Search Results for: Lifestyle

A collection of mysterious and fascinating stories about Dragons, told in a unique and original way by storyteller Clare Viner. The stories Clare tells are never written down, so they are never fixed. Each telling is new and spontaneous – like Chinese whispers the stories change a little each time they are told. Things get forgotten and new bits added in; this is the real magic of storytelling, like the breath that tells the tales, the stories themselves are alive, they cannot be pinned like butterflies. So the tales you hear sparkle with spontaneity – like life they are exquisite and unpolished. Listen to them once or twice then recreate them yourself. Let the story change and come alive again, on the pulse of your breath.

The Laidely Worm of Spindlestone High
Clare has re-interpreted this old legend from Nothumbria.
In many early myths the Goddess is represented as an old, wise and very powerful hag – and as a young, fertile maiden. Over time, in stories, the hag has been shown as ‘evil’ – her great wisdom and power being feared. In this story Clare portrays her as a loving initiator, who knows she must teach her daughter – in order for her to survive…

The Gurt Worm of Shervidge Forest
A re-working of an old Somerset legend. In this story, a forest is guarded by a huge fire breathing Dragon. Only one little old lady is allowed into the forest through an archway of Rowan trees and she becomes the Dragon’s best friend. There is a sad ending to this story but it teaches us that the magic of the Dragon and the Rowan tree are for protection.

A collection of mysterious and fascinating stories about Fairies, told in a unique and original way by storyteller Clare Viner. The stories Clare tells are never written down, so they are never fixed. Each telling is new and spontaneous – like Chinese whispers the stories change a little each time they are told. Things get forgotten and new bits added in; this is the real magic of storytelling, like the breath that tells the tales, the stories themselves are alive, they cannot be pinned like butterflies. So the tales you hear sparkle with spontaneity – like life they are exquisite and unpolished. Listen to them once or twice then recreate them yourself. Let the story change and come alive again, on the pulse of your breath.

The Magic Cooking Pot
An old Scottish folktale. If you had a magic pot that gave you any food you wanted, what would you choose? And would you mind if the fairy folk came skipping into your house every evening and morning to collect it? This is the tale of one man who did mind…

Mossy Coat
This is an old Gypsy story collected in Northumberland. As you listen to the story you will find that about half way through…you start to recognise the tale. It is a story that you will have heard before, a well loved fairy tale, but never quite like this!

Abraham Stocker and the Pixies
A mysterious and eerie tale of the pixies scorned. The story was originally written in Somerset dialect and had been collected from a local man on the Blackdown Hills in Somerset.

A collection of mysterious and fascinating stories about Trees, told in a unique and original way by storyteller Clare Viner. The stories Clare tells are never written down, so they are never fixed. Each telling is new and spontaneous – like Chinese whispers the stories change a little each time they are told. Things get forgotten and new bits added in; this is the real magic of storytelling, like the breath that tells the tales, the stories themselves are alive, they cannot be pinned like butterflies. So the tales you hear sparkle with spontaneity – like life they are exquisite and unpolished. Listen to them once or twice then recreate them yourself. Let the story change and come alive again, on the pulse of your breath.

Bethuska and the Silver Birch Tree
Based on a Czech folk tale, this is the story of a little girl called Bethuska. All her life Bethuska has been desperately poor but one day, while she is up in the silver birch tree grove, she meets a mysterious fairy woman who will change her life forever…

The Apple Maiden
This is a Celtic legend from Ireland. It is often told as a great tragedy but the angle has been changed a little, to suggest that the kings son may have been happy with his fate…
Next time you eat an apple cut it in half horizontally – this will reveal a star shape inside the apple, an ancient symbol of the fairy-folk.

The Elder Tree
This is a story created by Clare, using traditional folklore and herbal knowledge.
There is a tall, silver woman who lives in the Elder tree. She is a wise woman and can heal many troubles – but be sure to ask her permission before cutting her wood, or, like the family in this story, she might just pay you a visit…

Designed to boost your confidence with the opposite sex, this book contains tips and advice to help chat-up women.

This guide is designed to help cooks of every ability through the confusing minefield of culinary terms from around the world.

I arise from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low,
And the stars are shining bright.
I arise from dreams of thee,
And a spirit in my feet
Hath led me – who knows how? – 
To thy window chamber, Sweet!

Percy Bysshe Shelley


 


The best love poetry is passionate and timeless, expressing our deepest feelings and strongest desires with grace and emotion. Ranging from Sappho, Chaucer and Shakespeare through to Emily Dickinson and Christina Rossetti, this elegantly illustrated anthology presents a selection of moving and enduring poems that speak straight to the heart.

Say bye-bye to boredom!

School’s out – a time that many parents dread. How is it possible to keep kids from staring at screens or complaining there is nothing to do all day? This survival guide is here to help. It’s packed with brilliant and inexpensive activities to engage young minds and create awesome memories. From outdoor pursuits to indoor amusements, solo crafting to group games, there’s inspiration in these pages to get you through the lockdown.

It’s time to experience the joys of simple living

Whether you want to make small changes to your life or you’re looking to transform it, The Art of Simple Living will show you the way to a more wholesome existence. With help on how to declutter your home, practise mindfulness and make your mealtimes, free time and relationships more fulfilling, the advice and tips in this book will guide you towards a simpler life filled with joy, laughter and love.

The Responsible Traveller is your ticket to sustainable and ethical travel. This pocket-sized book provides the knowledge and tools that can help you to explore the world with a lighter footprint.

Whether you travel out of curiosity, to find respite, to remind yourself of how vast and wonderful our planet is, or in search of life-shaping adventures, having the freedom to explore can be exhilarating and hugely rewarding. However we owe it to the people, cultures, ecosystems and wildlife that we encounter along the way to travel with respect; to preserve our beautiful world for generations to come.

The Responsible Traveller will show you how to make actionable changes that result in more thoughtful and adventurous travels, while also doing our very best for Planet Earth. Through case studies and storytelling, you’ll learn about the environmental and social effects of tourism and gain a deeper understanding of cultural sensitivity. And through simple, achievable tips and practical lifestyle changes, you’ll discover how you can make an almighty difference in reducing your impact. Empowered with this information, perhaps your next adventure will be inspired by consideration, understanding and compassion.

Find inner confidence with this step-by-step workbook to help you build your self-esteem

Healthy self-esteem is key to having a good sense of well-being – it allows us to move through life with confidence, joy and resilience, to seek out new opportunities and to be kind to ourselves.

It can often be challenging to feel good about who we are. However, The Self-Esteem Workbook contains practical advice, effective tips and guided exercises based on trusted cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) techniques to help you build your self-esteem.

Use the workbook either on its own or alongside therapy to help you grow your confidence and achieve long-term self-belief.

Inside the book, you will find:
– A relaxed and supportive approach, allowing you to calmly complete the exercises at your own pace
– A hands-on attitude to boosting self-esteem, offering a wealth of tips and advice for working through your worries
– Clear and actionable advice on making lifestyle changes to support and improve your mental well-being
– Exercises grounded in research-supported CBT techniques

We live such busy lives, rushing from one thing to the next, that we barely give ourselves time to catch our breath. But what would happen if we aimed for less?

Every area of our lives can benefit from streamlining; when you cut out the things you don’t need, you leave room for the positive things that you want to focus on. By learning to prioritize and pare things down, you’ll feel the benefits across all areas of your life – above all, you’ll feel less stressed and more fulfilled. And it’s easy to do, too, if you take it one step at a time. This book shows you how to do just that, empowering you to tune in to the power of less.

Filled with practical tips and ideas, this little book will guide you to a simpler way of life. The topics covered include how to:

– Stress less
– Reduce screen time
– Minimize clutter
– Shop sustainably
– Make the most of your “me time”
By choosing a lifestyle that is less busy, less cluttered and less stressful, you will instantly feel healthier and happier.

A pocket-sized guide to all things vegan grub, this little book is the perfect gift for students who hunger for easy, affordable and feel-good food

The student lifestyle doesn’t always lend itself to extravagant cooking – most of the time you might get by with toast – but this book is for those that crave a little creativity, sustainability and flavour in the kitchen.

Vegan student food always packs a plant-based punch, promising tasty ingredients, high nutritional value and ethical peace of mind. Featuring an array of budget-friendly, flavourful and easy-to-make meals, this guide gives you the vegan recipes you need to spice up your student suppers.

From comfort food to gourmet dishes, study snacks to batch bakes and delicious drinks, the recipes, tips and trivia inside this book will put the variety in your vegan diet.

Whether you’re already a meat-free chef, a vegan cooking newcomer or an omnivore looking to explore plant-based food in your student kitchen, this book will provide you with the tools to ensure great taste every mealtime.

Take control of your anxiety with this step-by-step workbook to help you identify and overcome your worries

Life has plenty of challenges, and it’s normal to feel anxious from time to time. But when worry starts to affect your health and happiness, it’s time to take action. The Anxiety Workbook contains practical advice, effective tips and guided exercises to enable you to recognize and process your anxiety. Based on trusted techniques and mindfulness exercises, this guide will allow you to better understand your anxiety and provide the tools you need to work through it.

Either use the workbook on its own or alongside therapy to help you break away from negative thought patterns and achieve long-term calm and peace of mind.

Inside the book, you will find:

– A relaxed and supportive approach, which allows you to calmly complete the exercises at your own pace
– A hands-on attitude to relieving anxiety, offering a wealth of tips and advice for working through your worries
– Clear and actionable advice on making lifestyle changes to support and improve your mental well-being
– Exercises grounded in research-supported CBT techniques

Whether you’re looking for a one-stop shop to track and improve your general well-being, or you want to focus on a specific area of your health, this journal is the perfect place to start.

Divided into monthly chapters to help you stay on track 365 days of the year, My Fitness Tracker includes tips and advice on how to adopt a healthier lifestyle, along with lots of inspiration to keep you motivated. You’ll also find a variety of interactive pages where you can record your fitness journey, including:
– Your exercise goals and achievements
– How well you hydrate
– What you’re eating and where you can improve your diet
– How exercise and healthy eating affect your mood and sleeping habits
– Your alcohol intake and how you can reduce it

Simply spend five minutes a day recording your eating and exercise habits and enjoy looking back on the progress you’re making. There’s no better time to get your life on track and form a healthier relationship with fitness and food. You’ve got this!

Break away from bad habits and build healthy ones with this step-by-step workbook, which will help you make positive changes in your life

Habits are the building blocks of our days, and they have a huge impact on how we live – they affect what we do, how we feel and the paths in life that we choose to take.

The Good Habit Workbook contains practical advice, effective tips and guided exercises based on trusted cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) techniques. It will help you to break free from negative cycles that aren’t serving you and replace them with positive, productive habits for long-term health and happiness.

Use the workbook either on its own or alongside therapy to help you develop positive habits.

Inside the book, you will find:

– Clear, actionable advice on making positive lifestyle changes to support and improve your mental well-being
– A calm, supportive approach which invites you to work through the book at your own pace
– A hands-on attitude to breaking away from negative habits Exercises grounded in research-supported CBT techniques

It’s time to make your home a wellness zone!

Your home environment should lift you up and bring you joy. But the you live and work in one place, you’re all the more aware of how surroundings can affect your well-being.

No Place Like Home offers simple and effective ways to transform your home environment to be more mindfully aligned with who you are. It’s packed with ideas for upcycling and decluttering, as well as comforting recipes, soothing relaxation rituals and innovative ways to bring the outside in. This restorative book will help you rediscover the delights of your four walls as a space for calm, productivity, happiness and personal growth.

You don’t need a garden to grow your own food! This book is the perfect beginner’s guide to micro-gardening, featuring tips on how to start, what to choose and how to grow over 20 types of plant for your kitchen.

Have you ever been curious about growing your own food? Do you lack a garden? Have you got limited space in your home? Then this book is for you!

Whether you want to produce fresh herbs for your cooking, save money on your food bill, reduce your carbon footprint or enjoy the simple pleasure of watching something grow, My Tiny Kitchen Garden is bursting with tips and ideas to help you get started, including:

– The basics of micro-gardening
– Troubleshooting tips
– Plant profiles to help you choose what to grow
– Craft ideas to help you style your plants
– Advice on growing food from scraps
– How to save and store seeds
Whether you’re a budding gardener or a seasoned expert looking for seeds of inspiration, dive into this book to hone your green fingers and cultivate your very own tiny kitchen garden.

The world is yours to explore

The great outdoors is the beating heart of our world, but modern life is pulling us ever further away from it. Spending our time shut away indoors and hunched over screens, we’ve lost touch with nature, and it’s harming our health and our happiness. But it’s never too late to find our way back.

This book will help you find a way of reconnecting with the great outdoors. Whether you like to walk, run or swim, admire the wildlife or forage for wild foods, within these pages there will be something to inspire you to get out into the fresh air and reignite your sense of wonder at the world around you. Nature is a balm for the body and soul, so escape the pace of the everyday and set yourself free: get out there, find adventure, and go wild!

Tips and ideas from country escapes to city breaks
Hen parties come in every shape and size, but what unites them is that they are a wonderful opportunity to celebrate love and friendship, and to have an awesome party! Whatever your style and budget, this book is packed with tips to help you create a bachelorette party to remember.

This beautifully illustrated guide contains specific month-by-month ‘to do’ lists for ornamental gardens, edible crops and general maintenance, as well as tips on things to look out for, such as pests and how to eliminate them. With diary pages for making your own notes each month, this pocket-sized calendar is a must-have whether you’re a seasoned gardener or just starting out. Pippa Greenwood is a leading light in the world of horticulture. She was a presenter on BBC Two’s Gardeners’ World for over 13 years and the gardening consultant for Rosemary and Thyme. She is a regular panellist and bug expert on Radio 4’s Gardeners’ Question Time, has written a number of award-winning books and contributes to BBC Gardeners’ World magazine.

Designed for the inept armchair gardener, this title gently guides the reader month by month through the seasons, showing what are weeds and what are not (even if the weeds are pretty), how to dig holes, and how to squish unwanted insects. You too can create a tranquil haven in your own backyard that you’ll be too exhausted to appreciate.

The English tongue has never tasted more delicious than in the mouth of Stephen Fry: his chokingly brilliant sesquipedalian prose is like a shaft of sunlight through the drizzle of quotidian language. Now, with this bound monograph, we can all emit a similarly exquisite effulgence and enjoy the bright shaft of Stephen Fry locution in the privacy of our own smallest pavilion. May his shaft continue to pleasure us for many years to come. After all, what could be fluffier?

The popular party game we all know and love is just about to get a lot more interesting!

Strictly for over 18s, Adult Charades is bulging with hilarious ideas for TV shows, films, books, songs and much, much more, for you and your friends to act out in all their glorious detail.

With content including ‘Die Hard’ and a ‘Slow Comfortable Screw’ cocktail, you’re certain to be in stitches with this compendium of saucy and innuendo-laden suggestions!