It took me days, maybe even weeks, to name what had happened as rape (Picture: BBC)
For survivors of rape, it’s tempting for self-preservation reasons to avoid depictions of sexual abuse on TV and in the media.
They can be triggering, sensationalist and often portray sexual violence in a way which doesn’t quite feel authentic to anyone who has experienced it.
For this reason, I May Destroy You – Michaela Coel’s masterpiece about a young woman who is trying to piece her life back together after being raped – was never going to be easy viewing for me.
I watched her character, Arabella, have flashbacks to the attack, and it was painful because it felt so similar to my own experience. In addition, I know that featuring the rape of a man (the character of Kwame, played by Paapa Essiedu), his horrendous but tragically realistic experience of reporting to the police, and how it affected him will have had a direct impacton many male survivors, because it has on me.
As a teenager on a night out in Manchester, I was drugged and raped. I knew something bad had happened because I woke up in a house I didn’t remember getting to and flashes of the incident came back to me, as well as the physical pain.
Despite this, it took me days, maybe even weeks, to name what had happened as rape. Men don’t get raped, I kept telling myself.
It was months until I could speak about it to anyone at all, and the idea of seeking support at the time – or reporting to the police – never even occurred to me. I felt partially to blame because of the unwise decisions I’d taken that night, and with those circling around in my head, I didn’t think I’d be believed.
According to research, it can take decades for men to speak out about their experiences of rape and sexual abuse.
When I finally did, it was only to a few friends who I could trust and eventually to my family. I didn’t think anyone would be equipped to have such a difficult conversation – it didn’t feel like there weren’t any reference points in the media at that time and I could barely find the right words. However, as I discovered, listening is usually enough.
I May Destroy You has also been a powerful reminder that sexual violence is about power and privilege and is a product of our imperfect society where these things are so unevenly dispersed.
I will forever be grateful to Coel and I May Destroy You for setting a new bar for how consent and sexual violence are depicted (Picture: Alex Feis-Bryce)
All the characters are complex and multi-layered – even the rapists – which challenges us to rethink the unhelpful notions of the ‘perfect’ victim, the ‘typical’ response to being sexually assaulted, and the caricature of the evil perpetrator hiding in the bushes.
It’s too easy to think that there are merely some good people and some bad – it lets us all off the hook.
Similarly, our conversations about rape as a society tend to focus on the male perpetrator and the female victim. Yet an estimated 70,000 men and boys are sexually assaulted each year – a figure which I believe is conservative.
The #MeToo movement was extremely powerful and empowered so many women to speak out but the gendered language left male survivors out of the conversation, and this reinforces the false idea that rape is something which only happens to women.
This was such an immense silencer for 18-year old me after I was raped, and continues to be for so many of the men. We are all socialised with prescribed notions of masculinity and femininity programmed into us from a young age – rape, which is inherently dehumanising and disempowering, often leaves men feeling emasculated and alone.
I’ve never fully been able to understand the impact being raped at 18 had on me. I had some extremely difficult times in the immediate aftermath and I often wonder if my mental wellbeing has been affected in the long term.
I’m one of the privileged ones, though. While I didn’t tell many people about what happened to me, I knew that at my lowest I had friends and family to support and catch me if I sank any further. Undeniably, my experience has shaped who I am and the work I’ve done since.
I will forever be grateful to Coel and I May Destroy You for setting a new bar for how consent and sexual violence are depicted, while simultaneously cautioning us about normalising it in the modern world of complex sexual relationships.
It challenges so many misconceptions that are ever-present in our society – and, tragically, throughout the criminal justice system, which not only pits prosecution against defence in a tactical joust but sets perpetrator against their victim in a way that is usually brutal for the latter.
Despite guidelines seeking to prevent it, it is not uncommon for a whole defence case to focus on discrediting the victim.
In a country where the majority of sexual assaults are not reported to the police and only around 3% of those that are reported ever result in the conviction of the offender, there is a lot more work to be done to educate everyone as to what constitutes consent.
When Arabella says ‘He’s not rape-adjacent or a bit rapey, he’s a rapist’ it reminds us that sexual violence is a constant in our society and too often minimised or dismissed as a joke or bad etiquette.
The reality is, if you have a friend who pushes the boundaries of consent, there’s a chance that at some point, they may have crossed over the line to a sexual offence.
I May Destroy You is revolutionary in the way it avoids absolutes and isn’t afraid of ambivalence, or allowing the characters their subjectivity in how they deal with what happens to them.
I only wish every jury was forced to binge-watch before the start of a rape trial.
For help and support, visit a Rape Crisis centre to talk to someone or use the charity’s confidential one-to-one live chat via their website at rapecrisis.org.uk. Or call Samaritans on 116 123 (the service is free and confidential) or email jo@samaritans.org.
And those of us who’ve had to take our workout elsewhere have finally been given the news they’ve been waiting for after it was confirmed last week that gyms could reopen from 25 July.
It’s not compulsory to wear a face mask when you visit the gym, with Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden confirming this when he announced the reopening of gyms last week.
‘We have not taken a decision to require the wearing of face masks in respect of gyms,’ Mr Dowden said – adding that a ‘whole series of mitigating measures’ would be in place instead.
What are the new rules for gyms when they reopen?
These measures will include limiting the number of people allowed in gyms at any one time, avoiding changing rooms where possible, keeping saunas and steam rooms closed and avoiding sharing sports equipment unless it can be cleaned between uses.
Gyms will also have to keep a record of attendees for 21 days, so that they can be contacted in the event of a Covid-19 case.
Should you wear a mask when you exercise?
Opinions differ on this, with some companies including Adidas and Rebel having launched face masks which can be worn comfortably during exercise.
However the official guidance is that people should wear a face covering in ‘enclosed spaces where social distancing is not always possible and they come into contact with others that they do not normally meet’.
Some have also suggested that wearing a mask during exercise might not be advised, with Dr Hilary Jones telling This Morning in May: ‘If you’re exercising outdoors and you’re jogging you don’t really need a mask, as long as you’re not with other people.’
Expect social distancing to be in place (Picture: Getty)
He added: There’s no guidance to suggest you should wear a mask or it’s beneficial. In fact, it’s covering your mouth and your nose, it’s inhibiting your breathing to some extent and some people would say you’re rising the rate of levels of carbon dioxide you’re breathing out when you’re exercising and that’s probably not a good idea.’
Others have suggested that as a mask decreases airflow into the lungs, it could affect the amount of oxygen in the bloodstream – meaning that you could tire more quickly.
Suffice to say, if you do decide to wear a mask while exercising and you begin to feel dizzy or short of breath, then it’s probably a good idea to remove it and stop exercising.
Natalie and Ashlea with William, the two couples with William and right; Natalie and John with William (Picture: SWNS)
John Michael, 37, and Natalie Holt, 40, were desperate to have a baby, but were devastatingly told in April 2017 that it would never happen naturally as Natalie doesn’t make enough of the hormone required to produce eggs.
But with the help of Ashlea North, 30, they are now parents to baby William after meeting through Surrogacy UK.
The trio used a DIY insemination kit to create William after Natalie was initially told my doctors that using a doctor might not be a good idea for her.
John and Natalie have developed an extremely strong bong with Ashlea and her husband Lee, making the process easier for both couples.
Natalie even joined Ashlea in the birthing pool when William was born.
John, a chartered insurance broker, from Leeds, Yorkshire, said: ‘We can’t imagine anyone better to have a baby with than Ashlea and Lee.
‘We have become best friends.
John and Natalie, in Spain, at an initial egg donation clinic which was unsuccessful, August 2017 (Picture: John Michael / SWNS)
‘It’s been a long and incredibly hard journey, but we’re at the end of it now and couldn’t be happier.’
Natalie, a retired primary teacher, said: ‘I’ve been called ‘mummy’ by thousands of children who I’ve taught at school.
‘I never thought I would get to the point where I would have my own child to call me that.
‘It’s still sinking in – we’re so happy.’
Natalie and John met in March 2009 through Match.com.
They decided in May 2013 that they wanted to have children but after 18 months without success, the couple went to their GP.
They were referred to Leeds Fertility Clinic, West Yorkshire, where a blood test showed that Natalie wasn’t producing enough follicles or eggs necessary for conception – and the couple were referred to the egg donor waiting list.
Natalie and John looked into expensive London clinics, as well as treatment abroad in America, Czech Republic and Ukraine.
They travelled to Marbella, Spain and had IVF treatment using egg donors.
But after four unsuccessful attempts – totalling around £30,000 – the clinic suggested an operation to straighten Natalie’s cervix.
‘It seemed like a good idea,’ John said.
John and Natalie had tried for children for seven years before they met Ashlea (Picture: John Michael / SWNS)
‘But the surgery took way longer than they anticipated, and when Natalie came round she was ghost white and throwing up blood.
‘That was the moment I realised enough is enough.
‘We wanted a baby more than anything – but I wasn’t prepared to lose Natalie, and she was putting herself through too much.’
Instead they decided to try surrogacy and started to attend Surrogacy UK events in July 2018.
After attending lots of socials, John wrote a blog post explaining how let down they felt from the various UK hospitals they had visited – prompting Ashlea to get in touch.
At a conference in September 2018, Natalie and John met Ashlea in person but she was already in a surrogacy team with another set of intended parents at the time.
But when the couple she was matched with said they were unsure about going through with the process, she asked to meet Natalie and John again in February 2019.
Ashley in birthing pool with baby William, and Natalie and John by her side (Picture: John Michael / SWNS)
Natalie and John met Ashlea, who is mum to Phoebe, seven, Alivia, five and Elora, four, and her husband Lee, 35, a civil servant, in February 2019 for their first ‘date’.
The two couples continued to meet every week for three months, until a camping trip to the Yorkshire Dales in May 2019 where they officially became a surrogacy team.
Initially, they planned to use an egg donor but then hit a few problems.
‘We were told to find another surrogate because they said it wouldn’t be safe for Ashlea,’ John said.
Natalie Holt, 40, holds her son William (Picture: Lee McLean / SWNS)
‘As if it’s that easy!
‘We cried the whole way to Ashlea’s house and it really felt like that was it for us.
‘We couldn’t bear the thought of crushing her dreams either.’
Doctors were concerned that two of Ashlea’s previous births had been by caesarean section and that her BMI might be too high for the surrogacy to be safe.
But when Natalie and John spoke to her and said they weren’t willing to jeopardise her health, she said she wanted to be a straight surrogate – meaning she would use her eggs and carry the baby
‘I told them that it was my dream to be a surrogate, just as it was theirs to be parents, so I was going to do it whatever it took,’ Ashlea said.
But this meant they had to go down the route of DIY insemination, which they admit was slightly awkward.
Baby William (Picture: Lee McLean / SWNS)
The procedure involved John depositing his semen to a sterile pot, which Natalie then kept warm with her hands, before Ashlea inserted it herself using a syringe for her egg to be fertilised – and incredibly it worked first time.
‘In the whole seven years we had never once seen a positive pregnancy test,’ Natalie said.
‘I will never forget that moment.’
Devastatingly, Ashlea miscarried within the first few weeks of pregnancy, but she fell pregnant again, with a positive pregnancy test in October 2019.
L-R Ashlea North, 29, Natalie Holt, 40, John Michael, 37, and Lee North, 35 with baby William (Picture: Lee McLean / SWNS)
The happy couples welcomed 9lbs 1oz William John Michael on June 24 at Ashlea’s home in Full Sutton, Yorkshire.
They had a home water birth, and Natalie even joined Ashlea in the birthing pool after William was born to share the incredible moment together as friends.
They had practiced hypnobirthing as a quad prior to the birth.
‘Ashlea was amazing – she is an absolute warrior,’ John said.
‘It felt like a dream.
‘She is a superhuman and handled the whole process beautifully – without any form of pain relief!’
‘I knew he was mine from the moment I held him – it was magical,’ Natalie said.
They also introduced William to Ashlea’s three young daughters, who they have been educating about the surrogacy process throughout.
‘People ask me if it was hard giving him away,’ Ashlea said.
‘But I wasn’t giving him away – I was giving him back to his parents.’
One of the birds in the Pyrenees, casually snacking on a massive bone (Picture: Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
It’s not often you spot a bearded vulture here in the UK.
In fact, there have only ever been two sightings of the massive birds ever recorded here in Britain – with the most recent being this week.
One of the massive birds, with a wingspan larger than a golden eagle at around three metres, was seen nesting in the Hope Valley near Sheffield, delighting birdwatchers across the country.
The only other time one has ever been spotted here was by the Severn Bridge and near Dartmoor, and was thought to be wild rather than bred by conservationists.
The endangered raptors are also known as lammergeiers, and typically eat bones (meaning they’re not a danger to livestock).
They’re being reintroduced to the Alps, which is where this gargantuan specimen is thought to have flown from.
After spending roughly 15 hours at the roost site the bird finally departed at 8:40am when I circled at eye level with us & then glided further over the moors!
I used to dream of being a normal mother. I would see other mums dropping their kids off at school, waving them goodbye and I’d want to be them. Not the parent with a chronically ill child.
For years, this scenario felt unattainable, but since my son Alfie Dingley became the first patient in the UK to receive a permanent cannabis licence, our family has been given hope.
There’s a lot of fear around the word ‘cannabis’. But for Alfie and my family, it changed our lives.
When he was five years old, my son was diagnosed with a rare form of epilepsy, called PCDH19, which caused up to 150 seizures a month.
Alfie was just eight months old when we first took him to hospital following a terrifying series of seizures at our home one night in 2012. He was admitted for nearly four months and was having chronic seizures every 15 minutes to half an hour, which could last up to five minutes. It was incredibly frightening.
He ended up being transferred on a life support machine into the Intensive Care Unit, before being taken to Great Ormond Street Hospital. Due to the severity of the seizures, it meant Alfie lost a lot of skills and was like a newborn again.
Up until that point our son had been following the key developmental lines quite normally, such as sitting up and swallowing, but his condition took all that away.
At that time, the trauma that we all went through – especially Alfie – was very distressing. He would be in hospital, pumped full of drugs and then would come home and act really aggressively.
My son Alfie was five when he was diagnosed with a rare form of epilepsy (Picture: Hannah Deacon)
He would lash out, scratch, kick and punch, due to the severe side effects of hundreds of seizures and the heavy drugs that were being used to stop the clusters.
Even so, he would still get severe clusters every eight months until he was four, then they began to come every three weeks. By the time he was five, Alfie was having bouts of seizures every week. As a family, we were simply surviving and had no quality of life.
My partner is over 6ft and plays rugby, and I knew that when Alfie got to that size I wouldn’t be able to look after him anymore. I was worried about what our future might look like, especially when he got too big for me to handle.
In 2017, after fundraising enough money, we travelled to the Netherlands for medical cannabis treatment, something that I’d researched and learned could help lessen his seizures’ frequency and intensity.
After six weeks of the treatment, administered as an oil under the tongue, Alfie went 17 days without any seizures.
We continued to increase the dose of the medical cannabis and after five months, my son went 41 days with no seizures. Before we went to Holland, he was in hospital every week having hundreds of seizures. Now he was having fewer and needed much fewer pharmaceutical drugs.
He was also learning new skills and his cognitive development notably improved. But after five months, we ran out of money so came home to fight our cause in the UK.
What followed was several months of campaigning, petitioning the government to get Alfie a permanent medical cannabis licence.
I worry about the impact this whole experience has had on my daughter, who is now five (Picture: Hannah Deacon)
Eventually, in 2018, he was given one.
Finally, Alfie was able to get a little bit of his quality of life back. He received his medication on the NHS and went 11 months with no seizures – the longest amount of time since his diagnosis. It was amazing and felt like we were finally getting to really know our child. His quality of life hugely improved and we only saw benefits for him. It changed the whole family once he had his medicine.
Although we have been lucky, so many other parents with chronically ill children are being failed. Access to medical cannabis is still difficult to obtain and families are not being supported the way they need – and deserve – to be.
The cannabis medical treatment has given Alfie – and our whole family – our quality of life back (Picture: Hannah Deacon)
I have spoken with parents of children with chronic illness who say they are not offered counselling or family support. Families with kids who have disabilities don’t choose to be in this situation. It is forced on us and we are being consistently failed through a deficit of support, not enough social workers and a lack of respite care.
This is why I keep campaigning for easier access to medicinal cannabis, because I think it should be available to people with epilepsy and all patients with chronic illness. Not only does it ease their pain, but it keeps them out of hospital – thereby saving the NHS money.
I don’t want other parents to go through all that we have been through. I still feel a huge amount of grief about the fact that my child is ill. I don’t know if he will live longer than me and, if he does, who will look after him when he gets older?
I also worry about the effect all this has on my five-year-old daughter. She needs her mummy and I’m conscious of the impact this could have on her as a child – having a brother with epilepsy.
But I manage this by remembering how far we have come with Alfie.
Although we can still have bad days, it’s nothing like we experienced before his treatment. And I use this time to help others who are going through what we did.
If Alfie’s legacy is that he helped me to support other people and that his name will be remembered because the law was changed in the UK, what a wonderful legacy that will be. It’s turned a lot of grief into something positive.
My Life Through A Lens
My Life Through a Lens is an exciting series on Metro.co.uk that looks at one incredible photo, and shares the story that lies behind it. If you have an experience you would like to share, please email kathryn.snowdon@metro.co.uk with MLTAL as the subject.
You might find you can’t lift like you did before lockdown (Picture: Getty Images)
Gyms will reopen in the UK on 25 July – and we can’t wait.
Things might not look exactly how we remember them, but we just can’t wait to be back in the routine of classes and weight sessions, and to have access to all that brilliant equipment.
Many of us have been doing what we can to stay fit and strong during lockdown with living room workouts, body weight exercises, and cardio through running and cycling – but nothing quite compares to a workout in the gym.
But it is vital to make sure your body is ready for the demands of the gym – and to not go in too hard, too quickly. Because that could lead to serious, long-lasting injuries.
We asked Lee Bell, a fitness expert and Blue Fuel ambassador, to come up with some simple tips for a safe and gentle return to the gym.
Lee says it is incredibly important to start slow and steady. You probably haven’t lifted any big weights for months, so don’t expect to just pick up where you left off.
Ease yourself in gently
‘You might be really enthusiastic about getting back into pumping iron after a long time off, but you’re only going to do yourself harm if you go all in too hard, too fast,’ says Lee. He says this is the easiest way to cause injury.
‘For weight training, try limiting yourself to three days a week for the first fortnight to give all of your tissues time to adapt to the higher-than-normal load you’re placing on them.’
Don’t skip the warm-up
‘If you’ve neglected the weight rack for some time because your usual sporting activity has been cancelled due to lockdown, put an even greater emphasis than normal on your warm-up,’ suggests Lee.
‘Your body is going to need it more than ever because when you haven’t been exercising, you lose muscle mass, which leaves you more susceptible to leg and back injuries.’
Lee says you should do small but effective body weight exercises before you hit the free weights.
‘Lunges, hip raises, plank rotations, moves like this will get that synovial fluid flowing in the joints and grease up the engine before you properly put it through its paces.’
Retain regular training commitments
‘If you’ve decided to get back into weight training after a long period of inactivity or to help train for getting back into team sports, try to stick to a regular workout schedule,’ says Lee.
Resting is really important (Picture: Getty Images)
He says one tip to help you sick to a schedule is to pick a workout time that suits you.
‘It is not only good for building a habit, but it will also help with performance as well as keep injuries at bay.’
Don’t forget flexibility
‘While it might feel amazing to get those endorphins firing with impressive Olympic lifting, try adding some flexibility exercises to your muscle-building endeavours,’ says Lee.
Lee adds that flexibility is often overlooked in fitness, but it can help the body better adjust to the demands of a workout.
‘Try yoga,’ says Lee. ‘It’s an excellent way to not only increase flexibility but improve mobility around the big muscle groups you’re hitting regularly in the gym saving you a possible injury while improving overall body posture.’
Nutrition: keep yourself properly fuelled
If you’ve not worked out properly for a while, you will need to make sure that you are properly fuelled before, during and after your training session.
‘Aim for a dose of simple carbohydrates right before starting your weight session alongside plenty of water with added electrolytes to sip throughout the workout and replenish anything you lose through sweating, followed by a high-protein supplement right after,’ adds Lee.
‘Nutrition is personal to each individual, so it’s important that you’re fuelling your body the way it needs to be fuelled, and this is where Blue Fuel can help.’
Keep workouts varied
‘Repetitive load is one of the easiest ways to injure yourself, especially after a period of inactivity,’ says Lee.
‘Try balancing your weight training with some (dare I say) cardio and mobility exercise to ensure workouts are varied.
‘This will minimise stress and your body will respond better.’
For example, if you used to do 45 minutes of free weights every day, try warming up and down on the treadmill or exercise for five minutes before and after, suggests Lee.
‘The key is to keep your pulse racing, even if just for a minute.’
Have proper rests and recovery
Lee says rest is a crucial part of any fitness regime, and shouldn’t be neglected. Particularly after extended time off.
‘Recovery is not just something performance athletes should take seriously,’ he explains.
‘Everyone should try to give their bodies plenty of opportunity for regular rest and recovery. Burnout is possible whatever level you’re training at, especially after a long period of inactivity.
‘Sleep is the best recovery you can get, so aim for seven-eight hours every night.’
Do you have a story or a fitness tip to share? We want to hear from you.
The people who have been hard at work over recent months (Picture: Benedicta Banga/Simone Girardeau and Steffen Hoyemsvoll/Emma Lane/Katie Shaw)
While some of us were baking banana bread and nurturing our sourdough starters in lockdown, others were busy starting their own businesses.
There’s a plethora of new businesses which have emerged over the past few months – some entrepreneurs already had their ideas in the pipeline, while others were inspired to launch as a result of the pandemic.
From a date night subscription box service to a marketplace for bakers, a number of exciting ideas have been brought to life with a lot of hard work and commitment – despite the unfortunate circumstances.
We spoke to the people behind some of these creative new ideas.
Caroline and her partner Jai decided to launch their business – a date night subscription box – after realising the impact lockdown was having on their relationship.
As a London-based PhD student, Caroline was used to going out with friends while Jai, a consultant, often spent time travelling abroad – so the pair found lockdown difficult to start with.
Caroline tells Metro.co.uk: ‘Being stuck together indefinitely in our one bed Shepherd’s Bush flat was unfamiliar territory to say the least.’
A month into lockdown, the couple were getting increasingly restless and frustrated with one another, so decided to make an effort to spend more quality time together.
Caroline adds: ‘After spending some time compiling a list of indoor date ideas, we realised most suggestions were the same – cook together, watch a movie, give massages, workout together or play board games. It was the first hint that there was a gap in the market here.’
It wasn’t long before Caroline and Jai realised they probably weren’t the only ones feeling this way, so decided to launch a subscription box for couples – to make date night at home more of an occasion.
Soon their business Box42 (a pun on ‘box for two’) was born.
Their boxes revolve around unique themes and each one features accessories, a curated Spotify playlist and snacks from independent businesses.
Caroline and Jai wanted to make date nights at home more of an occasion (Picture: Box42)
It seems the business venture has also brought the pair closer together.
Caroline says: ‘Over the last two months, we’ve built a website together from scratch, developed our business strategy, started social media and marketing efforts and designed a product.
‘We’ve learnt together, stayed up nights talking, brainstorming and strategising, been excited about something together and shared a common purpose and goal. It has done wonders for our relationship and we feel closer than ever.
‘Starting a company is something neither of us would have managed to fit alongside a normal schedule, so lockdown was an absolute blessing in disguise for us.
‘With Box42 bringing us closer together, we hope our date night boxes can do the same for many couples just like us who might feel like they’re stuck in a rut.’
Lockdown Presents – a platform supporting musicians currently out of work
Simone and Steffen were inspired by a family Zoom call (Picture: Simone Girardeau)
Simone Girardeau and Steffen Hoyemsvoll are another couple who have launched their own business in lockdown.
The duo were inspired by a family Zoom call for Steffen’s grandma’s birthday.
Instead of sending a present by post at the height of the pandemic, Steffen asked two professional musician friends to join the video call to perform a special set – based on his grandma’s two favourite composers, Mozart and Purcell.
Naturally, it went down a treat, and software business owner Steffen and freelance consultant Simone saw it as a great idea for a business.
Simone says: ‘Given there were so many professional musicians unable to work due to the pandemic, we saw the opportunity to create an online platform that would allow artists to earn a living whilst venues are closed.
‘With so many more people connecting over video calls for special occasions, we thought it would be a really unique and thoughtful gift idea.’
The pair got to work launching Lockdown Presents – a platform which connects professional musicians and singers with private audiences for intimate mini-concerts via video conference.
Users can book classical, jazz, rock, pop or opera musicians to perform as a unique experience for their loved ones.
Simone adds: ‘The absolute highlight of starting this business has been hearing the feedback from the artists and audiences. Artists have said they’ve really enjoyed having a reason to rehearse and perform again.
‘We’ve had customers book for lots of different occasions, from wedding anniversaries and birthdays to book clubs and cancelled wedding days. The feedback has been really positive, with audiences particularly enjoying the personal and intimate nature of a gig over Zoom.’
Currently, there are 19 musicians on the platform – who would normally be playing in concert halls, theatres, venues and recording studios with the country’s leading orchestras, ensembles and bands.
Steffen and Simone plan to grow the business over the coming months, and hope to continue to contribute to the arts sector and create paid opportunities for performers.
Blaqbase – an app supporting Black-owned businesses
Benedicta Banga is the woman behind Blaqbase (Picture: Benedicta Banga)
When lockdown hit, Benedicta Banga – a product manager from Solihull – found she had more time to launch and focus on her business.
Her app, Blaqbase, is a marketplace designed to support Black-owned businesses.
Benedicta tells Metro.co.uk: ‘I wasn’t always able to find products that I wanted local to me like hair and makeup and ended up having to travel further afield which was frustrating and inconvenient.
‘When I went online I discovered that brands by Black women weren’t always visible in searches.
‘This made it challenging to discover and support the brands. I also discovered that Black women were also the least funded group in business.
‘So looking at these three issues made me decide to create a place to make high-quality brands by Black women visible.’
The app also includes a ‘brand discovery’ feature, so users can learn more about new businesses.
The app (Picture: Benedicta Banga)
Benedicta says the response to Blaqbase has been great so far.
She adds: ‘People love the look and feel of the app. Brands approach me to partner and to place the brand in the app and it’s always brilliant when they explain why and it lines up with my vision.’
In terms of what comes next, Benedicta says: ‘Future plans are to continue growing the community, signing up more high quality brands and providing the diverse customer base with beautiful products that they will love and enjoy.
Stylist Emma Lane started making tie dye tops in lockdown, after her full-time work came to an abrupt stop.
Having previously made six tie dye tracksuits for her friend’s Glastonbury hen do, Emma already knew how to make the colourful garments.
However, starting a business wasn’t Emma’s intention – she simply started tie dying as an activity to pass the time.
Emma tells Metro.co.uk: ‘It just kind of happened – it wasn’t like I made a business plan. I bought 15 tops and just thought I’d tie dye them and see if anyone wants them.’
But, it wasn’t long before people were messaging Emma about her playful garments and asking how they could get their hands on them.
Emma says: ‘It kind of blew up quite quickly when Laura Whitmore bought one off me and wore one and so did blogger The Main Style. They wore one on their Instagram lives and from then everyone was like “can I have a tie-dye top?”
‘Suddenly, over a couple of weeks, it just got picked up and then I kept getting loads of DMs – it was crazy.’
Shortly after, Emma launched her online shop Lanes London – which boasts a colourful selection of T-shirts, joggers and jumpers – all available in different colour pairings and patterns.
She says: ‘Everything has been quite smooth sailing to be honest, I haven’t put too much pressure on myself, even though it’s been three months I’m kind of just going with the flow.’
Emma says she hopes to continue Lanes London when her styling work resumes – although she’s going to continue with her laid-back approach.
She adds: ‘I have goals but I don’t tend to plan too much.
‘I would love to keep Lanes London on the side, so I probably won’t be able to do as many drops but I would love to still have the shop there and find the time within the months to make the tops, even if it’s just 10 tops a week – it would be fun to keep it going.
‘The only reason I would stop is if I didn’t have enough time, but you can always make time.
‘As long as I’m organised I think I should be able to carry on doing it.’
findbakers – a marketplace for bakers to showcase their work
Yasmin Sidat, from Lanashire, had been sitting on her business idea for a while – but the pandemic sped up the process of her building and launching it.
Her business findbakers is a marketplace which gives home bakers the tools to sell their products online and for buyers to shop locally for their sweet treats.
Yasmin says: ‘I’ve had this idea for a while however I had never executed it. The trend of home bakers has become huge and more and more people are setting up home businesses on Instagram.’
Both home bakers and independent bakeries are encouraged to join the platform. It’s also free to join – seller fees only occur from sold items.
Yasmin adds: ‘It’s a platform built on the value to bring together all walks of life through a shared love of baking.
‘It’s early days but with the current steady traction this will grow. We have also undertaken continuous research, diving into the needs of bakers and customers.’
The response so far has been positive, too, with a plethora of bakers engaging with the business and buyers asking for more options everyday.
The 29-year-old hopes her company will eventually become the leading platform for bakers and buyers looking for sweet treats. And – once government restrictions lift – she also plans to host events.
Yasmin adds: ‘We want to support communities and build a company on the foundation of also really aiding those from lower/working class backgrounds and Black and ethnic minorities.
‘We naturally want to onboard more bakers and market for buyers to consider findbakers when they need to order delicious homemade treats.
‘We also want to train bakers with more business knowledge so they can build good businesses.’
Rosa Floral – botanical watercolour illustrations
Katie started painting as a hobby at the start of lockdown (Picture: Katie Shaw)
Lockdown has seen a number of people turn their talents into homegrown businesses.
This was the case for 29-year-old Katie Shaw, from Hackney.
Like Emma Lane, Katie is also a fashion stylist who saw her work come to a halt when the pandemic hit.
Initially, Katie started painting botanical watercolour illustrations to relieve her anxiety brought on by the pandemic. Shortly after lockdown began, she started taking commissions from friends.
Katie says: ‘It really helped to take my mind off the stress of having my career put on hold and the state of the world in general.
‘I started taking some commissions from friends who wanted to bring a bit of the outdoors into their homes in a time when being in nature was limited.
‘I found that a lot my friends were asking for paintings to be sent to loved ones, so this prompted me to set up my online shop.
‘That, coupled with the fact that I am used to a fast pace of life and was itching to be busy, made me decide to make a business out of my hobby.’
Some of Katie’s watercolours (Picture: Katie Shaw)
Katie has now launched her own Etsy shop Rosa Floral and includes T-shirt designs and greeting card packs in her offering.
She also plans to continue with commissions as her stylist work starts to pick up again.
Katie adds: ‘I’ve started back at work now so time is a bit more limited and I’ve already got orders piling up, but I’m excited to spend my days off painting for people.
‘Building this business has taught me to slow down and find beauty and pleasure in creating for others. It’s also given me a sense of purpose and I’m liking having something that I can call my own so i’ll definitely be keeping it going.’
Do you like the sound of these eco-friendly baby names? (Picture: Getty/metro.co.uk)
So many things influence which baby names become popular – from TV shows to movie stars to famous songs – but you might not have thought that the environment could impact what parents are calling their children.
But, as people work harder than ever to help the environment and live sustainably, eco-friendly baby names are becoming incredibly popular in 2020.
These are names that reflect the natural world, from plants and flowers to planets, stars and the elements.
Parents want their little ones to have a name that reflects their environmentally friendly ethos, and the names just happen to be really pretty as well.
They discovered that Luna – the third most desirable girls name of 2020 – is the most popular eco-friendly baby name for girls. The phrases ‘Luna girls name’ and ‘Luna baby name’ have a total of 640 Google searches per month.
The second most popular ‘green’ girl’s name comes from the Roman goddess of dawn, Aurora.
Isla – which means ‘island’ in Spanish – is the third most popular sustainable girl’s name, and the fifth most popular girl’s name in the UK according to NameBerry.
The most popular eco-friendly baby names for girls
Luna – Latin luna (moon)
Aurora – Roman goddess of dawn
Isla – ‘Island’ in Spanish
Hazel – The hazel tree
Ivy – The climbing evergreen plant
Iris – ‘Rainbow’ in Greek
Rose – The fragrant flower rose
Violet – The purple/blue flower
Aria – ‘Air’ in Italian
Chloe – ‘Blooming’ in Greek
SaveOnEnergy
The trendiest eco-friendly baby boys name is Oliver, which stems from the Latin word olivarius meaning ‘olive tree’. According to NameBerry it ranks as the third most popular boys name of 2020 so far.
The second most popular ‘green’ boy’s name is Jasper. The name, although believed to be unrelated to the gemstone Jasper, is still associated with the stone.
Leo – Latin for ‘lion’ – ranks as the third trendiest eco-friendly boys name of 2020. Although it’s not the most popular boys name, there are 600 searches per month from potential parents interested in calling their baby Leo – 100 more searches than Oliver in first place.
The most popular eco-friendly baby names for boys
Oliver – English origin ‘olive tree’
Jasper – The gemstone jasper
Leo – ‘Lion’ in Greek
Kai – ‘Sea’ in Hawaiian
Atlas – Ancient God who carried the world on his shoulders
Rowan – The rowan tree
Phoenix – Immortal bird from Greek mythology
Brooks – ‘Stream’ in old English
River – A stream of water that flows to the sea
Orion – A constellation of stars
SaveOnEnergy
Why are parents choosing eco-friendly names?
3,400 parents were also surveyed to find out why they are considering eco-friendly baby names for their new-born babies.
When asked ‘Would you give your baby an eco-friendly name?’, three quarters of Brits (72%) said that they would consider doing so, with only 28% wanting to avoid it.
Most were considering these names because they are ‘pretty’ (39%), 22% like the meaning behind the names, 21% are choosing these names simply because they’re trendy, but 18% are considering one of these names because they follow an eco-friendly lifestyle.
Of the 28% who wanted to avoid these eco-friendly names, almost half say it’s because they are ‘too mainstream’, and 26% find the names ‘cringey’.
Do you have a story to share? We want to hear from you.
The beauty of a slow cooker is the ability to just throw everything in and leave it to simmer away for hours with no worries.
There is one caveat to this, though. You do actually have to add the ingredients in.
One mum shared her blunder with a Facebook group for slow cooker recipes, and the responses are truly hilarious.
The original poster said: ‘Kids will love dinner… it’s eight-hour slow-cooked bay leaf infused water.
‘I completely forgot to put in the corned beef.
‘I couldn’t believe my epic fail when I opened the lid and didn’t see the corned beef.’
Here’s what you could have won (Picture: Getty Images)
The Australian woman had other members of the group in stitched, with many sharing their own epic fails in the kitchen.
One person replied: ‘Reminds me of the time I made Italian bread in my bread maker. I spent 30 minutes chopping up herbs and garlic, added the ingredients and then waited. The bread would have been delicious if I’d added the water – I had hot, seasoned flour.’
Another said: ‘I remember a time many years ago we had people visiting and I didn’t know them very well but I decided to make lasagna and salad as we had five children and four adults.
‘Quick and easy – sure was, when I went to serve up I had forgotten to put the lasagna sheets in.’
Basically, this mum is very much not alone when it comes to slow cooker scattiness.
Now we just need to find out how that bay leaf soup was received by her children.
Each week we take a look around a different person’s rented property and chat to them about their experiences in the world of renting.
This time we’re hanging out with Fleur, 23, a retail and admissions supervisor at a museum, and her partner Leila, 24, who works as a head waiter at a restaurant as well as a professional pole performer and instructor.
The couple are both born and raised South Londoners and have been together for five years, got engaged in November 2019, and moved into a one-bedroom flat in Anerley, London, a year or so ago.
They share how they’ve made the flat their own on a shared Instagram account, casa_de_modelei.
We chatted with Fleur about what it’s like to live here and how they’ve turned an unfurnished flat into a home.
Hey, Fleur! How much do you both pay to live here?
Our rent is £1,050 a month in total, which we split, and bills total to about £210 a month, including council tax.
What do you get for what you pay?
Our flat has a living room, a separate kitchen, one bathroom and one bedroom. It was really important to us to have a separate kitchen and a bathroom with a bath in it.
The couple have lived in the flat for a year or so (Picture: Fleur and Leila)
Do you think you have a good deal?
Yeah I’d say we’ve got a pretty good deal. The flat was completely refurbished just before we moved in, meaning we had a brand new bathroom and kitchen, including the white goods and all rooms had been redecorated with new flooring.
We also live really close to a station and have a bus stop just outside so the transport links couldn’t really get any better!
How did you find the flat?
We found it the first day we decided to go flat hunting. We found it on Rightmove and viewed it later that day and signed for it the day after. Because it was empty we moved in about a week later, which was really lucky.
Do you like the area?
Our flat is in Anerley, near Crystal Palace and Penge. We’re really happy here, mainly because unlike surrounding areas, Anerley hasn’t been hit by too much gentrification and it’s about in the middle between each of our families.
How have you made this place feel like home?
Luckily the flat was unfurnished so it’s been pretty easy to put our stamp on it.
When we first moved in we burned sage to clear previous energies from the space and burned incense to bring in energies that reflect our own personalities.
We also meticulously chose the furniture that we wanted and had saved for while before moving so that we could afford it. We furnished the place with furniture we’d found on the street and upcycled when living with my parents to give it our own stamp.
A lot of our furniture is from junk shops too, I think things feel more homely when they’re a bit lived in, rather than new and shiny.
The rent is £1,050 a month, split between the two (Picture: Fleur and Leila)
We’ve also put a lot of photos up on the walls and a lot of the art that we have on the walls is done by our friends, which makes it feel so much more familiar and homely.
Have you found it difficult to decorate when renting? Is your landlord happy with you doing bits?
Luckily our landlord is quite laid back in terms of us decorating. He’s a builder by trade so is happy to put shelves up for us and is happy for us to put things up on the walls as long as it’s put up properly and rectified at the end of our tenancy.
Do you feel like you have enough space?
All the rooms in our flat are very spacious but there’s not much built in storage, which can be tricky. Luckily my parents live pretty locally and let us store things at theirs – obviously within reason – so it’s not the end of the world.
We have two large cupboards in our hallway which is where the vacuum etc lives but some more storage in the living room, such as shelves, would be handy. We love ceramics so have them dotted around but we really want somewhere to properly put them on show.
Our bedroom is enormous, so we’ve been able to put a huge wardrobe in there that easily accommodates all of our clothes. The only things we struggle to store is actually shoes, Leila’s pole equipment, and small miscellaneous things that don’t really have a place.
In terms of space, I think the only thing we really miss is having outdoor space. We would love to have a balcony or garden but for now we’re filling our house with plants to bring the outside in and make up for that.
Plants and painting make this space feel like home (Picture: Fleur and Leila)
Are there any problems with the home you have to deal with?
Not really, to be honest. We’ve had a couple of issues, like our intercom stopped working and the upstairs neighbour flooded our bathroom, which short-circuited our lights, but our landlord cares a lot about the property and is very efficient in terms of maintenance. Because he’s a builder, most of the time he can fix it himself so it’s sorted really quickly which is great.
Occasionally when we use the washing machine our bathroom gets a strange smell from standing water but it fades quickly.
I’d say our main problem is that because our flat is located so close to a train line, we get kept awake when they do railway and station maintenance. Most of the time we get a heads up letter about it a few days in advance but National Rail have been slacking with that lately.
Do you have plans to move again any time soon?
No immediate plans. Obviously it’s a one bedder so if we wanted to start a family we’d probably move to a bigger place but that’s a way off and for now this place is perfect for us.
Do you want to own a place or are you happy to rent?
Yeah we’d like to own somewhere someday. Owning somewhere just provides that security that you can’t really get in renting. A landlord can sell the property or put the rent up but you’re never really put in that position if you own your own place and keep up the mortgage payments.
Plus, owning somewhere also gives you the freedom to do what you want with it. It’s our dream to do up a ramshackle house with an overgrown garden and restore it to its former glory.
Honestly, same. That sounds dreamy. Shall we have a look around?
The living room (Picture: Fleur and Leila)
A lot of the furniture was found on the street and upcycled (Picture: Fleur and Leila)
Look a that gallery wall! (Picture: Fleur and Leila)
We love all the plants (Picture: Fleur and Leila)
The kitchen (Picture: Fleur and Leila)
Coordinating the crockery with the tiles? Cute (Picture: Fleur and Leila)
The bedroom (Picture: Fleur and Leila)
Yes, those are plant print bedsheets (Picture: Fleur and Leila)
The couple have made the most of the space (Picture: Fleur and Leila)
There’s even a dressing table! (Picture: Fleur and Leila)
Finally, the bathroom. Spot the toothbrush! (Picture: Fleur and Leila)
What I Rent is a weekly series that’s out every Tuesday at 10am.
Check back next week to have another nose around a rented property.
How to get involved in What I Rent
What I Rent is Metro.co.uk’s weekly series that takes you inside the places people are renting, to give us all a better sense of what’s normal and how much we should be paying.
If you fancy taking part, please email whatirent@metro.co.uk. You’ll need to take pictures of your kitchen, living room, bathroom, and bedroom, plus a few photos of you in your bedroom or living area.
Make sure you get permission from your housemates! You’ll also need to be okay with sharing how much you’re paying for rent, as that’s pretty important.
We're not just after the prettiest places out there, by the way. We want the reality of renting, so if you're currently renting a place you hate, we'd love to see that too (and sympathise greatly!).
It’s no coincidence that people at work get pregnant at the same time (Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk)
Have you ever noticed that lots of people in the office seem to get pregnant around the same time? Well there is a scientific reason for this phenomenon.
Pregnancies are ‘contagious’ between colleagues in the workplace and between siblings in the family, according to new research by the University of Cologne.
The study found that if a colleague becomes a mother, the chances of further pregnancies in the workplace increases – and the same effect can be found between siblings.
The researchers analysed data from the Dutch systems of Social Statistical Datasets (SSD), which contains information about family members and workplaces of the whole Dutch population.
The study reveals that if a child is born to a sibling or a colleague, this can trigger a chain reaction because a person who has the desire to have a child can in turn influence their siblings, and then influence their own colleagues.
This suggests that things like social learning can lead to a contagious spread of fertility through social networks.
‘We suspect that this kind of effect happens in the workplace primarily due to social learning; colleagues may influence each other’s fertility decisions because they can learn from them about the consequences of becoming a parent, and how parenthood influences work and family life,’ says Professor Leopold.
The research also found that people who are of reproductive age, and who rarely experience births among their siblings and colleagues, are less likely to have children.
Furthermore, a simulation showed that without the contagion effects, the numbers of pregnancies would drop by 5.8% without colleague effects, and by 1.5% without sibling effects.
Do you have a story to share? We want to hear from you.
There’s a reason you wear your bra the way you do (Picture: TikTok/deniseag80)
You wouldn’t wear a bra with one boob uncovered? So why are people wearing their masks not covering their full face?
This is the point Denise Mejia is trying to get across in a now-viral TikTok video, comparing the two in an effort to help people understand.
Using a crop top as a makeshift bra, she pulls it down underneath her breasts to show that it’d be ineffective, simultaneously pulling down her mask under her nose.
The funny video then shows her unhooking one side of the mask from her ear to leave her face exposed, while pulling the ‘bra’ underneath one breast. See how silly it seems when you think about it?
The video has been viewed over 360,000 times now, with comments pouring in praising the analogy.
One person said, ‘such a good reference’ while another said ‘this is hilarious’.
It comes as face masks are due to become compulsory in shops in England from 24 July.
Those who fail to comply with the new rules could face fines of £100, with the rules stating that face coverings need to cover both the mouth and nose.
Your mask does not double up as a sweatband (Picture: TikTok/deniseag80)
This won’t be instead of social distancing, but should be an added measure to prevent the spread of the disease, as the face coverings help stop people with the virus giving it to others.
As Denise’s video shows, though, they do need to be worn properly for this protection to work.
Photographs released over the last few months have shown people trying to subvert mask rules by wearing theirs as everything from eye masks to necklaces or chin-straps.
Hopefully looking on the more humorous side of things can help to bring the message home that we all need to do our bit, and that means wearing masks and coverings correctly.
Hide something inside the cake and then open it up (Picture: Asda)
If you’ve bought someone the perfect gift, surprising them with it is all part of the fun.
And now Asda has come up with a unique idea to help – the surprise cake.
It’s basically a completely edible gift box that you can present to your loved one, but when they go to slice it open, they find your gift safely hidden inside.
Of course, it’s not going to work with a huge gift but for jewellery, gift cards or small boxes, it’s perfect.
Asda even suggests using it for a cheaper gender reveal party by putting something for a girl or boy in the tub only to be seen when the cake is cut.
It’s simple to do – there’s a gift size hole filled with a plastic tube in the cake where you can place whatever you’re giving.
Once the gift is inside the tube, put it back in the cake, pour the edible confetti over the top and then you can add the candles and present it like a normal cake.
When the candles have been blown out, your loved one can slice it open and find their gift.
The cake itself is a moist chocolate sponge, topped with swirls of multi-coloured icing and playful edible confetti.
It costs £13 and serves 20 guests. You can pick one up online or in store from this week.
Becky Price, Celebration Cake Product Developer, comments: ‘We know our customers love a novelty celebration cake to tuck into on a special occasion, so we wanted to provide them with something unique and innovative.
‘Whether it’s a gender reveal, birthday, who knows maybe even a proposal, this cake is guaranteed to surprise and delight!’
How Cheddar looks normally (left) and how he looked after the cut (right) (Picture: Kennedy News and Media)
Most of us have had a disastrous haircut in our lives.
This was recently the case for an adorable dog named Cheddar.
The shih tzu-poodle cross ended up with a half-finished haircut resembling an alpaca, after a trip to the groomers was cut short.
It seems Cheddar was far from a ‘good boy’ at the New Jersey salon, so his owner Lisa Torres was asked to come pick him up early.
The eight-year-old canine had tried to bite the groomer, so his hairdressing appointment came to an abrupt halt – resulting in an unfinished barnet.
But Cheddar’s coat had already been blow dried – so there was an enormous poof of hair on the top of his head.
A serious hairdo (Picture: Kennedy News and Media)
Lisa said ‘When I got the call I chuckled a little and thought “oh my god, I’m on my way to pick up a lion”, and when I get there it’s the funniest thing in the world.
‘I walk into the store and I’m completely embarrassed, like “he’s not my dog, he’s a rescue dog, don’t think he’s mine.”
‘The groomer apologised and asked if I wanted to try [again], but I said “no, it’s okay, we can just go” and I completely understood because I wouldn’t want to be carrying on after I got bit [sic].’
Lisa took to Facebook to post some brilliant photos of Cheddar looking extremely smug with his new haircut, in the front seat of her car.
Outstanding (Picture: Kennedy News and Media)
She added: ‘When I got into the car I just found it hilarious because he was sort of looking at me like “what’s wrong mum, this is what I was going for.”
‘I called my boyfriend and told him “I have tears in my eyes, my stomach is hurting and I can’t even pull off because Cheddar is sitting here like he’s cool but he’s not, he looks crazy.”‘
A grandma from Stockport has spent the past few months teaching six of her grandchildren how to ride a bike.
Sandra Pumridge – also known as ‘Granny Plum’ – wanted her grandkids to visit her late husband’s bench during lockdown, so was determined to teach them all how to cycle.
The 64-year-old retired civil servant taught 10-year-old Zane, seven-year-old Lily-May, six-year-old Cole, four-year-olds Georgetta-Rai and Leighton and three-year-old Ariya how to ride their bikes – in age order.
Six cyclists and a little one (Picture: Charlotte McLean/Caters News Agency)
Sandra said: ‘I wanted somewhere for the grandchildren to go and visit him, so I was determined to get them all on the bikes so we could visit grandad together.’
To make this possible, she got to work teaching the kids in an empty car park.
Sandra added: ‘I taught them there, they all took it in turns to learn – Zane is the eldest and I used him as a way of encouraging the rest to say “come on let’s catch up with Zane.”
‘One by one they all did it – thanks to the big space in the car park.
‘Then the test was to go around the local park so they could learn to steer – right at the beginning it was Lilly-Mae, then it was Cole, I took the stabilisers off in the house and then there was no turning back for him.
‘Then it was Georgetta’s turn and the Leyton after that – I was determined they were all going to do it.’
The family weren’t sure if three-year-old Ariya would be able to cycle confidently – but she was a natural on the bike.
A family of bikers (Picture: Charlotte McLean/Caters News Agency)
Sandra said: ‘As soon as one got the confidence, the next one followed – they all learned in accordance to their age.
‘I am like a dog with a bone – as soon as I start something I have to finish, once they all learnt they all zoomed off and we can’t stop them now.
‘I’m so happy they can do it and it’s independence for them all now.’
Sandra says the siblings call their bike riding group ‘the circle’ and they love nothing better than cycling around the park, burning off their energy.
Most of all, the family are excited for everything to reopen – so they’ll have more places to visit.
Sandra said: ‘Regardless of your age you can do whatever you want to do – that’s what I wanted to teach them.’
Working from home can leave our bum muscles sleepy and a bit useless (Picture: Hollie Grant)
With gyms not opening up until the end of the month, many of us are still working out from home – but it can be easy to get into a bit of a rut.
One area that you need to make sure you’re focusing on is the bum. Your glute muscles have a tendency to switch off if you’re sitting for long periods, but the right exercises can wake them up to help you build stronger, toned muscles in your bum and legs.
Award-winning Pilates instructor and founder of Pilates PT, Hollie Grant, has shared her favourite moves for waking up the bum muscles.
‘Given that so many of us are working from home and we aren’t walking around commuting as often, many of us are noticing lower back pain creeping in,’ says Hollie.
‘My best advice is to switch on those glutes! We’re sat on them so much of the day that they can weaken, and lengthen, and become less effective at doing their job.
‘Here are my favourite glute exercises to ensure they stay strong, functional and awake:’
Clams
Your hips should be stacked on top of each other (Picture: Hollie Grant)
Lay on your left-hand side, knees bent at 90 degrees with the heels in line with the tailbone.
Ensure your hips are stacked one on top of the other, and imagine there’s a Malteser under your left side of your waist you don’t want to melt (try not to sink into the floor).
Keeping the heels connected exhale and lift your right knee up away from your left, rotating the leg towards the ceiling as if you are opening a book. Inhale to release the leg slowly back to the start.
Continue for 60-90 seconds. Repeat on the other side.
Glute kickbacks
Lower your leg with control (Picture: Hollie Grant)
Start in four-point kneeling (hands and knees) with a neutral spine.
Bend your right knee and imagine you are holding a football behind your right knee.
As you exhale start to lift the right leg back and up towards the ceiling (keeping hold of the football) as high as you can maintain a neutral spine (eg don’t dip your lower back).
Inhale to lower it back down with control.
Repeat for 60-90 seconds and then repeat with the left leg.
Hip rolls
Roll through each vertebra (Picture: Hollie Grant)
Lie on your back with your knees bent, feet hip width apart and arms reaching up towards the ceiling. Inhale and gently press your lower back into the floor.
As you exhale engage your glutes and start to lift the hips up towards the ceiling slowly.
Try to peel up as if you are trying to articulate through each vertebra of the spine.
Inhale to hold at the top before exhaling to slowly roll down through the spine a vertebra at a time.
Repeat 10-15 times.
Deadlifts
Your spine should be neutral and straight (Picture: Hollie Grant)
Stand with feet hip width apart and knees soft.
Ensure your back is neutral (I imagine a surfboard strapped to my back that I am gently pressed against).
Inhale and begin to hinge at the hips, as if bowing. Do not bend the knees, simply keep them soft.
Fold forwards as far as the hamstrings will allow (ideally almost 90 degrees).
At the bottom exhale and press down into the heels and slowly begin to come back up, using your glutes to drive the movement.
Repeat 10-15 times – slowly.
Scooter
Keep you hips still (Picture: Hollie Grant)
Stand with your feet hip width apart, knees bent in a high squat position as if perched on a stool.
Lean your weight over onto your left foot. Reach your right leg out behind you and tap the floor with your foot. Bring it back in and tap the floor next to your left foot.
Repeat 10-15 times keeping the weight on your left foot, and ensuring your hips stay still, then repeat with the right leg.
Hollie is live streaming her classes via Zoom, and they cost £10 per class and are free for NHS workers.
Her classes include her ‘Pilates PT Method’, which is a unique combination of Dynamic Mat Pilates and HIIT.
Hollie is also offering ‘The Bump Plan’ classes, a trimester-specific training methodology designed for all stages of pregnancy that combines low impact cardio and Pilates.
Do you have a story to share? We want to hear from you.
Tying your shoelaces is probably something you do without thinking too hard.
But apparently the most common style of tying is the least secure.
TikTok account @attn highlighted that the popular ‘bunny ear’ style comes undone quickly.
The video, which has over 579,000 views, cites a 2017 study by UC Berkely, which says that the ‘bunny ear’ is much weaker as it is based on a false knot.
The study explains: ‘There are two ways to tie the common shoelace bow tie knot, and one is stronger than the other, but no one knows why.
‘The strong version of the knot is based on a square knot: two lace crossings of opposite handedness on top of each other. The weak version is based on a false knot; the two lace crossings have the same handedness, causing the knot to twist instead of lying flat when tightened.’
The study also highlights that both knots fail in the same way but the key point is that one is stronger than the other.
The TikTok video breaks down ‘how to do it right’ by crossing the left lace over the right, make a loop on the right side, place the left loop around that side and pull it through.
The voiceover says: ‘You want your laces to lie perpendicular to your shoe, not parallel.’
But in the comments, some people debated the suggestion, and some pointed out that most people double knot their bunny tie anyway.
One said: ‘My bunny ear shoe laces don’t come untied after 15 minutes lol. They’ve been tied for three years.’
Another comment said: ‘Um sorry mine will stay tied for hours and I do bunny knots so they are WRONG.’
Others really liked the advice though.
Someone else said: ‘The perpendicular look makes the shoe look cuter than the parallel. Thanks for this useful shoe tying tip.’
It’s not difficult to draw parallels between social distancing rules and sexual ones (Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk)
Ask any woman in your life if she has ever been subjected to unwanted touching, and the answer is probably ‘yes’.
Whether that means a light squeeze on the back of her hips as she moves through a club, a man rubbing himself against her on a packed tube, or something much, much more aggressive — the feeling of being touched without consent is hauntingly familiar for many of us.
So familiar is it, in fact, that rather than tackling the root cause by teaching children the value of boundaries and how to enforce them, women are taught from a young age how to avoid making ourselves vulnerable.
We go to the toilets together in pubs or clubs, we don’t walk home alone at night, we look at the floor if we catch a man’s eye in case the gesture could be misconstrued as an invitation.
But when the #MeToo moment hit in 2017, it lit a fire, triggering a battle cry audible from just about every corner of the world. It was so profound that it marked a shift in our collective way of thinking.
It soon became a historical reference point, creating a sense of both ‘before’ and ‘after’ as the concept of ‘enthusiastic consent’ was being discussed — and often.
Powerful men from every area of public life were toppled, women felt they had the ability to speak — for the very first time — about painful memories of abuse and exploitation. It was invigorating.
There were, of course, naysayers and whataboutery — as with anything valuable, change at this scale came with its own intrinsic challenges. But it felt like things were moving in the right direction.
And then the pandemic struck.
Within days, the prospect of being close to anyone with whom you didn’t already have an established intimate relationship became strange. Scary, even. We began moving away from each other in person, leaping two metres to the side if we saw someone coming towards us, lest we place ourselves in the way of harm.
Several weeks in and people touching on TV looked bizarre. As someone who was isolating alone, I didn’t touch another human for 87 days. At first it felt weird, but soon it became normal, alongside a newfound appreciation for my personal space and the sanctity it represents.
Somewhere during this period I met someone on a dating app and we began chatting. Texting turned to Zoom dates, which graduated to socially distanced park dates — closely following the narrative arc of guidance issued by the government.
By the time we finally broke the space between us, we had known one another for five weeks, which — for two people used to the dizzying velocity of technology-assisted social and sexual interactions — was another oddity.
It also marked the conclusion of a series of open and frank conversations between us about issues that would have seemed thorny prior to lockdown, but in this new context felt perfectly reasonable.
Were we (two people that live alone) going to form a support bubble? If so, we first had to agree to be exclusive in order to guarantee our own and each other’s safety.
Were we comfortable touching? Kissing? On what timeline? And once we’d ironed out the first few issues — even if it was technically legal, was it safe? Were we both completely happy about it?
It felt like a lot of commitment and trust between two people who hadn’t known one another all that long. And yet it also felt completely straightforward. Of course we weren’t going to put one another at risk without the other’s consent. What an odd concept that would be.
So why, then, has it taken a global pandemic for us to finally start practising enthusiastic consent?
It’s not difficult to draw parallels between social distancing rules and sexual ones. And despite the fact that this conversation made me feel reassured, happy and comfortable when we did eventually progress to physical intimacy, it also struck me as quite sad that this was a completely new experience for me.
The idea of being able to speak honestly with a partner about everything that you feel OK and not OK with — and of checking in regularly to see if you’re both still on the same page.
It’s something that’s been echoed by other people I’ve spoken to who have been tentatively dating during the pandemic. They have all commented on how Covid has facilitated more honest conversations, a slower pace with intimacy and more care in general.
Although it’s great to hear people taking this approach now, it’s pretty depressing that it hasn’t been the norm — especially given that sex and intimacy have always carried a number of risks for both parties, including STIs and pregnancy.
Beyond that, the emotional imprints and trauma left by non-consensual sex and/or touching can be incredibly hard to remove. It’s also a fairly lengthy process.
So why, then, has it taken a global pandemic for us to finally start practising enthusiastic consent?
It’s not just sex. Whatever your circumstances, you’re likely, by this point, to have had some conversations that would have appeared relatively odd this time last year.
Is it OK to visit your mum? And if so, are you both comfortable with any potential risks that carries? Are you happy to go to a restaurant or bar now that you can? Or would you rather not?
And the conversation that consumed many Twitter users for 24 hours — if you have a cleaner, should you ask them to clean your house even though it’s permitted, if you’re technically placing them at risk?
(For what it’s worth, the answer to the last question for me at least, is no.)
We’re still feeling our way through all of this, and that’s OK.
To clarify, I am by no means saying that the pandemic has been good for women’s sexual and physical safety and rights. Domestic abuse rates have been climbing during lockdown while rape crisis shelters continue to buckle under the weight of increased cases without sustainable funding.
But in such bleak global circumstances, it’s more important than ever to celebrate green shoots of progress where we find them.
2020 will go down in history as a moment where humanity stood still and people suffered grave losses and large-scale trauma. But if history has taught us anything, it’s that global crises often become opportunities too; in this case, to consider the type of world we want to live in as we move forwards.
I hope for the sake of the women and girls that we seize this opportunity with both hands.
Lockdown measures are slowly easing (Picture: EPA)
As lockdown measures continue to be rolled back across most of the UK, travel restrictions have also been eased.
The Government has shared a list of ‘air-bridge’ countries for which quarantining for 14 days on your return to England will not be required.
The journey to our new ‘normal’ is still underway, but with the world very much still in the grips of a pandemic, here’s what you need to know about what travel insurance providers are offering.
Can you get travel insurance which covers coronavirus-related incidents?
Some companies have ‘restricted cancellation and travel disruption cover in policies bought’ since Covid-19 was officially declared a pandemic.
According to MoneySuperMarket.com: ‘Claims related to coronavirus are now likely to be excluded from any travel insurance policy, as it is considered a “known event” that travellers are aware of.’
A number of providers won’t offer any coverage related to coronavirus, while others only offer coverage for emergency medical costs and repatriation in the event that you catch coronavirus while you’re on holiday.
However, as Which points out, the majority of policies won’t cover Covid-19-related cancellations.
There are at least four exceptions to this rule: Southdowns, Coverwise, Insurefor.com and holiday provider Trailfinders.
These providers have amended their policies to cover some types of cancellation claims, such as a cancellation in the event that you catch coronavirus or are exposed to someone who’s caught it and need to self-isolate.
Flights are taking place and holidays are being booked (Picture: Getty Images)
You’ll likely struggle to find insurance to cover your trips to certain countries however, depending on the latest Government advice and guidelines.
Put simply, you’ll be hard-pressed to find travel insurance for any countries that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) are still cautioning against ‘all but essential travel’ to.
The MoneySuperMarket website also states: ‘If you’ve already bought insurance and the FCO changes its advice, then you might be covered but you’ll need to check with your insurance provider.’
Since the guidance around coronavirus is changing very quickly, it’s worth checking with insurance providers on a regular basis to see if their policies have changed.
Weight training is the thing that sorts out my mental health when it’s at its worst (Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk)
When gyms reopen after their lockdown shut-down, I will be like a child at Christmas come July 25.
Home workouts have got me through lockdown but my mental health has been hit hard at times and as a naturally anxious person, it’s been difficult. I’ve found myself consumed with worries about my family’s health, the state the country will be left in economically – and what this means for my future.
Weight training is the thing that sorts out my mental health when it’s at its worst – and now there’s nothing I crave more than getting back into the gym, and the heavy weights that have become my mental health lifeline.
I was always one of the last in cross country at school, and I used to get my mum to write me a different sick note every week for swimming lessons because I hated getting my hair wet.
As a teenager, I found exercise hard, and scary. The teachers were mean and discouraging unless you were one of the sporty girls, and I quickly lost any fitness levels I had.
Then somewhere in my mid-twenties, working as a journalist in London, my world became engulfed by anxiety. Looking back now, I was burning out. I thought that the constant tingling in my hands and feet was normal, and that feeling like I was unable to breathe properly during a conversation with my boss was just how it was meant to be.
I thought I had to put up with the fact that I got really nervous around people I didn’t know very well, and that I often woke up, panicking, my heart racing, in the middle of the night. My weekends were spent drinking and partying to get away from how stressed I was – though I didn’t realise that alcohol only made my mental health worse.
To try and feel a bit better, I signed up to a gym near work – I’d seen articles about the magical benefits of exercise in magazines – and I began to slog my guts out on the cross trainer or the treadmill, battling against the gym machines.
I found the weights section, full of testosterone-fuelled men, steroidy men, terrifying (Picture: Rosie Gizauskas)
I was truly terrible at running, but the act of moving my body would give me a little respite and time out from my over-active brain… before I headed out drinking at the weekend with my friends again.
Things came to a head in 2015, when I was 27.
I had started to dread hanging out with friends. I’d get really anxious and overthink every little thing I said or did. I was suffering from bad social anxiety, made worse when I drank, though I masked it well, and people didn’t seem to notice it. But inside I was crumbling.
I ended up going for a course of cognitive behavioural therapy, after I confided in my GP that I was having panic attacks in the middle of the night.
My therapist taught me that I could slow down and say no to social invitations and that my friends wouldn’t think I was a bad person for doing so. Once I believed her, I wondered what I could be doing for myself in the time I wasn’t at house parties or pubs.
This was when the sea change happened. I booked my first session with a personal trainer, for a Saturday morning, when I knew I’d normally still be in bed with a hangover. If I had a session booked, then I had to stay in and avoid G&Ts on the Friday night, I told myself.
I signed up with a female personal trainer (PT) called Kerry-Ann, because I felt more comfortable with a woman showing me the ropes.
I found the weights section, full of testosterone-fuelled men, steroid-y men, terrifying. It wasn’t female-friendly, and apart from the odd girl with an amazing six pack, I felt like I stuck out like a sore thumb there.
Plus I got stared at, which is something that any girl in the gym wearing tight leggings will probably relate to.
I’d often considered asking my doctor for anti-anxiety medication, but within months, there was no need (Picture: Rosie Gizauskas)
The first session was immeasurably hard, and lifting weights physically hurt, but in a good way. What was really encouraging, was that I quickly felt, unlike running, I had a natural aptitude for lifting and the post-lifting endorphin rush was something I’d never felt before.
It was incredible – better than anything alcohol could make me feel. As I headed home, I remember thinking that I wanted to start all my weekends feeling this good.
While therapy had helped me sort out why my anxiety-prone brain worked in the way it did, weightlifting soon became the tool I used to stop it from getting into a dark place in the first place. With my PT, I learned all the basic weightlifting moves I’d need to tone my body, such as bench presses, deadlifts and upright rows.
Cardio began to get a little easier for me the more I lifted weights, and in turn, my body began to change. My bum got perkier, my arms got more defined, and my stomach got flatter. I wasn’t worried about bulking up – weight training sculpted my body, rather than making me bigger.
Even better, my mental health was improving too.
As I progressed from light weights to heavier ones, I began to feel more powerful in myself, physically and mentally. My moods changed, and I began to feel – whisper it – happy again.
I’d often considered asking my doctor for anti-anxiety medication, but within months, there was no need. I’d still go for the odd drink with friends but would avoid boozing enough to give me a hangover, favouring endorphins instead to lift me up.
Of course, lifting weights without my trainer there was sometimes still scary. One time, a huge, pumped-up man told me that he admired my work ethic, but that I was lifting a weight wrong. As he mansplained to me something that I knew perfectly well, I felt angry. Would he do this to another guy? I guessed not.
And there were countless times I would see guys eyeballing me in the mirrors as I did my squats. It was unnerving, so I’d often find myself carting my weights across the gym to a quieter part, nearby to other women, where I felt safer.
In November 2019, I began working out at a local gym in Peckham, on the recommendation of my best friend. I thought it would be fun for us to train together, but as soon as I started I realised the best thing was how unisex the gym was. I began training there four or five times a week, and I have never felt my mind work better.
But while my anxiety disorder is something that will stay with me for life, I finally feel like I have a handle on it.
To anyone who thinks it’s irresponsible to be going back to the gym post-lockdown, I beg to differ. Of course, if I’m not satisfied with the cleanliness at my gym I’ll give it a miss, but so far, countries with low infection rates seem to be OK to open up their gyms again and being strong mentally and physically is important in the fight against the virus.
People can lift at home, but they need to be careful of injury. I invested in a set of dumbells and kettlebells at the start of lockdown, but these have been selling out and hard to find online, and you’ll never get the full range of weights at home that you want to use in the gym. Plus you’re never going to buy a squat rack to put in your bedroom!
It’s much better to lift when your PT or a class supervisor is there to make sure your form is right.
I spent years consumed by anxiety, unaware that it didn’t have to be that way if only I could treat my mind and body properly. I only wish I’d started lifting earlier, as it’s transformed me into a happy, confident and healthy person, inside and out.
Oh, and I still suck at running – even after four months to get better at it. So I will be at the front of the weights queue next weekend – race you to the kettle-bells.
Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing rosy.edwards@metro.co.uk
