred bought 16 acres of land and began to grow on a larger scale. There were no such things as garden centres, and planting was  seasonal, with  business pretty much hand to mouth. What you made in the growing season had to last the year.

In the 1970s, Alfred and Margaret’s sons Ron and John expanded the business, with Ron suggesting that food and drinks should also be offered. This was extraordinarily entrepreneurial –  most nurseries were just that back then.

Voila!  No sooner said than done –  Bents Garden Centre  began to evolve into a unique lifestyle destination where customers could and can discover the products, advice and inspiration to make outdoor and indoor living more beautiful.  In addition, they could and can head off to dine in comfort ‘a la Bents’ and imagine  their  purchases transforming their home and garden. Couldn’t be much better, could it?

But yes, actually, it can, because it is heart warming that Bents has  resisted becoming all  ‘corporate’ on the heels of its success and is still very much a family business, with succeeding generations becoming involved.

So let’s look at the details: alongside plants, seeds, outdoor furniture, barbecues and outdoor buildings, you’ll  find  indoor furniture, gifts, fresh food, clothing, shoes, toys, pet supplies and everything you need for your kitchen. And your hips – because Williams Homebaked offerings reside here alongside other excellent top of the range  food products.

So is it any wonder that these days, Bents is regarded as one of the very best garden centres in the North West, and a weekend destination for many families. If you find yourself in the food hall, you can always pick up a Williams Eccles cake or Manchester Tart. Be careful, once tried you will go back for more. Take the car –  you’ll want to bring the whole garden centre back with you.

Do please ask Frost Magazine to tea if you buy LOTS of Williams biscuits. We’ll be there like a shot, nipping into the rose section at Bents first.

Williams Handbaked.co.uk 

https://www.bents.co.uk/

The granola range includes: Digestive Health, Low Sugar, Low Sugar Maple & Pecan, High Protein, Gluten Free, Organic, Original, Belgian Chocolate, Treacle and Pecan, Passionfruit and Pistachio, Mango and Macadamia, Pink Apple and Cinnamon. Lizi’s has also launched Lizi’s Adventurers Granola Crispies for kids, available in Banana and Strawberry flavours.  The Lizi’s Super Muesli range includes: Glow, Focus, Boost and Cleanse.

Frost Magazine can heartily recommend it. It’s scrumptious

Lizi’s Low Sugar Granola: RRP £3.70 for 500g, available from Waitrose, Sainsbury’s, Tesco,  Morrisons and Ocado

I first started practicing mindfulness & meditation, (albeit sporadically) over a decade ago, whilst I was being treated for severe agitated depression when we were living in Germany, which , (as I said last week),  was the start of my peri-menopause, or so I came to believe. 

My journey into meditation & mindfulness was self-led. I’d read books & tried to introduce more mindfulness into my kids’ lives. Kids are inherently mindful & present, I figured it made sense to nurture this rather than condition it out of them. So I knew mindfulness would be helpful for me. I started meditating & slowly my mental health started to improve.

We moved to Germany to Bangkok for my husband’s work where I met my dear friend, Violaine, a practicing Buddhist & meditation teacher. Violaine became my meditation mentor: with her I studied & practiced meditation for 2 hours almost every week.

It was a revelation. She guided me through all the pitfalls of my own self-led practice, taught me how to do it (although it’s less about doing & more about being), helped me navigate inevitable obstacles.

I learnt 2 profound lessons during my time with Violaine: you don’t have to believe everything you think. Our thoughts are just thoughts, not necessarily fact & they do not define you.

That was a relief!

We can all fall foul of being sabotaged by our inner critical voice – mine was brutal. Layer on the ugly, insidious thoughts of mental heath (or lack thereof) & that dialogue in my head was not a pleasant space to be.

This insight almost gave me the permission I needed to let go of those unhelpful thoughts. I started to acknowledge the ugly, unhelpful thoughts & I would just stop & remind myself if I wouldn’t say that to a friend I wouldn’t be saying it to myself. Overtime that inner critical voice has quietened.

Violaine also said, “It is a work, Alex, it is always a work.”

And it is but oh my gosh it is so worth it.

We lived in Bangkok for 2 years & I absolutely loved there for many reasons, one of them was to see the monks every morning on their daily alms rounds. They were a beautiful reminder to take a moment to turn inwards & I was grateful for that.

I also discovered that the Buddha ordained temples were not for the sake of worship but instead a reminder of our own Buddha nature: we are all inherently good, loving & kind. It helps to cultivate that all important self-compassion. I just love this concept.

When we moved back to the UK over 4 years ago it was because my marriage was over. Our nomad life (when we arrived in the UK my young son  had lived in 4 other countries) was over & it was time to settle.

Settling into any new country is hard, layer on a divorce & as the autumn night’s started to draw in I began to miss our spontaneous, social, fun life overseas & feel sorry for myself.

Then I had an idea: I thought about Rumi’s quote – it’s all about perception.

If I think things are going to be cr*p, then damn sure it will be because that’s what I’m looking for, so that’s what I’ll find.

But what if I think it’s going to be OK, good, great even?

And so I decided to do just shift my perception… and nothing changed…but everything did.

What a great lesson.

Next time find out how my mindfulness training helped overcome crippling anxiety & suicidal thoughts.

If you would like to find out more about creating your own self-care practices check out Alex’s FB group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/mindfulnessyoga4selfcare

Or on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alexbannard/

Incorporate short yoga sequences & meditations as part of your self-care toolkit with guided practices on Alex’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQlKZJ7MeyYc6lqkv6seISw

For more info check out www.alexbannard.com

Alex is based on the edge of the stunning Cotswolds & has been sharing her love for all things yoga & mindfulness for almost a decade, not just in the UK but also around the world. Having used her training & knowledge to navigate her own menopausal journey & create a life in which she is thriving, Alex is devoted in supporting other’s in this life changing transition.

Yep, that’s right, Self-Destruction. On the first page I was laughing aloud. Such a great self-help book. No preaching. It’s so refreshing I recommend it.

Here we have a detailed roadmap to multi-faceted personal ruin, presenting  us with clear steps to drive ever onwards on the wrong path with hot tips to make it worse. Sleepwalk ™ leaves  absolutely no stone unturned in signposting the way to foul up one’s life. Even while we’re rolling on the floor screaming with laughter, we are aware that this guy, a psychologist, could be talking to us, about us.  It doesn’t ‘alf make us think.

Stephen Renwick’s mock 9-step program is an histerical,  dark, ironic and irreverent parody of the plethora of self-help genre.  The confessional humour is directed  at the writer, so says the blurb  but  nonetheless  it most certainly  bangs on the door of our lives and hi-lights some of what we do, think, assume.  And most of it alerts us to the fact that these attitudes perhaps ain’t helpiful and need mitigating.

Renwick, the psychologist, knows how to present not just humour, but help. This he makes clear in the closing chapters of the book. We have listened to his increasingly familiar road to disaster and discontent knowing we need adjust our lives and then – as a conclusion – is the punchline, the- hey, think about this now and redirect.

I ate it up.

Sleepwalk is available from all good booksellers.

https://www.sleepwalk-selfhelp.com/

I know little  of Chinese culture and history, so this exploration of one man’s roots – though in truth it is far more than that – is utterly fascinating.

Not content with exploring the tensions  between a present day son brought up in the British culture and his withdrawn father, Kwong Chun Ji,  who left China in 1921, F.G. Kwong, one feels, is also on a journey to understand his ancestors. So does it work?

Definitely.

The writing is excellent, the meticulous revelations of a culture unknown to him, and a father similarly unknown to a son is recorded with empathy and sympathy.  So let me lead you into this extraordinary autobiography, biography or is it a history? Perhaps it is all three.

Kwong Chun Ji was ordered by his father in 1921 to leave their ancestral home in semi-feudal China and head to the West to save the family from starvation during the civil wars that erupted, following the fall of the Last Emperor of China.

Landing  in Liverpool Kwong Chun Ji found he had not actually escaped the turmoil he had fled. There it still was, in the shape of Triad gangs who were waiting to target disembarking Chinese immigrants. He managed to evade them, settling elsewhere in the area. At the age of 38  he was instructed by his father to marry by proxy a much younger bride from a neighbouring village who joined him in Britain, and together they produced a family. All the while Kwong Chun Ji still continued to support this family back in China – as befits a dutiful son.

So, it was all ‘happy ever after’? No.

It transpires that there  was a huge unexplained gulf  between Kwong Chun Ji and Frank,  his first born; the author of this absorbing book. Why did his father treat Frank  with a diffidence bordering on hostility? What was it that Francis had done? Or was it not his fault? If so…

This is a book to be read carefully, one which will introduce the reader,  not only  to the culture and upheavals of an increasingly powerful China, but take them on  a quest into Frank’s ancestral past, a quest into the secret of his father’s near hostility, and then the  quest for peace and reconciliation

Read The Ancestral Quest, it is a momentous and brave search for truth.

Published by Book Guild Publishing, ISBN 9781913208899. The Ancestral Quest is available in paperback (£12.99) and Kindle format (£3.99) on Amazon at https://amzn.to/3oTLrzw and https://amzn.to/3xqqD6v respectively.

It is also available to purchase from The Book Guild, Waterstones, W.H.Smith, Foyles and all major bookshops in UK.

Also available from Amazon in Norway, Denmark, Spain, Portugal and India: Romania from books-express.ro: South Africa from loot.co.za: Australia from dymocks.com.au: USA from barnesandnoble.com

About the author:

After thirty years in osteopathic practice in Notting Hill, F. L.Ying aka F.G.Kwong retired to devote time to his other passion – writing. Living in London, married to a fashion designer with their young granddaughters not too far away who keep him on his toes with so many probing questions about the mysterious circumstances hitherto of his family background and the complicated ways of the world.

Regular readers will know this – I’m smitten by ARRAN Sense Of Scotland.

The last couple of years have been stressful in so many ways, and we’ve often missed the calming energy of nature. But our sense of smell is powerful and natural fragrances can affect our mood in a positive way. This is how ARRAN Sense Of Scotland products transport us to their home on the beautiful and wild Isle of Arran as we shower – or even just wash our hands. So, if for whatever reason you can’t jump in the car and head for the hills, ARRAN Sense Of Scotland can still help your mood and stress levels. The company’s expressed purpose is ‘To help the world connect with nature’ – this says it all.

I love the uniqueness of their After The Rain fragrance, so I was thrilled to discover a couple of new fresh and unusual scent combinations.

Grapefruit & Green Leaf – what a fabulous image – is an invigorating citrus blend of rasped lemons, grapefruit and bergamot and smells as great as it sounds.

I’ve also had the pleasure of sampling Glen Iorsa Lavender and Spearmint –– perfect for your morning shower – stress-reducing lavender with spearmint to wake you up.

Both are made with natural essential oils and enriched with Pro-Vitamin B5, which helps maintain your skin barrier – keeping moisture in and irritants out. Plus – as with all ARRAN Sense Of Scotland products, their own fresh spring-water forms part of the ingredients – how cool is that?

You may also be interested to read on their blog about how the company stepped up during the pandemic – supplying over £100,000 worth of products to key workers and volunteers across care homes, care in the community facilities, and the NHS – I think this says a great deal about the company and its ethos.

The shower gels and the hand-washes both cost just £16 each from ARRAN Sense Of Scotland – take a look, there are some other fabulous products too.

By Dr K Thompson, award-winning author of From Both Ends of the Stethoscope: Getting through breast cancer – by a doctor who knows

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01A7DM42Q http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01A7DM42Q
http://faitobooks.co.uk

Note: These articles express personal views. No warranty is made as to the accuracy or completeness of information given and you should always consult a doctor if you need medical advice.

The Boy Who Drew Auschwitz by Thomas Geve is one of the most extraordinary books I have ever read. Geve’s ability to  observe and recall the details of his experience  is remarkable: the day to day existence, the instances of humanity and kindness amongst unimaginable darkness, the ability of the young to live in the present and endure… But words weren’t enough for Geve and so  he drew many moments and the strength of his illustrations lie in their simplicity.

It’s all there, in The Boy Who Drew Auschwitz: words, illustrations, the sum of 22 months in this boy’s life and should be required reading in every educational establishment.

Geve was transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau at the age of 13. He was selected on arrival to go right, as whips cracked over the confused terror stricken families. So he went right to where the able bodied men stood. His mother was not selected to go right but to … Thomas marched away with the men, five abreast – to live – for now. Then the ‘prick of a thousand pins’ as the six numbers were tattoed on his arm. They added up to 13. Lucky or unlucky?

Geve had to fend for himself in the men’s camp of Auschwitz 1, surviving for 22 months in the unimaginaable world of 3 Nazi concntration and death camps. He was liberated on 11 April 1945 from Buchenwald.

But this youngster’s work was not finished on liberaton. He made over 80 drawings capturing day to day life inside the camps which, combined with his written testimony, bear witness to the lives of those deemed sub-human by this monstrous regime. But the extraordinary fact is that the humanity of these young people survived within them, they were invincible. as they continued day to day, staying in the present.

As he says on page 199 –  the adults were concerned with the past, their losses, and the future and their fears, but for the young the present was what was of concern though they were strangers from different cultures grouped together, with their different norms, and backgrounds. For instance, as Geve recalls, his  thrice weekly 1-5 ounce stick of margaring was sparingly spread on what bread there was. For the Russian country boys it was gulped down, on its own.

For Greek boys hitting was a game, for Thomas hitting signified  anger. But he played their game of Klepsiklepsi. A playmate was blindfolded, slapped. Then the blindfold removed and all others did their best to look guilty as the victim tried to guess who had actually hit them. He remembers a Jewish boy from Belgium who had never made a bed,  his mother had always brushed his hair. Geve helped him with the bed in the morning, but questions if he was right to do so, because perhaps hthe lad would have become independent more quickly. But would Auschwitz have allowed him the time to learn? Geve remarks. Suddenly one is back in what resembles Dante’s inferno. Thomas worked – bricklaying was his mechanism. Thomas survived

Read it, remember it, as anti-semitism rises in the UK.

The Boy Who Drew Auschwitz by Thomas Geve pb £8.99  Also in ebook and audio