You don’t need this

Seminar room

The global education budget is HUGE! Even if you exclude compulsory education from the calculations, it’s probably somewhere up there just behind health-care and defence. So many people attend all sorts of training courses. I’ve attended courses, workshops and seminars on everything from highly technical instruction on computer software to…

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Battling hay fever (and other inflammatory ills)

Child crying with hand over eyes

I’ve never really suffered with allergic hay fever reactions. The same cannot be said for everyone in our household. The runny nose and itchy-scratchy-want-to-rip-them-out eyes have regularly been a curse that has just about been held at bay by the highest dose of over-the-counter medicines. Sometimes we resorted to prescription…

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Here comes the bride… and she needs help

Inside a church

It was frenetic. Rushing from one place to another, we tried in vain to complete everything on time. People were late. Things had gone wrong. The kids could not grasp the concept of doing anything quickly today. But now, the frenzy forgotten. Stillness. What was not done would remain undone.…

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Zero waste – an impossible goal?

Litter bin surrounded by rubbish

When decluttering is not enough Not long ago I wrote about our target of living with less. Decluttering has become a part of our life; aside from what we’ve thrown away, each week we’ve taken a bag or box of “stuff” to the local second-hand shop. Our home, and life,…

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A healthy breakfast smoothie

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Fortunately we know this thanks to a 1917 issue of Good Health magazine, edited by Dr J H Kellogg. Some years later this fact was brought to a wider audience by another company with a product to sell, General Foods. Many…

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All things beige and beautiful

Fast food or Fresh Food?

Not far from where we lived there was, in my early teenage years, a car that was the subject of much ridicule in our household. It was not the vehicle’s vital statistics that caused this derision by top-trumps obsessed youngsters. It was the colour. Beige. Hearing-aid beige is not a…

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Why I hate weddings

Wedding

The air is alive with the chatter of birds and the dappled sun gently lights the idyllic green. The chime of the bells drifts across the village, announcing to all who would hear that a new life has begun. The bride and groom have made their vows and emerge from…

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Do they make your list?

Business is brutal. To be successful you must be ruthless. Relentless. Work all the hours that God gives. There will be sacrifices, it’s inevitable. Your health and relationships may suffer, but that’s the cost of success. Or is it? Perhaps it depends on the kind of businesses we want to…

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