I have been interested in gut health for a long time now and love plant based food. So I was excited to try the new allPlants Gut Health bundle. I’m a busy working mum and need convenience in my life.

The meals are easy to prepare. You put them in the microwave and they’re ready within minutes. They taste delicious and I felt healthy after eating them. The recipes are imaginative and have a good mix of things in them. It’s great to not have to compromise on health for the sake of convenience. Highly recommended.

Just in time for summer, allplants have launched their NEW Gut Health Booster Bundle, a selection of their best dishes that pack in all the nutrients you need for optimal gut health, combining high-protein, vibrant, delicious plant-based ingredients, without skipping on flavour.
Ever-increasing in popularity, gut health has become a buzzword in the wellness sphere, and for good reason. allplants’ in-house nutritionist, Bethan Cummings, explains: “The gut plays a really important role in absorbing and utilising essential nutrients that the body needs for several dierent functions. This includes boosting our metabolism & energy production.”
Experts at The Gut Stu shared with our team: “Over the years, more and more research has suggested we may be able to modify our microbiome simply through what we eat. Exciting recent research has identified microbes that are strongly and consistently linked to dietary patterns. The research found a wide variety of dietary fibre from plant based sources is key to support a healthy gut microbiome.”
Our guts are home to trillions of good bacteria that help to keep them in working order. When they’re running at full capacity, we can feel the benefits across our entire body; and this can have a huge impact on fitness performance and training. “With a weakened or unhealthy gut, you’re less able to fully absorb the nutrients in the food you consume. These nutrients are essential to produce the optimum energy, focus & endurance needed for a successful workout, without them, this could have a knock-on eect on your fitness progress and health in general.” Bethan Cummings, nutritionist.

Tim Spector, leading scientist and co-founder of personalised nutrition service ZOE, suggests eating 30 dierent plants per week for optimal gut health, in order to reap the nutritional benefits from a variety of plants. The allplants gut health bundle allows you to achieve this in just three dishes from the bundle.
The Gut Health Booster Bundle includes:
● Smoky Corn + Spanish Rice Bowl
● Harissa Cauliflower Grain Bowl
● Rainbow Nourish Bowl
● Miso + Tamari Tofu Bowl
● Aubergine + Split Pea Stew
● Smoky Soul Chilli
● Kale + Chickpea Daal
● Breakfast Berry Superfood Smoothie
● Mango + Greens Superfood Smoothie
“The allplants Gut Health Booster Bundle contains a huge variety of plants; you’re truly eating the rainbow, which is essential for energising & supporting our gut microbiome. The Rainbow Nourish Bowl contains 14 dierent types of plants alone, including Beetroot, Broccoli & Chickpeas which are packed with gut loving fibre, amazing for maintaining a healthy gut. Not to forget, this dish contains gut-thriving Miso Tempeh, which encourages the growth of friendly bacteria in our immune system.” Bethan Cummings, allplants nutritionist.
Like all their meals, allplants’ dishes are 100% plant-based, chef-made and delivered to your door – and insanely delicious. The dishes are flash-frozen, ensuring nutrition and taste are locked in. Customers simply reheat and voila – you’ll have a delicious, healthy meal right when you need them most. No last-minute dinner decisions; no sad on-the-go lunches.
The gut health bundle retails at £36.86 – a saving of 25% – and qualifies for free delivery online, available without subscription.

Billed as ‘the only domestic bible you’ll need’, The Life-Changing Magic of a Little Bit of Mess goes beyond that. In a world where, mostly women, are told it’s aspirational to spend our time putting dry goods into mason jars to make our pantries pretty, the book takes a heavy subject and handles it with humour and wisdom.

As a mother of young children I loved this book and it’s sound advice. No one wishes they did more housework on their deathbed.

Kerri Sackville takes her keen eye and dissects #homeinspo influencers and  points out that clutter can be good, amongst other things.  This book, for all of it’s humour, is an essential read. I can’t recommend it enough.

There is nothing more satisfying than a beautifully organised home! say the #homeinspo influencers.

In an era of decluttering gurus, cleaning bloggers and aspirational pantries, Kerri Sackville has studied the evidence and declared, ‘Nah, way too much trouble.’

Instead, she has embraced domestic imperfection and discovered the life-changing magic of letting your standards slip.

In this, her magnum opus, Kerri explains why cleanliness is not next to godliness, why decluttering is the enemy of joy and why no-one cares about your messy bedroom.

With affirmations for the mess-challenged (#DisarrayIsOkay!), cleaning hacks that actually work (*Don’t Have Children), and recipes for people who hate washing up (Step One: download a meal delivery app), this book will inspire you to tear off those rubber gloves, put down the sponge and take a nap.

Whether you have surrendered in your war on dust or are still bravely fighting for ordered folds in fitted sheets, The Life-changing Magic of a Little Bit of Mess is a welcome dose of #inspo that transports you to the joyous world of imperfection. Because no one has ever looked back on their life and wished they’d spent more time scrubbing the floors.

Marion shared with Frost Magazine that last weekend they had been busy creating the invites for the Columbia Community Association’s OPEN DAY, such an exciting moment.  AND GUESS WHAT,  the team have signed the lease for your beloved Columbia Community Association Centre. Absolutely thrilling and a few glasses will surely be raised.

The team admit it has been a long, hard haul, with some snagging still to be done, but bit by bit they are getting there and simply can’t wait until the Columbia Community Association Centre is officially opened on Friday 28th July at 2 pm by Margaret Graham, the niece of Brady Square’s  Stan Newsome of the Long Pull.

Mind you, there’s still have work to do with Solar Panels next on the agenda.  As Marion says, she’s not sure they will ever be finished because every day still brings new challenges – and ideas (lock that woman up we hear everyone shout)

Corey is here doing the last of the flooring, two cupboards and the rear exit – and – for men and their sheds – the CCA’s  is now completed,

Sunderland City Council were true to their word as their men did their best to remove graffiti that some budding Banksy (not) painted on the air raid shelter some years ago.
Nick Owens is back from his 40-day Camino trek, so any minute now he will be making the CCA’s bespoke bench. Bravo that man: a friend of Margaret Graham’s did that trek and it’s not for the feeble hearted, or the weak of legs.  Red Shoes Bob has busied himself attending to the doors, as a couple of them needed to be trimmed after the new flooring was laid but at least he is having a respite from watering the plants as the CCA team hope the recent torrential rain will keep them hydrated for a couple of days.

After a visit to the garden centre; compost, and plants were planted in the lovely pots Alma O’Hare donated and as if by magic some brand new, spick and span pallets arrived for the CCA’s  raised beds. It would appear the Brady Square fairies seldom sleep.

Cultural Creatives held their last session for this termm during the week but they will be back in September and of course, Bingo day meant cream cakes  – such a hard life. The day trippers might not enjoy filling in their feedback form about Whitby, but needs must. It is needed for the Warm Spaces survey.

Kinaxia Logistics dropped off two pallets of equipment for the solar panels to be fitted and as always the coffee morning was great fun. The group grows and grows, like Topsy, but hardly surprising.

The news is still not over, as  we hear that Aimee Green’s dancers are taking part in the World Championships in Blackpool this weekend. Come on girls we are all behind you. Marion will let us know how you did next week amongst all CCA’s other news, but I fancy it might just be heading the list.  Marion’s final message for this week is:

Have a great week-end one and all.

Information: Columbia Community Association  Columbia uk Community Forum

Memories of Brady Square

It is difficult, almost impossible, not to be overawed by some of the works in this exhibition. Sculptures featuring stone and wood that were on this earth, some from three billion years ago, others much younger at a mere one or two billion years.

The work is tactile, inviting to the touch, demanding to be stroked and caressed, but where that takes you is up to you, but take you it will.

For me the echoes of time were embodied in the stone and wood, and the artist invites you to touch each piece, at first tentatively and then more surely.

Deep Time reveals the extraordinary, but little known three-billion-year history of our nation, told through the rocks that lie unnoticed beneath our feet.

The rocks exhibited in Deep Time are the oldest materials on earth which we are ever likely to encounter.

One of the exhibition highlights is Tower of Time, a 2.5m high sculpture featuring 16 rocks from Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and one which includes a 2.5-billion-year-old White Anorthosite rock which is the same type of rock found on the Moon and brought back by the Apollo 15 mission in 1971. On top of this tower the artist has placed a highly polished stainless-steel element symbolising the Industrial Revolution which also reflects the image of the viewer, head tilted back, to him or herself.

The standout piece for me, and one that kept drawing me back on several occasions was Torus of Time (Torus – a surface or solid formed by rotating a closed curve, especially a circle, about a line which lies in the same plane but does not intersect it (like a ring doughnut)). In other words, it is possible to slide one’s hand over the entire piece without ever having to leave the surface. This is a one metre diameter ring presenting the country’s 3 billion year history as a ‘circle of time’. Having all geological periods represented within one country is rare.

The hole at the centre of the piece draws the eye, and in my case at least, it was as if one could have dived through it and be transported to another time. Too much sun? Possibly. Too much science fiction? Again possibly, but this is a piece deserving of the highest praise, its surface smooth, and cool to the touch, a ring made up of various coloured pieces of polished stone, at once tactile and aesthetically pleasing.

Other pieces blend polished and rough untouched surfaces to great effect, there is so much to explore here that I suspect that one visit may not be enough, and my wife has already demanded that I accompany her, so that she can explore the exhibition for herself.

Elsewhere in the gallery, and no less breath-taking, are several sculptures made from teak. The teak was enroute from Yangon (then Rangoon) in July 1917 to Liverpool Dockyards when its cargo ship was torpedoed in the Irish Sea. Undisturbed for a century before it was raised and brought to the artist’s attention.

These works are very much a collaboration between Angela Palmer, marine wood boring insects and the sea. Such is the density of the teak the outer layer has scarcely been penetrated. The artist has polished the preserved wood in order to highlight its richly varied red hue, whilst leaving, untouched, nature’s carving to great effect.

This is an important exhibition and one well worth seeking out.

Deep Time: Uncovering Our Hidden Past

An exhibition of Sculpture by Angela Palmer

Wednesday 21^st June – Saturday 16^th September 2023  10.00am – 6.00pm

The Pangolin Gallery, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9AG