YOU - February 2016

FEBRUARY 2016

you

YOU magazine is a complimentary A S H B U RTO N supplement of the Ashburton Guardian

Kathryn’s 75kg fight to wellness P4 INSIDE: HEART HEALTH SPECIAL THE LOW-DOWN ON SUGAR

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you

Editor’s note

75kg weight-loss

4

all about sugar

8

heart health

12

who’s out and about?

20

what not to do in an office

22

Back to Basics team is back

24

DVD review

30

what’s hot in fashion

31

back to school with Jane Logie

32

$100 gardening giveaway

34

apricot recipes from Marg Brownlie

38

food guide

40

who’s out and about?

42

PUBLISHER Ashburton Guardian Co Ltd 307-7900 l www.guardianonline.co.nz

With cardiovascular disease being the number one killer in New Zealand, the YOU team wanted to highlight the importance of heart health and awareness in our February edition.

One woman featured this month, has lessened her chances of having heart disease hugely.

Kathryn Conner, 23, has lost over 75kg. She has not used a diet plan, a doctor or had gastro bypass surgery.

She had no great epiphany or mentor ... she just wanted to keep up with her toddler.

I am in awe of this young woman. To lose substantial weight is incredibly hard with all the support in the world.

Kathryn, you are a legend!

Cheers, Lisa Fenwick YOU editor

Material in YOU is copyright to the Ashburton Guardian and can not be reproduced without the written permission of the publishers

Editorial contact Lisa Fenwick • 307-7929 • lisa.f@theguardian.co.nz Advertising contact Deidre Nuttall• 307-7927 • deidre.n@theguardian.co.nz

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4 | YOU Magazine

Kathryn she us Miserable and immobile, Kathryn Conner lost over 75 kilograms in under two years without the help of a diet plan. Nadine Porter talks to the inspiring Mum about her journey and why she’ll never put the weight back on.

Kathryn Conner had a problem.

At 148 kilograms and stuck in a cycle of overeating, she had become housebound and so fatigued that she could only make it to her mailbox every second day to collect the mail.

That mailbox was only metres from her house.

A solo mum, in her early 20s, Kathryn’s weight had spiralled out of control as she became stuck in a repetitive cycle of takeaways and sugared drinks.

Her story could have ended differently as doctors warned her of the need to lose weight, if it wasn’t for Katherine’s desire to keep up with her then three-year-old daughter.

“By the time she was three I was just sitting on the couch 90 per cent of the day and struggling to get up to do things for Nyah.”

So she quietly decided she had to do something about it and began to walk short distances, initially just 20 minutes a day, and cut down on meal portion sizes.

In today’s fad diet obsessed culture it seems implausible that Katherine would lose a substantial amount of weight without outside help, but the courageous 23-year-old did just that – and in her own way.

Always chubbier at primary school, her weight continued to increase while attending Ashburton College where she was bullied for being larger.

PHOTO JOSEPH JOHNSON 220116-JJ-16

continued P6

n half the size sed to be

Above – Kathryn Conner’s artwork reminds her everyday of what’s important, as do the Facebook photos showing the progress of her amazing journey.

Left – The jeans tell the incredible journey of Kathryn Conner – an inspiring young woman.

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6 | YOU Magazine

Happy and healthy – Kathryn has a confidence she never thought she would ever possess.

From P4 Already her life was being defined by her size. Once a talented netballer, she let sport drop away and on one of the most special nights of a young teenager’s life, she was conspicuously absent because she was unable to find a dress large enough to wear to her high school ball.

Despite receiving nutritious balanced meals from her parents, Katherine’s comfort eating only grew during her teenage years and she became less and less active.

Becoming a young solo mum to Nyah was not easy – with hindsight Katherine now believes she was also suffering depression.

In the grip of a Coke addiction, Katherine would consume over two litres every day, as well as takeaways. Her meals were never small and like her frame, her problems grew.

It was her sister who got her to shed her Coke addiction by betting $20 that Katherine couldn’t give the sugary drink up for a month.

And so in 2014 she began with small incremental steps. The 20-minute walk and a small number of floor exercises kicked it off. “And I started eating a little better … I didn’t tell anyone because you always get people judging you.”

In just nine months, Katherine lost 20kg and began to really believe she could become a smaller person.

“It was quicker than I thought it would be.”

Once she got down to 120kg she began to attend a home-based gym and was able to join in for the first time in a supportive group.

Over time her entire philosophy around food changed as she added more fruits and vegetables into her diet and learned to love water.

“Now I can’t stand fizzy drinks or juice …

I love water.”

Continuing to set small realistic goals, Kathryn lost half of her body size and is a stunning mum, healthy and happy at how far she has come.

She advises women to find what works for them and to begin with small goals.

“I set myself goals to get down to 100kg and then just another 10kg at a time. Concentrate on small steps – don’t just dive into the gym and have just salads on the plate every day. Even if you just change one meal a day at the start, it will make a difference.”

The adjustment from being a lot larger has been a journey in itself for Kathryn who now enjoys trying on new clothes and

imagining herself in new styles.

Although the excess skin irks her, every other part of her story has been inspiring.

She is determined to keep the weight off and now has a confidence she never had before when she heads out the door.

No longer do strangers frown when they scan her body shape, instead she has had to adapt to the idea that some men might even be admiring her physique. It’s a quantum shift from where she was two years ago.

She has also had to get used to people not recognising her, including extended family members.

These days she loves outdoor exercise and enjoys bushwalking with her partner and in the morning she runs to the mailbox.

Her focus and determination has not been unnoticed by friends and family and her enthusiasm has encouraged some of them to go on their own weight-loss journey.

She shakes her head when she recalls those unhappy days of comfort eating and genuinely believes anyone can lose weight if they want too – no matter their size or level of mobility. For her there is no going back.

“I’m a different person now.”

8 | YOU Magazine

Refined sugar – swe or misunderstood?

It’s the health debate of the 2000s, called white poison by many and deliciousness by others, sugar is the most villified and alternatively loved food in the Western world.

Sorting through the myriad of information on sugar is not easy, but according to Ashburton scientist and GP Dr Soma Grotefend, it’s about sugar reduction and eating mindfully. YOU editor Lisa Fenwick sat down with Soma and husband, fitness guru, Chris, recently to get the lowdown on refined sugar.

Refined sugar, love it or hate it, it’s in just about everything we eat. Fairly harmless, some may say, but that’s not the case, says Dr Soma Grotefend.

It’s addictive, inflammatory and without fibre or fat (context), it’s just plain bad for you.

To understand why Soma is so passionate about the topic of sugar, you have to pare back the years and take a look at her journey; when she was an athlete and thought she could eat anything she liked.

“Finding out that I was pre-diabetic and an athlete as well, I didn’t think that was possible.

“I always thought my diet wasn’t that important, that I could get away with anything.”

Soma is an amazingly motivated person, so when her blood sugars came back and showed her that, in fact, she was not getting away with it, she decided she would follow the American low-fat diabetic diet to the T. Six months later when she went back for a re-check, she was worse. That threw her because in the past when patients had

come back worse, they were considered non-compliant, that they hadn’t followed the diet properly. But in this case the doctor was the patient and she knew she had followed the diet without fail.

For Soma, that meant something was horribly wrong with the diet and she started looking at the ingredients in processed foods and went back to her science roots to discover what was going on.

Prior to med school her college degrees involved majors in microbiology and a minor in chemistry. Her biochem background is what she uses for nutritional information, which makes it much less subject to the latest trends and fads that seem to plague the world of nutrition.

“Low fat means high sugar, almost without exception. Because they’ve had to do something to make it taste better.

“Sugar is a naturally-occurring substance. It occurs in nature, but in nature sugar comes with packages, either in the context of fibre (fruit) or fat.”

Soma’s favourite example of that is a small glass of apple juice. It takes six apples to produce that juice and your body has a strong opinion if you try to force yourself to eat those six apples whole. But on the other hand, if you drink six apples worth of juice, your body doesn’t even notice and it’s incredibly hard on our body.

“That’s refined sugar.”

So nature makes sugar and we’ve had sugar exposure throughout the millennia.

“But our body learned to recognise it in the context of fibre, and it [our bodies] will limit us.”

If we refine sugar, we just took out the little red flag that our body learned to recognise as a warning sign.

Our bodies teach us from birth the right way to eat. “At the beginning of a breastfeed is water, because that’s the thing we need the most of, and then protein is the second part of a breastfeed. And then the milk turns into hind milk and hind milk is full fat with a little bit of sugar,” Soma said.

“And that’s where I talk about that nature programmed us for dessert. Nature did that because we have to look for fat.

And fat is also the end. It’s the reward.

What is refined sugar? It’s any sugar that’s extra the whole fruit, or chewing on the very fibrous

It tells the baby, you can unlatch, you’ve got what you needed (which wasn’t very much) and it makes you happy and they get that little gas smile at the end of their feed.”

So, that is the context that sugar should always be in … with fat or fibre. And, according to Soma, it’s all about moderation.

“We don’t need as much food as we think we do.”

But our bodies are incredible, she said, our grandchildren’s grandchildren will probably be able to handle processed sugars and bad fats, but not in our lifetime. continued next page

eet poison

acted from its natural form. So unless you are eating sugar cane, it’s refined.

From P8 But it begs the questions, have we been lied to or conned all these years? Not really, it’s a bit more complicated than that.

So how did it come about? How did we all of a sudden go from lard in our roasts to highly-processed low-fat high-sugar diets?

Well, in the 70s we decided that everyone should be eating low-fat and so we pulled that out of the equation, based on research by Ansel Keys, a charismatic researcher in the 70s.

“What’s so interesting was that he very much believed that fat was a big part of heart disease. So when you believe something, even if you’re … y’know his motives were true in a way in that he really wanted to reduce heart disease … but when you have a belief that you’re determined to prove, instead of ‘let’s see if this is the correct answer’ you end up on the wrong trajectory and you can’t see the forest for the trees … and then it’s even harder to say ‘I was wrong’.

“He made a lot of friends in some very high places,” so then it became public policy and it’s very hard to reverse that. And that’s what happened in the past three to four decades.

“And the whole sugar thing, the US just released the 2015 nutritional guidelines and it’s the first time they’ve actually recommended a limit on sugar, which is a good thing.”

On taking sugar initially, you get a little

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bit of pain relief, energy and a little bit of happiness, but see how you feel 12 to 15 hours later, Soma says. It takes away your energy, it causes pain because it’s inflammatory and it depresses your mood.

“But it’s just far enough away from taking it that you don’t remember.”

So it’s good to be aware of how you feel the next day after you’ve had a good old sugar binge.

When you try to pin Soma down to give specifics, that’s when you realise the sugar thing is a journey.

“Everybody’s different on how much they can eat.”

So when you eat, be mindful about it.

If you take your eating out of the unconscious into consciousness your body will tell you what it needs and wants.

“What I ask people to do is listen to their body.”

If you put that sugar load in your mouth and your body says “yes, yes, yes”, then eat it. Because the next day you could try the same thing and your body will say “no, no, no”.

“I believe if your body is telling you ‘yes’, then that mouthful is not harmful.” But if the taste is not right and tasting a bit like poison, then don’t eat it.

Soma is not anti-sugar, she eats it herself, but the more you reduce processed sugar, the better your body will feel and she and husband Chris are living proof of that.

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10 | YOU Magazine

Soma’s sweet guidelines:

– Try to figure out where you’re getting sugar from: Read the labels. As a rule of thumb, if sugar is listed – in any of its guises, (there are now about 150 ways to describe sugar, eg maltodextrin, high fructose corn syrup) – in the first three ingredients then consider that your dessert.

– Have “dessert” once a day, ideally in the morning so your body can utilise it and not turn it into storage, or after you’ve exercised.

– Combine the sugar with fat or fibre. It’s a way of learning how to recognise sugar and reduce it. It’s a case of being aware of what you’re eating and when, and then start reducing sugar in the things where you don’t enjoy it.

– Sugar is addictive at a higher level. It’s a dose response thing and they’ve done PET scans that prove that the pleasure and addictive centres of our brain light up equally for sugar as they do for cocaine. So it can create the same kind of addictive behaviours.

– The easiest thing is to start reducing sugar overall.

– If you have to have a sugar fix, combine it with fat (like a bit of pavlova with a big dollop of cream on top) and you’ll find that the sheer volume of what you eat goes down.

– Take a bite, put your utensils down and eat it. And then go back and have another bite. Don’t just shovel the food in. It makes a difference.

Always check labels; sugar is everywhere and under many different names. Rule of thumb is that if sugar is in the first three ingredients on the list; consider it a dessert.

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Soma’s best healthy breakfast smoothie recipe Eating breakfast can change your metabolism from starvation mode to regular mode.

Breakfast lets our body know it is not going to starve today and it does not have to store every calorie that crosses the lips. If needed, you can make the smoothie the night before and store the blender in the fridge. Blend briefly in the morning and you are on your way. It can also be used as a midday snack.

1 RESISTANT STARCH The secret ingredient of this smoothie is resistant starch found in: Sweet potatoes/kumara – one handful of frozen cubes (about 2-3 ice cube sized chunks per serving). Wash, but do not peel the kumara. Then, cook (boil, bake or microwave) 2-3 sweet potatoes, cut into ice cube-size pieces, put in Ziplock or plastic container and put in your freezer.

OR Green (unripened) bananas – buy them green, peel, cut into ice-cube sized pieces, then freeze.

These ingredients keep your blood sugar level for longer and help sustain the nutrients of the smoothie for more hours than smoothies made without sweet potatoes or green bananas.

DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP, even if you think you do not like sweet potatoes or green bananas.

Choose at least one ingredient from each of the first three categories (FAT, FIBRE, PROTEIN).

I list below the “biggest bang for your buck” here, but other sources are good as well: 2 FAT: About 2T full-fat plain Greek yoghurt, or plain coconut yoghurt (non-dairy).

Check the ingredients to make sure it is not made with only skim milk (This ingredient contains fat, protein and bonus probiotics).

2T coconut oil (hint: Add this after blending everything else, because it can coat your

blender blades and make your smoothie a bit chewier) 3 FIBRE: 1t chia seeds or 1t flax seeds or 1/4-1/2 C raspberries 4 PROTEIN: Greek yoghurt (see above), almond butter, almond or coconut milk (can also use a protein powder based with either whey protein, egg white protein, pea protein, or quinoa. The fewer ingredients listed on pre-made protein, the better – 1-2T/scoops).

5 LIQUID: Put in at least 1/2 C water Add any or a mixture of the following: Full-fat milk, coconut milk, almond milk, rice milk, coconut water (all of these should have the least amount of additives, including sugar) 6 FLAVOUR EXTRAS: You have created the base with the above ingredients, now make the smoothie your own by adding your favourite flavours.

Suggestions include: Frozen/fresh fruit (NOT fruit juice. Use the whole, unsweetened fruits only.

Berries are best due to lower sugar content.) Unripened or ripe bananas, kiwifruit (skin and all), plums, apples, cantaloupe, watermelon Whey Spinach/leftover salad from dinner, beets, carrots, avocado, Almond butter, cashews, walnuts Jams/jellies (one small teaspoon only) Kefir Kombucha Dark chocolate Full-fat unflavoured yoghurt Drink a full glass or water after drinking your smoothie. The smoothie is food, not a drink.

We need the additional water to help our body digest the protein properly.

You can also just eat the ingredients above without blending them. Some people do not like the texture of smoothies.

Use these ingredients as guidelines to a healthy breakfast.

12 | YOU Magazine

Wee Jonty is a fighter Heart health is something close to the Watson family.

Vickie and Ricky Watson’s son, Jonty, was born with a major heart defect which has affected every aspect of his life.

They talked to YOU’s Caitlin Porter about their journey.

by Caitlin Porter Jonty Watson is a fighter. A brave little soul. A “delicious little boy”, his Mum Vickie calls him.

Born on February 16, 2011, just a week before the devastating Christchurch earthquake, Jonty’s entrance into the world wasn’t an easy one.

His heart almost stopped during delivery and immediately after he was born he was taken from Vickie and Ricky, and moved into an incubator.

“His breathing was odd, but they put that down to the difficult delivery,” Vickie said.

A heart murmur was discovered two days later and Jonty was booked in for a scan – scheduled for February 22.

The family then went home to their Ashburton farmhouse to wait.

“When you know, like you just know something is wrong,” Ricky said.

Vickie and Ricky were worried something more serious was not right with baby Jonty and were feeling anxious.

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Jonty Watson was just a few days old when it was discovered he had a heart murmur.

“Jonty was vomiting, having trouble breathing and – due to a lack of oxygen looked as if he was changing colour”, Ricky said.

Then, the earthquake struck and the Watsons knew their hopes of a scan were dashed.

The following day, Vickie took Jonty to a doctor who assured her he was fine and to wait for the scan.

Then, everything went pear-shaped.

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“He was throwing up, he was just really, really terrible looking eh,” Ricky said.

Vickie took Jonty to the duty doctor who was busy, due to the earthquake.

They waited for three and a half hours to be seen and were sent them straight to Ashburton Hospital with an urgent letter.

Vickie couldn’t bear to read the letter but understands now it said her infant son was in the throes of heart failure.

An x-ray was performed and it became

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But now, five years on, Jonty is living life like any other kid.

apparent one side of Jonty’s heart was swollen, while the other side was noticeably smaller.

During this time Ricky was on the farm and not contactable thanks to poor cell phone coverage so Vickie had to get her mother-in-law to drive out to the farm and tell him what was going on.

An ambulance was then called to take the family to Christchurch, with Jonty in an incubator.

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Unconscious, it was touch and go for the week-old baby.

From Christchurch it was straight to Starship Children’s Hospital in Auckland, the flight life plane whisking them away.

“We had the clothes on our backs basically,” Vickie said.

Upon arrival the Watsons were told their son needed surgery on his tiny, walnut-sized heart.

Told they would receive a call in six

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hours, the pair then left Jonty with the Starship team.

“Then we basically walked out and got straight on a bus, they suggest you get out of the hospital.”

After a hazy bus trip and some much needed caffeine, the call came early.

The surgery had gone well, the best possible news.

Hard to comprehend that Jonty’s continued over page

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Megan from Laser Electrical

14 | YOU Magazine

From P13 ailments weren’t going to be fixed quickly, Vickie admits she “lost the plot” a little in Starship.

“It’s like what the hell is going on?”

“It took a bit to sink in.”

Jonty had what was called a coarctation of the aortic arch, or aortic narrowing to put it simply. It is a congenital condition whereby the aorta narrows, affecting the supply of blood and oxygen to the extremities.

However, that wasn’t Jonty’s only problem. He also had abnormalities with his mitral and aortic valve and as a result has to see a cardiologist every six months in Christchurch for an ECG and an echocardiogram.

A Starship hospital cardiologist also flies down to see Jonty once a year. Hand-inhand with heart conditions often come lung conditions and Jonty is no exception.

He has bronchiectasis - an inability to clear mucus from the lungs - which means he is prone to pneumonia.

After 12 months of good health Jonty contracted pneumonia once again last spring which resulted in a 10 day hospital stay. “Hospital to him is quite normal,” Vickie said.

When he came home he had a peripherally inserted central catheter (PICC) line inserted into a vein which delivered antibiotics straight to his heart. Vickie found herself having to dispense the antibiotics, a nerve-wracking experience for any mother.

Family on the farm and in town, as well as close friends and neighbours were, and still are, a godsend for the family.

With one older daughter, Elliot, now six, and a younger daughter, Arabella, three, it was and still is, a difficult situation to manage. Jonty’s health can take a turn for the worse in a period of 30 minutes so Ricky and Vickie find themselves having to drop everything and run.

With no history of serious heart disease – other than a murmur Ricky had briefly as a child – it is a mystery as to why Jonty is the way he is.

But he is a trooper and looking at him, you would have no clue what he has been

Jim from Rural Transport

The Watson’s (from left to right, Ricky, Arabella, Vickie and Jonty) credit their family and friends

through. A bubbly, bouncy, speedy little boy Jonty is like every other soon-to-be five year-old. He started football last year and while the cold mornings took their toll – pneumonia, again – he loved it.

He hit all of his milestones, although doctors were worried about his motor

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skills due to a lack of oxygen at birth, but everything is fine.

To ensure he is as healthy as can be he needs to stay fit and eat a high calorie diet. Porridge laden with cream, buttered everything, delicious icy treats – it’s all for Jonty’s health. He also has a lot of physio

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Denise from Flowers & Balloons

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Jonty hangs out with sisters Arabella (pictured) and Elliot on the family farm.

for helping them through the toughest of times.

on his chest and, just to be prepared, his parents have an access to necessary antibiotics when his health deteriorates.

For now, it’s just business as usual for Jonty, who will be starting school next week but there is a real possibility he made need surgery later in life.

Ron from House of Hearing

But it’s not something the Watson’s are thinking about now.

“You could worry about it every day and it’d eat you up,” Vickie said.

“They’d like to do it when he is young but we will cross that bridge when we come to it,” Ricky added.

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‘

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16 | YOU Magazine

Heart attack in disguise No matter how well informed you are, a simple symptom can be masking a much deeper problem. Joy Jaine talks to reporter Sue Newman about how the condition she believed was asthma was really a warning of a looming heart attack.

by Susan Sandys If anyone knows how random the symptoms of a heart in stress can be, it’s Ashburton woman Joy Jaine.

For several years Joy thought she was suffering from asthma. The condition had plagued her as a child, returned in her 40s and she and her GP thought the problem’s return was just part of ‘getting older’.

The doctor was wrong and so was Joy. Today she can’t believe that, as a trained nurse and a long-serving member of the Heart Foundation, she didn’t recognise her asthma for what it could potentially be, a heart attack waiting to happen.

“I’d had several bad days of being breathless and in the middle of the night I found I really couldn’t breathe. Jeff called 111 and I was rushed into hospital,” Joy said.

The last thing she was thinking about was her heart, but in the time it took to carry out a cholesterol test and read the results, her world changed.

“My readings were double where they should be and they immediately shunted me up to Christchurch for an angiogram.

I couldn’t believe it, they found I had 15 blockages. That was it, I wasn’t moving from there without surgery.”

The number of blockages meant stents were not an option and surgery for her would involve removing a vein from her

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Joy Jaine’s unhealthy arteries marred by more than a dozen blockages

leg, cutting it into six pieces and using this to perform six by-passes.

“It all happened so quickly, there was no time to think whether I’d have the operation or not. Once I had the angiogram it was very clear in my head what would happen.”

That was February 2010 and with six hours on the operating table behind her, Joy was left wondering how she could not

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have known her heart had been under stress for so long.

“I know everyone presents in a different way, but I’ve got no cardiac history, we’ve always eaten normal healthy meals. I’ve never really had any health issues, so there’s never been any need for me to have a cholesterol test,” she said.

As an ex-nurse, Joy said being a patient in a heart unit made her aware of how far

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Martin from Trade Master

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Joy Jaines today, fit, healthy and loving life.

medical science had moved since her day on the wards.

“I’m staggered at the improvement in nursing treatment, surgical treatment and medication. Heart people used to be in bed for three months and were then sent home on light activity.

The medications today are wonderful and I was out of bed almost immediately.

I was showered and dressed. You certainly don’t sit around today.”

Heart patients are on their feet and walking and must be able to meet distance milestones before they go home.

Her surgery is now six years distant and Joy says in its aftermath she simply got on with living.

“My breathing is easier and it was immediately after. I take eight pills every morning and they all go and do their different little thing. How do those pills know where to go? When you think about it’s a wee miracle really,” she said.

Today, cold winds are her only enemy.

They make her short of breath. And she suggests she can’t walk as far or as fast as she could 20 years ago, but concedes that might have as much to do with passing years as heart health.

She’s made the odd change to her diet, eating less meat and using less butter, but otherwise it’s just business as usual in the Jaine household.

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Photo: Tetsuro Mitomo

Her time as a heart patient confirmed for her the importance of the work the Heart Foundation does in raising money for research and for doctors to undergo specialist training.

She’s a past president of the local branch and is still an active member.

“When you’ve had surgery you want to give back in whatever way you can to those who have helped you.”

She looks back and realises how lucky she was to have made it into surgery before her heart could no longer cope with the blockages that were slowly starving it into crisis.

“I look at my situation now and just tell people, if you have any questions about your health, go to your GP and ask for a warrant of fitness, ask for whatever you think you might need.

Don’t assume you’re healthy.”

And once you’re home from hospital, don’t just assume your recovery is automatic. You need to do a little work to ensure you bounce back and enjoy your second chance at a healthy life, Joy said.

“When you go into hospital, that’s phase one, and once you’re home you enter phase two where you’re offered a six-week rehabilitation course with a cardiac nurse at the hospital. This is about getting you back to fitness, looking at your eating habits and your exercise,” she said.

Katrina from Barker’s Fruit Processors Ltd

Peter from Medbury School

Not everyone takes up the opportunity of the rehab course, but Joy believes it’s one of the critical steps in getting your life back on track.

“So many people go straight back to work but doing this (rehab) takes just one or two hours once a week. If people can see their way to do it, it’s very beneficial in the long run.”

Face-to-face guidance and advice was invaluable in the first few weeks of recovery, she said.

“It means if you’re unsure about something you’ve got someone to talk to – and it’s free.”

Almost six years to the day since Joy had her surgery, her only reminders are a short, pale scar on her chest and another longer one on her lower leg. She’s grateful she’s been given a second chance at a healthy life and knows that without surgery she would have had a date with a major cardiac arrest.

She looks back and can’t believe that the growing number of blockages in her arteries were not recognised or that they did not cause significantly greater problems than what appeared to be asthma.

And that, she says, is a warning to others to be aware that what might seem an unrelated symptom can be masking something much more significant such as a looming heart attack.

Craig from JMac Joinery

Ben from Snap Fitness

18 | YOU Magazine

General heart statistics in New Zealand Cardiovascular disease (heart, stroke and blood vessel disease) is still the leading cause of death in New Zealand, accounting for 30% of deaths annually.[1] Every 90 minutes a New Zealander dies from heart disease.[1] Many of these deaths are premature and preventable.

Almost one in 20 adults have been diagnosed with heart disease. That’s 169,000 New Zealand adults.[2] It is estimated that 5000 people die prematurely from smoking each year - this equates to around 12 people a day dying from smoking.[3] How much you move, what you eat and whether you smoke are important factors that influence your risk of heart disease.

Current figures show that [2]

• One in six New Zealanders older than 15 smoke • Almost half of adults are not physically active for more than 30 minutes per day

• One in three adults do not eat three or more servings of vegetables per day • Almost one in two adults do not eat two or more servings of fruit per day • More than one million adults are now obese in New Zealand.

Women’s Heart Disease

Globally, cardiovascular disease, often thought to be a ‘male’ problem, is the number one killer of women. [4] Nearly two-thirds of the deaths from heart attacks in women occur among those who have no history of chest pain. [5] Women who smoke cigarettes are three times as likely to have a heart attack as women who don’t smoke.[5] In 2012, 3145 women died of heart disease in New Zealand. That’s more than 8 women a day – or about 60 each week.[1] From www.heartfoundation.org.nz

Sources: [1] Ministry of Health (2015) Mortality and Demographic data 2012. Wellington: Ministry of Health[2] Ministry of Health (2015) NZ Health Survey: Annual update of key results 2014-2015. Wellington: Ministry of Health [3] Ministry of Health (2009) Implementing the ABC approach for Smoking Cessation. Framework and Work Programme. Wellington: Ministry of Healthhttp://www.moh.govt.nz/moh.nsf/indexmh/cardiovasculardisease [4] World Health Organisation (2013) Women’s health fact sheet N334: World Health Organisation [5] Oestreicher Stock, E., Redberg, R. (2012) Cardiovascular disease in Women. Curr Probl Cardiol,37(11), 45-526

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Mick and Debbie from Bayleys

George from Bayleys

Jon from Bayleys

Nicky from Bayleys

Pete from Bayleys

Debbie from Bio Oils

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Bob from Health 2000

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YOU Magazine | 19

Exploring the Mekong Delta DESTINATION with Anna Schmack

In September last year I was lucky enough to travel to Cambodia. Our first stop however was Saigon in the south of Vietnam.

This city is bustling with people, and scooters are the main mode of transport.

We explored the city by foot at night and experienced the street food of Saigon – yum.

A great way to see Saigon from a different perspective is to get up early and wander around before the city wakes up.

You get great shots of the sights before the crowds emerge.

Then it was off to the Mekong Delta for our three night Pandaw river cruise. What a relaxing way to discover the wonders of the Mekong!

Each Pandaw ship is hand finished in brass and teak and has a colonial character – representing the style of cruising many enjoyed before the unrest that occurred in the area around the Vietnam war. The staff were wonderful and the food – fabulous.

We enjoyed nightly cocktails on the open top deck in the cool of the evening, watching the world go by. We made many stops on the way to visit local villages, along canals and waterways and also a local market.

After the first two nights, we were then in Cambodia.

WHERE will

Angkor Wat at sunrise in Siem Reap. Cambodia.

Another day’s cruising and exploring and we arrived in the city of Phnom Penh – home to 2.5 million people.

In Phnom Penh, a must-do is a visit to the Killing Fields and Toul Sleng Museum. A tough beginning to understanding Cambodia, but you will make more sense of modern Cambodia and how the country has moved on from the tragedies of the late 70’s. Many we spoke to had lost relatives or have tales of how they avoided capture by Pol Pot and his regime, the Khmer Rouge.

Lastly, we flew to the city of Siem Reap – home to the Angkor Temples. These really

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are amazing feats of early engineering, created by various rulers over hundreds of years.

A wonderful time of the day to visit is when the sun is rising – fabulous views.

Make sure you have plenty of memory cards for your camera – you will be taking a lot of shots! A real highlight.

While in Cambodia be sure to try one of their favourite dishes, Amok, which is a wonderful fish curry.

If you would like to hear more about Cambodia, I would be happy to talk to you in the office.

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20 | YOU Magazine

OUT AND ABOUT @ the Ashburton Raceway It was sunshine and good times all round at last weekend’s harness racing meeting at the Ashburton Raceway.

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YOU Magazine | 21

OUT AND ABOUT @ the Multicultural Bite Thousands of people flocked to East Street last weekend to the delicious international cuisine at the annual Multicultural Bite festival.

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22 | YOU Magazine

The things you don’t say about life in an office Working in an open-plan office is not easy.

It takes patience and a thick skin at times.

It’s not appropriate to push people off a third-floor balcony and it’s not appropriate to slap anyone on the two rounded portions of the anatomy, located on the posterior of the pelvic region of apes and humans (thank you Wikipedia). Not that that often stops me … appropriateness is not my forte, much to the dismay of many in my workplace – mostly my bosses.

There are the people who, when you’re hormonal, test your patience more than normal. You know the ones – the piercing voices that seem to carry above anything else, that affect you like nails down a chalkboard or looking at the smugness of our PM’s face on TV. The ones that interrupt you in the middle of concentrating to ask you stupid questions. Sometimes they get the death stare, but most of the time it’s a breath-deeply situation and a quiet, clenched teeth answer.

Every office has the bully, the control freak, the inappropriate one (that’s me), the manipulator, the passive aggressive, the grumpy, bad-tempered one (also me) and the business dunce that everyone has to carry.

Once I worked with someone who had such an awful, screechy and loud voice that every nerve and cell in your

MUM ON THE RUN with Lisa Fenwick

body needed anti-freeze every time she opened her mouth.

I also worked with a guy who made so much work out of avoiding work that it was a pointless effort. Not only was it pointless, it made everyone else really angry.

So here’s my advice for a harmonious open-plan office: – Since your mother doesn’t work with you, wash your own dishes and the back of the toilet. No-one else goes home at the end of the day pleased they got to clean up your mess.

– Would you leave your own toilet at home like that?

– Paper dart throwing is not funny.

– If you have a personality clash with a person, do some quick deep and calming breaths before dealing with them.

Alternatively, watch CSI for tips.

– If you are eating boiled eggs or fermented food, eat them outside. I don’t care what the weather’s doing.

– Before opening your mouth to ask a stupid question, ask yourself, is it worth the response you have the potential to receive?

– Remember, you are not the only person stressed. Other people are stressed too … yes, I’m sorry, but it’s true, there are other people in the world.

– If you want to interrupt my conversation, feel free. You’ll still wait until said conversation

is finished.

– While trying to save water is good for the environment, day old sweat is not so good for your work environment.

If people scrunch up their noses and move away from you during a conversation, that’s a pretty good hint.

– Just because someone’s foreign does not mean they are deaf. Yelling down the phone at them won’t make it any easier for them to understand, but it will make your workmates want to cut your phoneline.

– If you’re angry, no-one cares. Ranting about it all day won’t make people sympathise with your plight, it will make them angry too.

– In stressful jobs, dirty humour is entirely appropriate … but not in a kindy and probably not in an accountants’ office either.

– If you want to join the ‘sex on the office desk’ club, make sure it’s not my desk. I will hunt you down.

– If you want to make the conversation all about yourself then “I’m sorry, I’m not available right now. Please call 0800-who-gives-a ...”

– Just because I have a headache does not mean you have a brain tumour.

You may well do, but you do not need to compete with me. I’m not better or worse than you, I just have a damn headache.

– Singing loudly along to radio makes people really angry ... I know, I do it all the time.

– If you spill coffee on your keyboard and see smoke, yell at the person who just passed you that they bumped you (that way the company will hopefully not ban coffee at desks). Did you know that there’s more deaths in the world due to lack of coffee than anything else?

No? Neither did I, but I can certainly see how it could be a truth in openplan offices.

So there you have it, the ultimate tips for not getting yourself killed at your white-collar workplace.

Disclaimer: Tips were not based on any actual events or people (or were they?)

No mortal thing

by Gerald Seymour

YOU Magazine | 23

BOOK REVIEW with Norma Geddes

This new novel by Gerald Seymour sees him return to writing about organised crime in Italy - the Mafia. He covered this topic in Killing Ground and The Collaberator. This time he looks to Southern Italy and the 'Ndrangheta crime families.

Two young men, Jago and Marcantonio - their paths cross in Berlin where they are both studying finance in quite different ways.

Jago comes from a rough part of London and through hard work and determination goes to university and gets a job in a bank and is seconded to the Berlin office.

Marcantonio is the grandson of a wellplaced leader in a 'Ndrangheta organised crime family and is send to Berlin to learn how to channel the family's illicit money into legitimate businesses.

Jago sees Marcantonio commit a vicious assault on a young woman and he reports it to the police. They seem uninterested in taking the matter further but Jago can't leave it. He walks away from his job and promising career and follows Marcantonio to Italy. He's determined to have some sort of revenge but isn't sure how this is going to happen - but he's patient and knows an opportunity will present itself. What he doesn't know is that he's walking into the middle of a surveillance operation of this family and alarm bells start ringing in London, Rome and Berlin.

This story is a fantastic insight in the world of organised crime in Europe and more importantly, the men and women who fight it. Given that a large part of the book covers Jago lying under cover on a hillside observing the family, there's still a huge amount of suspense. The minor characters are well-written and convincing. A real page-turner.

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24 | YOU Magazine

Making the most out of pallets

The Back to Basics team is back in YOU magazine giving us helpful tips to live life in a more natural, sustainable, cost effective way. Their next expo is on April 2, with details on their Facebook page Ashburton Back to Basics expo. Let’s get our families, food, finances and community back to basics.

Heidi Sebastian was born in the Philippines and has been in New Zealand for two years. She has been artistic since she was a kid.

She started with pencil and paper and it changed as she grew older. She now strives to experience and view all types of art. To be tied down to a specific genre is difficult, Heidi said. Of course there are aspects of art that she particularly enjoys doing more than others, but she doesn’t plan on permanently sticking to a single medium.

“I believe I am a versatile and creative person who cannot be defined by society or culture, but my goal is to affect peo-

ple, to make them think of ways they can reduce, reuse and recycle.”

She believes there are many basic things that aren’t all that well known, but are still important and overlooked, because we live in a culture that doesn’t understand the dangers of having so many non-reusable and wasteful products and habits in our lives.

“That is why I don’t buy, I create.”

Heidi creates all sorts of wonderful things from pallets, showing us that we can look around for existing items to make things from instead of buying new. Preserve our precious resources, save money and get creative with pallets.

OUTDOOR SOFA Place pallets, skids down, on the floor and fix another vertically upright on to it to form a wooden frame for your sofa.

I sanded the pallets to brighten up the wood grains before staining with a dark colour.

Now just add a high quality, foamy cushion and you are done!

Enjoy a unique DIY pallet outdoor sofa on a limited budget.

YOU Magazine | 25

COAT HANGER This pallet wood project is relatively simple to make, with no fancy joinery or woodworking skills needed.

First you will need to dismantle one or two pallets. You will also want to clean and prep the planks by removing all nails or screws, also give the wood a good sanding. Make your desired measurement then assemble everything with nails and wood glue. It would be better to do the shelves first before the top plank or the back planks.

Now for the hooks, I eyeballed the hooks so they were evenly spaced and screwed them in.

To finish I mounted to the wall. Enjoy your country style coat hanger!

PRODUCE STAND

LAMP

I have wanted a produce stand at the end of my counter for years. I have no idea why it has taken me so long to build, but I am so glad i finally made time for it.

First you need to cut your wood and create the boxes. This is super easy.

Each box was made with three 18-inch long pieces, as well as two 7in pieces.

To make all three boxes you need to cut your 1×6 boards into nine 18in pieces and six 7in pieces. Then nail the boxes together. I wanted the stand to be 32in tall. So we cut two pieces 32in long. For the stand to be on a 30 degree angle cut the top of each side to 30 degrees.

For the base supports cut two 9in pieces and screw each side piece into the bottom of 2×4 and cut a 45degree angle off of each side to make the stand.

I just placed the sidepiece on the outside of the bottom supports and screwed them in. Next attach the boxes to the sides.

Use two screws to make sure they don’t turn.

Making a lamp with pallets fits perfectly into any rustic atmosphere.

The goal is to create a kind of box using pallet’s tips that will act as a screen, as the light that comes from inside the box projects strip shadows around the room, giving a warm atmosphere.

Prepare 16 pieces of wood of equal measurements and make four sides with four pieces on each side.

Join the boards to form the walls of the lamp.

Finally, cut a plank to put in the box and hold it with the side panels, this table is where the chain will hold the lamp and also where the bulb will be. You can buy the channel at any hardware store or boat shop.

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26 | YOU Magazine

Victoria Hood, the Mindful Mum

Victoria Hood has gone from being a teenage single mum, to a woman helping to change other mothers’ lives for the better as the Mindful Mum. Erin Tasker reports.

When Victoria Hood fell pregnant at 18, she was determined not to let it dictate the path her life took.

She wanted to go to university to study psychology, so she did. She wanted to put what she’d learned into practice and get a good job one day, so she did. But she also had a new dream and that was to be a good mum.

Today, she’s not only a good mum, she’s also a mum that others look to for advice and support. Victoria is the Mindful Mum; a woman in hot demand by stressed-out mothers around the country.

She teaches mums how to manage their daily stresses by living in the now and not worrying about what has happened, or what might happen. Her knowledge comes in part from experience, and in part from the scientific point of view, thanks to the degree in psychology. She worked hard to get through two pregnancies. continued next page

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YOU Magazine | 27

From P26 The path her life took is far different from the one it could have taken when she became a teen mum, but it’s the one she was determined to make work.

Victoria was 18 when she got pregnant with Sophia, and she was suddenly faced with being a single mum.

She’d just completed her final year exams at Ashburton College and had enrolled at Otago University. She had a flat organised and the student life awaited her.

But the discovery she was pregnant meant changing to Canterbury University so she was closer to her supportive family and moving in with her aunt and uncle.

“I didn’t really see it as a barrier, I just thought ‘what is another way I could do this’?”

She was pregnant when she started her studies and after baby Sophia arrived she spent her nights at home studying while her university friends lived the typical student life. But Victoria didn’t mind.

The financial side was the hardest. She was on a benefit and her money was split between rent, food, utilities and, of course, her baby. But she managed.

When Sophia was two, Victoria and Sophia’s father Andrew Hood reunited, and today they’re married – thanks to a dream wedding they won through a Facebook-based competition in 2011 – and have two more kids. Sophia is now nine, Astin is five and Luka is two-and-a-half.

But as Victoria knew well, life is full of surprises, and her life took another twist when Sophia was 18 months old. Victoria’s dad Paul had a heart attack and required surgery, which didn’t go well. He went from an active, working man, to struggling to do anything,” Victoria said. It was a difficult time for her dad both physically, and mentally.

He died on Sophia’s third birthday – he had a heart attack while driving and crashed – and Victoria was executor of his will. At just 22 she was a mum, studying at university, dealing with the loss of her father and had been landed with another huge responsibility.

But as she does, she just rolled with it, got it done, and headed back to university for her honours year, while pregnant with Astin. At seven months pregnant she sat her exams standing up at an ironing board – she couldn’t fit into the lecture seats. Victoria was not your typical student.

Astin was born when Victoria was 22, and with her honours degree in psychology ( focusing on neuropsychology and behavioural modification) in hand she moved back to Ashburton, moved in with Andrew, and got a job as a drug and alcohol counsellor with the Ashburton Community Alcohol and Drug Service, a job she loved. It was there that co-worker Chris Levitt first introduced her to mindfulness, before she moved into a brief intervention mental health role. As time went on, she increasingly included the mindfulness principles in her work.

It was late 2014 when Andrew came home one day and first raised moving to Hamilton for his job. They knew no-one there, Victoria had never been there, but she surprised Andrew by telling him to go for it.

“In life, if you don’t move out of your comfort zone you’re never going to go anywhere.

“So I knew it was something we had to do, I just didn’t know how we were going to make it work.”

After a couple of months, Facebook again threw up an opportunity. She saw a link on the Mental Health page looking for people to run an in-schools programme called Pause, Breathe, Smile.

After five years of working as a drug and alcohol counsellor and feeling like the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, Victoria saw it as an opportunity to help mould young people and help prevent them getting to that point.

It’s aimed at kids aged seven to 13 and is pretty much how it sounds – a programme teaching kids that they can choose to be happy or sad, or that it’s ok to be angry and how to create happiness.

From there, mums and friends started asking her questions. From there it snowballed. She got asked to speak at Plunket and other community groups, and she proposed her first workshop for November in Hamilton. Demand went through the roof.

With a month back in Ashburton on the radar for January, she decided to offer one in her home town, which soon expanded to include another in Christchurch, and one in Dunedin. The Ashbuton and Christchurch workshops sold out well in advance.

Today, she has a six-month business plan and a business mentor. It makes it easier for her to do the work and decreases her increasingly busy workload so that she can actually incorporate what she preaches into her day-to-day life. “I’m like the sole creator of the strategy that I’m promoting, so I kind of need to be in that creative space, and use my time wisely. I’d much rather spend my time doing stuff with my kids than being a stressed out, tired mother.” continued over page

28 | YOU Magazine

WHAT IS MINDFULNESS? Mindfulness is a movement all about paying attention and living in the now, rather than worrying about the past, or the future.

It’s something that’s been around for thousands of years, but it’s an idea that’s catching on more and more as research into its benefits continue.

For mothers in particular, that day-to-day life can often mean running on auto-pilot and suffering from stress, low moods, anxiety, fatigue and frustration. That’s where the Mindful Mum comes in.

She teaches mums how to go from being physically there with their children with their minds elsewhere, to living a richer life with less stress and a more enjoyable existence.

If you ask Google what mindfulness is, it’ll tell you it’s being aware moment to moment.

The Mindful Mum, Victoria Hood, is mum to (from left) Astin, 5, Luka, 2-and-a-half, and Sophia, 9.

From P27 As the Mindful Mum, Victoria is looked upon by mothers as someone who knows her stuff.

But, at the end of the day, she’s human.

Yes, mindfulness is a huge part of her life, but she has her moments, just like the rest of us. She’s the first to admit it.

“I am a normal mum and there are still days where I can’t wait to have a glass of wine when I get home.”

Victoria – a mindfulness practitioner and certified life coach – said being cool, calm and collected at all times was near on impossible.

“People need to accept that there will be moments, but it’s about managing it.

Make yourself at

home

Mindfulness helps us feel the full spectrum of emotions and not fight them.”

She recently took her three kids to the new Margaret Mahy playground in Christchurch. There were kids everywhere; it was bedlam.

“Every five minutes I had to take time to catch my breath and ground myself.

“It’s not about not thinking, it’s about assessing any thoughts and not thinking about five things at once.”

She likes to call her work brain training.

“We put all of this attention on going to the gym and training our bodies and we forget that our brains need to be trained as well.

If we don’t they’re just like an untamed animal. They run off in any which direction

PHOTO TETSURO MITOMO 250116-TM-0353

and we struggle to rein them in,” she said.

As a mum, it was common to have numerous thoughts and feelings at once.

“When the kids are yelling or fighting, or you’re feeling frustrated or overwhelmed, stop and ground yourself and hook into your breathing, because it takes away from the thoughts in your head that increase your frustration and worries.

“We put our kids into time-out if they need some space and we need to start cultivating our own time-out spaces.”

Not looking after one’s own mindfulness could cause a domino effect on to others.

“Too many people live on auto-pilot and don’t take time to come back to themselves and look after themselves.”

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YOU Magazine | 29

Essential items

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But our commitment to you doesn’t stop once you have paid. We will even deliver and install your brand-new purchase*.

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30 | YOU Magazine

Balance 100% protein whey The overall flavour and texture of this product is excellent. It’s not too sweet like many other brands, which makes it easy to finish a full serving. The product mixes very easily with water and milk, which is a must for me when it comes to protein shakes.

The lime milkshake flavour tastes exactly like a real milkshake; one would struggle to tell them apart.

I’ve tried many of the flavours of Balance 100% Whey and it is hard to pick a favourite.

Cookies and cream is really good, but the other flavours are also great, meaning you can switch between flavours to avoid getting bored with the same one over and over. The special flavours such as orange choc chip and hokey pokey definitely keep this product interesting and helps set it apart from other brands which are pretty much a lot of the same stuff.

In terms of formula, the amino acid profile is great and the whey comes from primarily grass fed New Zealand cows, so you know there are none of the nasties found in whey from other countries such as hormones and antibiotics. Another added bonus is that this product contains the enzymes bromelain and papain which help you get the most out of the protein by aiding your gut in digesting the whey.

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Simply buy any Lighthouse Superfoods, Balance or Nutra-Life product, scan your Health 2000 loyalty card (or sign up), and you’re in the draw to win!

See www.health2000.co.nz/competitions for terms and conditions. Competition ends February 29th 2016.

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CHICK FLICK MOVIE REVIEW

CHICK FLICKS with Caitlin Porter

Woman in Gold

A 2015 British drama, Woman in Gold was not quite what I expected it to be.

Starring Helen Mirren, Ryan Reynolds and Katie Holmes the film is based on the true story of elderly Jewish refugee Maria Altmann (played by Mirren).

Living in America, Maria, together with a young lawyer by the name of Randy Schoenbery (Reynolds) fought against the Austrian Government for nearly 10 years in an effort to reclaim Gustav Klimt’s iconic painting of her aunt, portrait of Adele Block-Bauer I, which was stolen from her relatives by the Nazis in Vienna.

The case made it all the way to the Supreme Court and is famously known as the Republic of Austria v Altmann (2004).

Beginning with a series of flashbacks, the movie then abruptly flicks forward to modern-day Los Angeles where a now elderly and widowed Altmann is attending her sister’s funeral. Shortly after she discovers a letter in her possession that reveals an attempt to recover the aforementioned artwork.

As you can probably imagine, the story progress from there and a fight ensues.

Don’t get me wrong I love Helen Mirren, she is one great lady but this movie just didn’t thrill me. Odd, as I love films based on real life – especially those with connections to the world wars.

I am not sure what it was – perhaps the peculiar flashbacks or the rather dry legal talk – however, I do have to say the story in itself was moving and the acting was on point.

As they say, “don’t knock it ‘til you try it” so I would recommend people give it a go for themselves, if British dramas are up their alley. reviewed by Caitlin Porter compliments of United Video Ashburton

YOU Magazine | 31

Fitspiration Fashion aesthetic IN STYLE with Trudy Bensted

There are three types of people in this world. The ones to wear active wear to work-out, people who wear active wear to be anything but active and the best of the three: the ones who wear active wear to do everything. Not only is investing in good active wear a great way motivate yourself to continue those New Year’s get fit resolutions, it’s also extremely comfortable and versatile taking you from the gym to the café for the post-workout smoothies.

A

Tops

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From over size tees, loose tanks and cute crops, again there is many options when it comes to the options for workout tops.

Something light weight is always a comfortable option, invest in a running jacket or simply tie a top around your waist to conquer the post workout shivers. Don’t be afraid to be bright a bold with colours and patterns, or keep it simple and natural.

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Pants Capri tights are a popular statement piece to invest in.

With the length being half way between your ankle and knee they are the perfect alternative to shorts or long pants. With their breathable fabric they stop you getting to hot.

Available in endless patterns and colour options and anything from plain black to bright fluro goes. Perfect for that spin class or lazing on the couch.

C

F

Shoes Monochrome or bright neons, again anything goes for running shoes this season. There is plenty of options available that are both fashionable as well as functional.

All black outfits with a bright shoe is very on trend as well as pairing your monochrome runners with a pair of jeans for a casual day time look.

H G

From Sparrows, East Street A Matalicus Izara Cowl neck dress was $185 now $99 B Metalicus Alexi S/S Tee was $115 now $92 C Metalicus Noumea Drape Pant was $185 now $148 D Siren Cotton Club polo was $9 now $35 E Sills Geo pedal pusher was $169 now $85 From Vetir Devine, The Triangle, Ashburton/Peters Street, Hinds F Cue Dress $70 G Maher patent boots. Designed in NZ $55 H Verge - Octane Blue, Fiori Dress $100

32 | YOU Magazine

Back-to-school nutrition

School is back, another year ahead for those hungry little brains to absorb and learn new information.

It can be a struggle to keep up with the demands of packing school lunches and making sure it is packed with nutrition, to help feed and nourish those flourishing little brains that absorb new information like sponges.

Trying to keep their lunches interesting and simple, as well as nutritious, can be quite demanding in itself. Especially without putting in too many high sugary treats, which is all the children really want and ask for.

Feeding children healthy and nutritious food is really important for their growth, immunity and nervous system development and vital for their learning.

Since children burn so much energy through learning and outdoor activities, it is important to ensure that they are getting three healthy meals per day and two to three healthy snacks in between.

A well-fuelled child can equate to a happy and content one too.

It is not always easy to get their nutrition right, but constantly making an effort to meet their nutritional requirements is paramount.

Utilising a wide variety of food is important, in trying to maintain optimum nutrition that doesn’t involve too many processed foods and foods that are laced with processed sugar.

NATURALLY YOU with Jane Logie

Children’s palettes are formed by what you give them to eat, and they also like to copy what you eat, so if you assure them that a certain food is considered healthy and tastes good, they will trust you and follow your cues.

This can be seen as a guide for the busy mornings, when it is hard to think what a child really needs to maintain their core nutritional needs for the school year ahead.

As parents lead busy lives too, it is often a bit of a juggling act and time is crucial when making lunch-box decisions.

Here are some ideas of healthy food group suggestions to incorporate in your child’s lunches or as snacks throughout the day, depending on any allergies or medical food aversions they may have: – Fruit: Fruit is packed with healthy nutritious calories, vitamins, minerals and essential fibre for ensuring good blood-sugar balance which is vital for sustained concentration and absorbing information. One to two fruits per day may be considered more than enough.

If they struggle with eating fruit, a good start is to give your child the fruits that they like the taste of, then start to incorporate a variety of other fruits over time – bananas, apples, mandarins, apricots are good as they are easy to

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– Vegetables: The bright-coloured vegetables and the green leafy ones are core for your child’s nutritional status.

They are high in iron and magnesium, crucial for learning and good energy levels. Think of Popeye, growing big and strong. Eating plenty of spinach has actually got an element of substance behind it. Spinach, lettuce, loaded into wraps and sandwiches, or a salad, capsicums, cucumbers, carrots, celery, hidden in lunches or served as sticks with something to dip them in.

– Proteins: Important for ensuring the muscle growth and development of cells within your child’s body for optimum health and vitality, it is very hard for the body and brain to function longterm without proteins.

Highly refined or complex carbohydrates with the addition of small portions of protein with each meal is considered the best option. Eg: Plain natural yoghurt, chicken, lamb and beef in sandwiches, tuna in wraps or sushi or rice paper rolls, boiled eggs, hummus, bean salads.

– Good fats: Good fats are considered important for brain health and the development of the healthy brain tissue that is required for memory and learning.

Good fats include nuts and seeds – such as sunflower, pumpkin, almonds and brazil nuts. You can add dried apricots

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YOU Magazine | 33

Fruity oat biscuits are easy to make and a yummy snack for the lunchbox.

into the school lunches as a nut, seed and dried fruit mix – avocado dip and crackers and a few olives can be another option too.

– Fibre: Fibre is important for ensuring good blood-sugar balance and helping with maintaining good digestive processes. Oats are considered very nourishing to the nervous system due to the core vitamins and minerals that they contain, specifically B vitamins and magnesium. Include homemade low-sugar muesli bars or oat biscuits or homemade hummus with crackers (easily made in advance and stored in small pottles, frozen and brought out the night before school).

– Water: Omit as many sugary drinks from your children’s daily diet as much as possible, remembering that sugar has no nutritional value whatsoever and has more of an ability to hinder their health than to improve it. To improve your child’s health and optimal hydration, water is the best option. You can sometimes give a watered down low-sugar fruit drink as a treat. Ensure they drink water throughout the day to maintain optimal hydration and avoidance of headaches, and lethargy.

With the compliments of Jane Logie, a medicinal herbalist, clinical nutritionist and chef from Methven

Fruity oat biscuits

PHOTO JANE LOGIE

180g butter, softened 1C dark brown soft sugar 2 large eggs 1t vanilla essence (I used a natural vanilla extract with seeds) 1C flour 3/4 t baking powder 1t ground cinnamon 1/2 C raisins 1/2 C cranberries 1/2 C apricots (chopped into small cubes) 2C rolled oats – Pre-sift the flour, baking powder and cinnamon and set aside.

– Chop apricots in half or thirds depending on size and across three times – set aside.

– Turn oven on to bake set at 180°C. – Use a small portion of softened butter to grease and flour a baking tray and set aside.

– Mix the butter and sugar in a mixer with the whisk attachment, until light in colour and fluffy – beating on low for 5-10 mins, to get the best result.

– Add in egg, one at a time, beating after each addition, then add the vanilla essence while mixing.

– Remove mixing bowl from mixer, and sift in the pre-sifted flour mix.

– Now add the dried fruits – sultanas, cranberries and apricots – fold in the dried fruit until blended through.

– Sprinkle in the rolled oats and fold through until evenly mixed through.

– Using a soup or dessertspoon – place small rounded heaps of the cookie mixture onto a pre-greased oven tray, leaving room for each biscuit to spread and then gently pat down by half with your clean fingers.

– Place biscuits in the middle of the pre-heated oven and bake for 12-15 minutes, or until golden and springs back with a finger touch.

– Remove from the oven and allow to cool, then place on a wire rack if you have one, to allow to cool completely.

– The recipe makes approximately 22 biscuits.

– Once cold, store in paper lined airtight container. Yum, yum.

34 | YOU Magazine

FREE

$100 value

Daltons Garden Mulch and Grow prize pack

Deformed berries

We have a Daltons Garden Mulch and Grow pack to giveaway valued at over $100 containing 3 x Daltons Mulch and Grow (40L), 2 x Besgrow Coir Mulch (60L) and 2 x Daltons Nugget Bark (40L). PLUS you’ll receive a pair of comfortable, versatile Red Back garden gloves from Omni Products www. omniproducts.co.nz.

Be in to win

Ann Begbie is this month’s winner with the following question: This year my strawberries were mostly deformed. They are growing in three different areas and were normal last year. I wonder if it could be because there are almost no honey or bumble bees in my garden? Even on lavender, borage or anything else that bees like, I only see one or two. Do you know what else could be the trouble?

Rest assured, there is definitely pollination taking place in your garden, otherwise you would have no fruit at all.

There are a few possible causes for your misshapen strawberries. Firstly, it could be that the plant was of poor quality when planted or hasn’t grown exceptionally well. This may be due to a nutritional factor. While strawberries are not gross feeders, they do need side dressing with a good quality strawberry fertiliser during the months of November and December.

Secondly, and probably the main reason for your poor crops, could be because the plant has dried out during the growing season. If this has happened, it will then tend to produce smaller and unusually-formed fruit.

Another factor to consider is that the plants could now be too old. Any plants older than two years tend to have smaller strawberries and quite often misshapen fruit.

Finally, it may be possible that there has been spray damage to your strawberry plants, so check there has been no herbicide applied in the vicinity of your strawberry beds, as plants are highly susceptible to spray drift.

To overcome these problems in the future, it is worth removing all strawberry plants and prepare the soil well by adding compost into the existing bed (you can also add Daltons Incredible Strawberry mix to give the soil a boost). Then plant new strawberries as they come onto the market; anytime from May onwards.

Email goodies@theguardian.co.nz with Daltons Garden Mulch and Grow prize pack in the

subject heading, or write to Easy Lift pack giveaway, Box 77, Ashburton.

CONDITIONS OF ENTRY: • • •

You must provide a gardening question for the Daltons experts to answer.

Please include your address and phone number in email and letter options!

Giveaway entries must be received by February 26.

For more information on Daltons products visit www.daltons.co.nz

All questions supplied are entered into the draw to win a Daltons prize pack, but the Guardian reserves the right to choose which questions and answers will be published.

Daltons post the prize to our lucky winner.

You’re invited!

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Mix and mingle and meet our wedding planner, makeup and beauty experts, as well as a professional wedding photographer.

Let your imagination be sparked, and then we can help you plan your wedding, your way at Hotel Ashburton.

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36 | YOU Magazine

Summer eco living

by Sheryl Stivens Summer 2016 is shaping up to be a season of extremes, very dry then big rains, very hot then cool, challenging for many gardeners and farmers yet bountiful for fruit yields .

We can all make a difference whether it’s at home, work, school or on the farm.

Here are 6 Summer Eco living tips •

•

•

•

Install a rain tank to store water collected from your roof to use on your garden. Your vegetable garden will be even more productive and your water tank will help buffer the effects of big downpours of rain on your storm water pipes.

Mulch your gardens with layers of soaked newspapers topped with coffee grounds, pea straw, lawn clippings or bark chip to hold moisture, protect your soil and reduce the need for watering.

Respect the gutter. Remember anything you drop on the street or pour down the drain goes straight into the sea you or your family will be swimming in this summer.

Recycle leftover paint. The chemicals and pigments in paint aren’t nice to swim in; so rather than pouring them

•

•

down the drain drop them off at the Resource Recovery Park.

Reduce foodwaste. Get creative with leftover food and plan your weekly food shopping list to minimise waste and save money.

Revamp your compost bin or set up a worm farm or bokashi bucket for food scraps. Help is only a phone call away on 0800 627 824 or come along to the monthly FREE Compost demo at the Ashburton Resource Recovery Park.

Email sherylstivens@gmail.com for details.

Turn your mailbox into an EcoMailbox

Why waste anything?

Collect your free ‘No Ad’ mail sticker from the Ashburton District Council.

Place it on your mailbox and sign in at www.ecomailbox.co.nz Advertising feature

Why waste We anything? have made it easier to recycle Why waste anything?

Farmers – Lifestyle block owners

New recycling Demo drive-through FREE• Composting and NEWarea - Farm waste recycling area help with recycling • Bins for batteries, paint,

Balewrap – baling twine- feed sacks fluoresent tubes Centre Where: Eco Education Alongside Mastagard recycle shed • Plasback bin for feed sacks Heldatmonthly theand Ashburton Resource baling twine • Green brown clear on in RingRecovery to book Park a placeand or come glass bottle recycling

Ask us about: • Ask Eco Education Centre us about:

• •OnCompost farm waste audits workshops • Composting your food and • •Farm waste collections Site tourswaste garden • •Larger volume farm plastic education programme •School Bokashi and hungry worm bins recycling with ‘Plasback’ • •Ecomailbox stickers and FREE compost workshops service

• How to harvest rainwater Take your waste waste -- Call Call the the Envirowaste Mastagard Education Take action action now now to reduce your EducationTeam Teamto tocarry carryout out aa FREE FREE waste waste audit audit Take action now to reduce your waste - Call the Mastagard Education Team to carry out a FREE waste audit

Supported by Ashburton District Council Supported

by Ashburton District Council For help with composting, recycling or water conservation

For help with composting, water conservation Freephonerecycling 0800 627or 824 Freephone 0800 627 824

t

Rural Recycling drop-off facilities Changes are underway at the rural community recycling depots across the Ashburton District.

Council have sourced funding from the Glass Packaging forum and Love NZ to support putting in larger bins to enable more materials to be collected.

Please bear with us while we get the concrete steps in place and the new systems up and running.

The large yellow lidded bins are for domestic plastic recycling along with cardboard, paper and cans. Glass must be kept separate in the bins provided.

What’s in your shed?

Agrecovery rural recycling collection – DDT muster When chemicals expire get rid of them. Don’t leave them as a problem for the next generation.

Book your unwanted farm chemicals collection before 25th March. www.agrecovery.co.nz or phone 0800 247 326 What about home garden chemicals?

If you live in town and have small quantities of garden chemicals [less than 20 litres] they can be dropped off at the Ashburton Resource Recovery Park for safe disposal. Talk to the person at the weighbridge or call 0800 627 824 for advice.

FREE monthly compost demo When: Monday 15th February; 11.30am – 12.30pm

Where: Eco Education Centre Ashburton Resource Recovery Park For help with composting your food waste, lawn clippings or garden waste as well as making your own garden fertilizers. See how worm farms and bokashi can be easily maintained. To find out more call 0800 627 824 or email; sherylstivens@gmail.com

YOU Magazine | 37

No waste/rubbish is accepted at the rural recycling depots, it must be taken to the Ashburton or Rakaia Resource Recovery Park for safe disposal at the Kate Valley Landfill.

Ashburton District Council provides ten self-serve rural recycling sites throughout the district with more planned so everyone can recycle no matter where they live.

Please help us by keeping your community sites clean and tidy.

Advertising feature

38 | YOU Magazine

Introducing the divine apricot

I was privileged to have a weekend in Roxburgh in January to visit a friend. What a stunning little gem, tucked away in the depths of Central Otago.

It goes without saying, my ute came home with the backseat nursing a large quantity of apricots and cherries.

Of course the cherries were devoured well before now, but I still have a few apricots to share on some recipes for you.

As usual I had to know a little of the

FOR FOODIES with Marg Brownlie

history of the apricot to share as well and in doing so found this pretty little fruit has many health benefits that most of us are probably unaware of, including myself until now.

The potential health benefits from the apricot are too numerous to mention, but I should tell you, they contain a number

of potent antioxidants, one of which has been linked to a reduction in heart disease. They are an excellent source of vitamin A and a good source of vitamin C, dietary fibre, copper and potassium.

The apricot is originally from China and being a member of the Prunus family was once called the armenian plum.

I just love savoury dishes with apricots in them, so have put in a couple of these recipes for starters.

Chicken and apricot curry This curry is a real winner!

3 stalks lemongrass, white part only 50g/2oz fresh ginger 2 hot red chillies 2 cloves garlic Bunch coriander Pinch of ground cumin seeds 2 limes 2T peanut oil 200g/7oz tomatoes, can be tinned if you prefer 2T fish sauce (nam plah) 2T dark soy sauce 8 chicken thighs 400m can coconut milk 8 apricots, halved – Peel and discard the outer leaves of the lemongrass- to reveal the plump white part of the stem. Cut the inner leaves into short lengths and put in the food processor.

Peel the ginger, then slice into thin pieces and add to the lemongrass.

Chop the chillies, discarding their stems and add to the ginger with the peeled garlic. Roughly chop the stems and half of the leaves of the coriander to add to the food processor, reserving the rest for later.

– Grate the lime zest into the food processor, reserving the limes for later. Pulse everything to a coarse

paste. Add a little peanut oil and scrape the sides down with a spatula if it sticks. Add the fish sauce, soy sauce and the tomatoes and process for a few seconds longer.

– Warm a further tablespoon of peanut oil in a deep frypan over a moderate to high heat and use it to brown the chicken pieces, turning them so they colour nicely on both sides. Lift the chicken pieces out and pour away anything more than a tablespoon of oil and juices. Add the spice paste and ground cumin, let it fry over a moderate heat for two minutes till fragrant, stirring almost constantly, then return the chicken to the pan. Pour over the coconut milk, stir, cover and leave to simmer over a low heat for 15-20 minutes.

Meanwhile halve and stone the apricots and leave them to one side.

– Test the chicken for doneness making certain it’s cooked right the way through, then add the apricots. Leave to simmer for a few minutes, then add the juice of the limes and the reserved coriander leaves.

– Serve with steamed rice.

Below – This apricot frangipani tart is just divine, especially with a lump of clotted cream.

Below – The chicken and apricot curry is full of flavour.

YOU Magazine | 39

Lamb tagine with toasted nut couscous This fragrant lamb tagine is packed with dried fruit, nuts and fresh herbs and can be on the table in just over an hour.

For the tagine 2t ground cumin 1t ground coriander 1t ground turmeric 2t ras-el-hanout spice mix 1/2 t saffron strands 4T vegetable oil 600g lamb meat (a mixture of shoulder, neck and leg), cut into large dice 1 onion, finely chopped 2 garlic cloves, chopped 1 red chilli, stalk and seeds removed, chopped 3cm piece fresh root ginger, unpeeled, finely grated 1 cinnamon stick 1x400g tin tinned tomatoes 1T honey 125g dried apricots, roughly chopped 1 medium preserved lemon, skin only, roughly chopped Sea salt and PHOTOS MARG BROWNLIE freshly ground black pepper 50g pistachios, roughly chopped 3T roughly chopped fresh coriander leaves 3T roughly chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley 3T roughly chopped fresh mint leaves For couscous 25g butter 200g couscous 50g pistachios, roughly chopped 50g flaked toasted almonds 50g pine nuts, toasted 50g fresh apricots, roughly chopped 1 preserved lemon, skin only, finely chopped 3T roughly chopped fresh mint leaves 3T roughly

chopped fresh coriander root and leaves 3T roughly chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley 1 lemon, juice only Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper – For the tagine, mix together the cumin, coriander, turmeric, ras-el-hanout, saffron strands and 2T of the vegetable oil until well combined. Add the diced lamb to the marinade and coat the meat, then set aside to marinate, chill in the fridge if marinating for more than 30 minutes.

– Heat the remaining oil in a large casserole over a medium to high heat. Fry the onion, garlic, chillies and ginger for 2-3 minutes, or until just softened. Add the marinated lamb and fry for 2-3 minutes, or until browned on all sides.

– Add the cinnamon stick, tinned tomatoes and honey and mix well. Pour in 200ml water and bring the mixture to the boil, then add the preserved lemon and apricots and mix well. Reduce the heat until the mixture is simmering, and simmer for 45-60 minutes, or until the lamb is tender and the sauce has thickened, then season, to taste, with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

– Just before serving, stir in the chopped pistachios and herbs.

– Meanwhile, for the couscous, heat the butter in a frying pan with a tight-fitting lid over a medium heat.

When the butter is foaming, add the couscous and stir-fry until golden-brown all over.

– Pour in 400ml water, mix well, and remove the pan from the heat. Cover tightly with the lid or a sheet of aluminium foil and set aside to steam for five minutes.

– Fluff up the steamed couscous with a fork, then cover once more and steam for a further five minutes.

– Stir in the nuts, apricots, preserved lemon, herbs and lemon juice until well combined. Season to taste, with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

– To serve, pile the toasted nut couscous into the centre of four serving plates, then ladle the tagine on top and enjoy.

Apricot frangipane tart For the pastry 225g plain flour 100g butter, cubed 50g caster sugar 1 free-range egg For the almond filling 175g butter 175g caster sugar 4 free-range eggs 175g ground almonds 1t almond extract 200g apricot jam For the decoration 8 ripe apricots, halved and stoned 4T apricot jam – Preheat the oven to 190°C and then heat a heavy, flat baking tray.

– To make the pastry, measure the flour and butter into a food processor and briefly process until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the sugar and mix, then add the egg and a tablespoon of water. Process until the mixture just holds together (do not over work as it will make the pastry tough). Wrap in cling film and chill for 20 minutes.

– Roll the pastry out on a floured surface and use it to line a 28cm/11in flan tin.

Prick the base of the pastry using a fork then chill the pastry for 10 minutes.

– Line the pastry case with baking paper and fill with ceramic baking beans or uncooked rice. Place on the preheated baking tray and bake blind for about 15 minutes, or until the pastry is set and pale brown. Remove the beans and paper and return to the oven for about 10-12 minutes until the base is cooked.

– For the filling, put the butter and sugar in a food processor and pulse until creamy. Add the eggs and blend, then mix in the ground almonds and almond extract.

– Spread a thin layer of apricot jam over the base of the pastry and spoon the almond mixture on top. Bake for 30-40 minutes, until the filling is set. Remove from the oven and leave to cool.

– For the decoration, gently poach the apricot halves in water until tender.

Watch them very carefully as they turn to mush very quickly and you want them to hold together. Set aside to cool slightly.

– Arrange the apricot halves in circles over the top of the tart. Warm the apricot jam over a low heat then pass through a fine sieve. Brush the warm apricot jam over the top of the fruit to glaze.

– Serve the tart warm or cold.

40 | YOU Magazine

YOUR FOOD GUIDE in Ashburton

THE SOMERSET GROCER

MIYABI JAPANESE RESTAURANT

We love great food and take pride in bringing you the best local and international produce, in a great cafe atmosphere.

Only fine Japanese Restaurant and Teppan Yaki in Mid Canterbury

Winner of the Taste and Most Organic Juice café of the year award 2015.

Open: Mon, Tue, Wed: 7.30am - 5.30pm Thu and Fri: 7am - 5.30pm Sat: 8am - 4pm Sun: 9am - 4pm 161 Burnett Street, Ashburton 03 307 5899 manager@somersetgrocer.co.nz www.somersetgrocer.co.nz

We can accommodate your company lunches or dinners, or large parties.

Lunch: Wednesday - Sunday 11.30am - 5pm Dinner: Tuesday - Sunday 5pm - 9pm Unit 4, 688 East Street Ashburton Phone 03 308 8080 Follow us on Facebook

THE LAKE HOUSE UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT A truly stunning setting, located on the edge of Lake Hood, offering coffee and cake, a refreshing beverage with a decadent platter, a cafe lunch or an exquisite dinner.

Phone 03 302 6064 or book online.

Open

7 days a week 10am – 10pm

10 Huntingdon Avenue Lake Hood Phone 03 302 6064 www.lakehouselakehood.co.nz

CLEARWATER RESTAURANT

CHARMING THAI

SPEIGHT’S ALE HOUSE ASHBURTON

Clearwater Restaurant is one of the best in the district. It is a relaxed yet sophisticated setting, with a reputation for professional service and warm hospitality.

Chefs are brought from popular restaurant in Thailand, the restaurant has been serving Ashburton for over 10 years.

Whether it be live sport on the Big Screen, dinner with the family, beers with friends or relaxing in the alfresco dining area, the Ashburton Alehouse has something for everyone.

You’ll be impressed by the ambience of our restaurant and the quality and innovation featured in our menu.

Open:

Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner 7 Days a week

11 Racecourse Road Ashburton 03 307 8887 www.hotelash.co.nz

Lunch Tuesday - Saturday 11.30am - 2pm Dinner Tuesday - Sunday 5pm - 9pm Monday closed 148 East Street, Ashburton Phone 03 308 5885 Follow us on Facebook

Bookings recommended Open:

7 days from 11am till late

245 Burnett Street, Ashburton 03 308 5980 www.speights.co.nz

YOU Magazine | 41

YOUR FOOD GUIDE in and around Methven

METHVEN RESORT Sojourn Restaurant & Bar caters to locals and hotel guests alike with delicious a la carte menu options and sumptuous carvery buffet cuisine for group dining.

Book your next event with us!

BRINKLEY RESORT Brinkley Resort’s Alpine Conference Centre is one of Canterbury’s leading venues for conferences and weddings and also caters for training seminars, product launches, anniversaries and family reunions. In fact any corporate function or social celebration.

Available all year round.

Open: 6 nights/w 6.00pm–9.00pm (Closed Tuesday)

Remember at Brinkley’s mixing business with pleasure is our specialty.

51 Main St, Methven Phone 03 302 8724 www.methvenresort.com

43 Barkers Rd, Methven Phone 03 302 8885 www.brinkleyresort.co.nz

TERRACE DOWNS Enjoy a delicious meal in a rustically luxurious clubhouse with spectacular views.

Open daily Snack menu and cabinet food 10am - 6pm Lunch menu 11:30am - 3pm Dinner upon reservations

The Brown Restaurant & Fireside Bar offers more than one would expect from your standard pub fare with classic country favourites and a range of tasty mains dishes to suit all tastes. Extensive restaurant quality takeaway menu. Kids 10 and under eat for free in our family friendly spaces. (t’s & c’s apply) Fantastic new outdoor space available to hire.

Open:

7 days for lunch and dinner

Cnr Main Street & Forest Drive, Methven, Mt Hutt Village Phone 03 302 8045 www.brownpub.co.nz

CAFÉ 131

THE BLUE PUB

Delicious coffee!

Extensive all day menu plus a selection of tasty mains and house made desserts for relaxed evening dining. Also offering Samuels Summit Venue for your next corporate function or Christmas party.

Regular live music in the main bar if you chose to make a night of it. Above all else, we aim to please.

All day full breakfast and much more...

Join us for our delicious Sunday Buffet every week 12:30pm

Open: 7 days for lunch and dinner

Booking essential 623 Coleridge Road, Windwhistle Phone 03 318 6943 www.terracedowns.co.nz

THE BROWN PUB

Open:

Daily from 7.30am

131 Main Street, Methven Phone 03 302 9131

2 Barkers Rd, Methven, Mt Hutt Village Phone 03 302 8046 www.thebluepub.com

42 | YOU Magazine

OUT AND ABOUT @ Trotts Gardens Guardian photographer Tetsuro Mitomo was busy at Trotts Gardens recently during the launch of Alan Trott ’s new book Paradise Through the Seasons.

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Above – Lynne Adcook (left) and Anita McLeod.

Below – Carol Gunn and John Conway.

Above – John Grieve (left) and Bruce Wr Below – Margaret and John Clayton.

Above – Peter and Toni May. 250116-TM-0363

Below – Murray Gaylor (left) and Alister McLaren.

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Below (from left) – Peter Etheridge, Gary Haskett and Lois Etheridge.

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Below – Paul Trott (left) and Peter McClay.

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ROMANCE PACKAAE 1 NIIHT’S ACCOMMODATION SPARKLINN ON ARRIVAL 3 COURSE DINNER FOR 2 BREAKFAST AND MORE RYDDES.COM/CHRISTCHURCH or cccc 03 379 6760 o book

250

250

Wright.

YOU Magazine | 43

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Above – Jenny and David Williams.

Left (from left) – Phill and Robyn Cohen and Lois McClay.

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Above (from left) – Anne Fleming, Athol Price and Colin Fleming.

Left – Annie Price (left) and Johnny Wright.

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Above – Judith McLaren (left) and Vivian

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PEGASUS ARMS “The best fish and chips in town” Authentic, great food and people, with an awesome range of beer and wine.

Relaxed and welcoming. Your local pub in Christchurch’s Central City.

Open for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner, 7 days a week from 8am till late.

14 Oxford Terrace (on the river, near the hospital) Phone 03 366 0600 | Email events@pegasusarms.co.nz www.pegasus-arms.com

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