DNfourteen Magazine Issue No.154 January 2023

Welcome to our January 2023 edition of the DNfourteen magazine - On behalf of myself and the team here at the magazine I would like to take this opportunity to wish all our readers and advertisers a very Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year for 2023.

We have some interesting articles and features in this months edition ranging from a very interesting article on the menopause that will be of interest to ladies of a certain age. We have a super recipe for a any of the readers that are taking part in the Veganuary month - or if you just love pasta - I tried it last week and my hubbie loved it. We have a great selection of books to read this month too - I know this because I have chosen them!! We also have great advice on what you should be doing in your gardens this month. We have news of a new exhibition at the museum that will grab the interest of all the train and railway buffs out there too. As usual we finish off with Fiona Dwyer’s column.

If you have not advertised in the magazine before and are considering it - please give me a call as we have some great new offers for 2023. The magazine is full of local advertisers from Decorators to Window Cleaners - So please use them and keep our local economy strong. Until next month please stay safe.

Jane Editor

Please note that whilst we take care to be accurate, no liability will be accepted under any circumstances should any of the content of this magazine be incorrect. The views expressed in the articles are not necessarily those of the publisher. All rights reserved. Published by DNfourteen Magazine. Printed by DaltonSpire Ltd.

New Exhibition at Goole Museum:

‘Relics and Rails’

‘Relics and Rails’ is a new free exhibition of paintings and photographs at Goole Museum by Hull-based artist Syd Young. Opening on Saturday, 14 January, the exhibition will run until Saturday, 11 March.

The story behind the exhibition began around a year ago when Syd’s watercolour ‘Night Fusilier’ was announced as the People’s Choice Award winner of the Museum’s 2022 Open Art exhibition. Following this, Syd was offered an opportunity to exhibit the wider aspects of his life’s work. The result is ‘Relics and Rails’.

Goole Museum Curator Dr Alex Ombler said: “The exhibition depicts the railways and industrial heritage of the East Riding from the late 1970s to the present day. These subjects fired the artist’s imagination as a young creative and developed

into a passion throughout his life. Syd’s images capture a glimpse of one corner of Britain at a time of great change, when developments in transport and technology were altering the very landscape around us.”

Syd Young added: “This is my first major retrospective and I’ve focused on two particular interests of mine, which I feel tie in nicely with the aims of the Museum and Gallery to show off the history of our local area.

“There is a mixture of old and newer images, together with a selection of associated artefacts, which both depict how things

once were and illustrate their subsequent decline.

Visitors can also view a series of photographs of various concerts I’ve attended since 1980, which includes some big names from the music world along with a number of performers from the Hull and East Riding area. All in all, I’m sure there will be something of interest for everyone!”

Goole Museum is located in Carlisle Street and is open: Tuesday to Friday: 10am to 5pm Saturday: 9am to 4pm Closed for lunch: 12 noon to 12.30pm.

These days most homeowners suffer from a lack of storage space. So many precious items that need to be kept – but where to store it all? That’s where Yorkshire Loft Ladders come in.

The company, based locally, offers homeowners the opportunity to maximise their storage space with a loft ladder, 50 sq ft of boarding and a light all fully fitted in less than a day from just £277 + VAT. But it’s not just the affordability of the package the company offers that makes Yorkshire Loft Ladders stand out as manager Warren Ingleson explains:

‘Our watchwords are Quality,

Integrity and Value. Quality in the materials that we use for all our installations and the fact that all our loft packages are fitted by time served tradesmen so our customers are assured of the best job. Integrity in that we will turn up at the time we say and make sure the house is spotless when we leave, and Value in that we offer our services at a price people can afford. Our business relies on referrals and we got a huge amount of our calls from people who have been referred to us by our existing customers - that simply wouldn’t happen if we didn’t adhere to our overriding principles.

At the end of the day the old adage that happy customers

lead to more happy customers is true and we work hard to make that happen for every installation we carry out!’

So, if you want to make use of your loft space, however big or

small, call Warren on 0800 612 8359 and he’ll be happy to pop round and give you a no obligation quote so you too can make use of your loft!

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Womens Health

10 things you might not know about the MENOPAUSE

Whether you have endless symptoms or sail through, we’re here to inject a little clarity into the chaos

It’s not all bad

You might feel more creative, more balanced, more liberated. Without monthly periods and PMS, women often feel more capable, empowered – and do find joy in life.

‘End of monthly cycles’

That’s the definition of the word ‘menopause’, and it means you’re only considered to have reached it when you’ve had no periods for a year. Before this –during perimenopause – your periods may become more erratic, longer, shorter or lighter. Studies show the median length from perimenopause to finish is 7.5 years – roughly three before your last period and 4.5 after.

Not everyone suffers from hot flushes

A lucky 25% of women never get them, but if you’re in the unlucky 75%, avoid what makes them worse, like alcohol, spicy foods and smoking. Wear cotton sleepwear and have a fan by your bed. Regular exercise helps, too.

You can still get pregnant Don’t throw away the contraceptives just yet! You need to wait until a year after your last period – or two years if you’re under 50.

Herbals can help

‘Research has shown that black cohosh and St John’s wort are effective in relieving symptoms, particularly when taken together, ‘Anti-stress herbs

valerian and Avena sativa are great for adrenal support, and sage helps with hot flushes,’ says nutritional therapist Alison Cullen.

It’s normal to be a bit leaky (when you laugh or sneeze). Falling oestrogen levels can make your pelvic floor muscles weaken – but don’t ever suffer in silence. Do pelvic-floor exercises religiously, and, if the problems persist, see your doctor or continence specialist. You’re not alone!

Memory loss isn’t permanent Regularly forget your keys or wonder why you walked into a room? This is completely normal. Scientists believe the drop in oestrogen can make us feel a bit foggy, particularly during the perimenopause. Good news is it usually only lasts a year.

Moving around can relieve moods

The menopause often coincides with other life stresses, such as work pressures, ageing parents and children leaving home, all of which can affect your mood. Regular exercise, yoga, meditation or simply making time for yourself can all lift your mood.

Switch red wine for white While all types of alcohol can cause the release of the hormone epinephrine, triggering a hot flush, red wine is especially potent. White wine

is more likely to leave you flushfree – but, as all alcohol raises your risk of breast cancer, do drink moderately.

Your purse will thank you The end of periods means no more tampons or towels –and, after probably 40 years of buying them, that’s quite a relief.

Try Soya...

The evidence: It has long been speculated that soya quells flushes, but results have been mixed. However, a recent US analysis of 17 studies concluded that the equivalent of a couple of daily portions of soyabased foods and drinks lower frequency and severity of hot flushes by up to 26%.

How? Plant chemicals in soya, called isoflavones, are thought to mimic the effect of oestrogen.

Try it: You need 54mg of soya isoflavones daily for six weeks to a year. A serving of tofu (55g/2oz) or soya milk (600ml/1pt) contains 35-40mg of isoflavones.

Note: Try it for six weeks*. If there’s no improvement, it could be that you don’t produce equol, a substance produced by gut bacteria from soya foods. Non-equol producers don’t benefit from soya.

*Try all remedies for at least six weeks, noting their efficacy.

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VEGAN FARFALLE WITH TOMATO, AUBERGINE, OLIVES AND CAPERS

Ingredients

400g (5 cups) cubed (1½cm) aubergine (eggplant) –about 1 large aubergine sea salt

2 garlic cloves, minced 120ml (½ cup) extra-virgin olive oil

450g (3 cups) baby plum tomatoes, halved 90g (½ cup) olives – I like Gaeta or Kalamata

2 tbsp capers, rinsed and soaked if salt-packed, drained if in brine

250g (1 cup) tinned peeled plum tomatoes, crushed by hand 450g (4-5 cups) gluten-free farfalle (or fusilli)

Method

1. Place the aubergine in a colander and sprinkle all over with an abundant amount of salt. Set aside to drain, weighted down, for 1 hour. Rinse, then pat dry with kitchen paper.

2. Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil over high heat.

3. Meanwhile, in a large deep sauté pan, sizzle the garlic in the olive oil over low heat until bubbles form around it, 1-2 minutes.

4. Add the aubergine, increase the heat to medium, and shower it with some salt. Stir, adding water as needed to cook the aubergine until tender, about 8 minutes. Add the baby plum tomatoes, increase the heat to medium-high, season with salt and cook until the tomatoes soften, about 5 minutes. Stir in the olives and capers. Pour in the tinned tomatoes, season with salt and cook until the sauce has thickened and the tomatoes have lost their raw flavour, about 8 minutes.

5. Once the water has reached a rolling boil, season with salt until the water tastes like a seasoned soup. Drop in the pasta and cook until it is al dente.

6. Add the pasta to the sauté pan with a few spoonfuls of the tears of the gods (pasta water). Simmer briefly to bring the flavours together and thicken the sauce. Serve garnished with basil leaves.

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Jane Shares Her Favourite Books

If you’re in need of something to read this January, look no further – our editor and avid reader Jane Gough has shared her favourite books. From rom-coms to classics, music memoirs to modern masterpieces and a couple of murder-mysteries, here’s what to add to your reading list…

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

When I first started reading this, my close friend Kaye Austin told me: “It’s the best book I’ve ever read, and I never want to read it again.” Closing the book at the end, I could see her point. A devastating read, Hanya Yanagihara’s millioncopy bestseller had me crying for three weekends straight, but is hands-down one of the most life-changing reading experiences I’ve had. The story focuses on four graduates from a small Massachusetts college, who move to New York to make their way – skint, adrift and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition. There is handsome Willem, an aspiring actor; JB, a quick-witted Brooklynborn painter seeking entry to the art world; Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm; and withdrawn, brilliant Jude, who serves as their centre of gravity. Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, touched by addiction, success and pride. Yet their greatest challenge is Jude himself, by midlife a talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood and haunted by a trauma that will define his life forever.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Donna Tartt’s excellent first novel turned 30 last year – and got a celebratory new cover to mark the occasion – but its characters’ struggles and complex personalities are timeless. I read the whole thing – all 640 pages – in one weekend a

few months ago and could not put it down. Set in New England, The Secret History tells the story of a close-knit group of six classics students at Hampden College, a small, elite Vermont college based on Bennington College, where Tartt was a student from 1982-86. Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, Julian, the group of clever, eccentric misfits discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of morality, their lives are changed profoundly and forever. The novel is a story of two parts; the chain of events that led to the death of a classmate – and what happened next. A modern classic for a reason, this bestseller is both compelling and elegant, dramatic and playful. Her Pulitzer winner The Goldfinchis next on my list.

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

In the last couple of years, I’ve been reading more contemporary American female authors, and after spending a lot of my 20s hooked on the novels of Brett Easton Ellis, Chuck Palahniak and Kurt Vonnegut, Up there for me is Elizabeth Strout, who won Pulitzer Prizes for both Olive Kitteridge and My Name is Lucy Barton. Strout’s newest works revisit some of her most loved characters: Olive, Again follows the blunt, contradictory yet deeply loveable Olive Kitteridge as she grows older, navigating the second half of her life and coming to terms with changes – some welcome, some not – to her own existence and in those around her; and in Oh William!, Lucy Barton has become a widow and parent to two adult daughters. A surprise encounter leads her to reconnect with William, her first husband. Recalling their college years, the birth of their daughters, the painful dissolution of their marriage, and the lives they built with other people, Strout weaves a portrait of a tender, complex, decades-long partnership. I’ve also read lots of Ann Patchett. I love political drama Bel Canto, but my favourite of hers is The Dutch House, where grown up siblings Danny and Maeve Conroy are drawn back time to their

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old family home. Behind the mystery of their own exile from The Dutch House is the exile of their mother, whose absence more powerful than any presence they have known.

His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman

Sir Phillip Pullman is one of the UK’s greatest living writers, and his His Dark Materials fantasy series has been a favourite of mine since Northern Lights was published in the late 90s. I re-read the original trilogy just before Pullman published La Belle Sauvage: The Book of Dust Volume One – set a decade before readers were introduced to Lyra and Will –and the books completely held up as an adult. In 2019’s The Secret Commonwealth, readers catch up with 20-year-old Lyra as she and her dæmon Pantalaimon navigate their relationship in a way they could never have imagined, as they are drawn into the complex and dangerous factions of a world they had no idea existed.

The Overstory by Richard Powers

I meant to read this after it was recommended by several girlfriends. But it was only when I was lucky enough to visit the legendary Portland bookstore Powell’s last summer that I bought it, as much of the story is set in the Pacific Northwest. In The Overstory, nine strangers become summoned by trees, brought together in a last stand to save the continent’s few remaining acres of virgin forest. The story unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fable, ranging from antebellum New York to the late 20th-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond, revealing a slow and vast world alongside our own. It’s the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world, and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe. It’s extremely readable, moving and powerful in the way it’s made me think differently about the importance of nature and conservation

All the books in this feature are available to purchase now.

Gardening

Jobs to do in January

January might be the middle of winter but as the days lengthen the garden starts to grow. Now is a great time to plan for the coming gardening year and to order seeds and plants. Enjoy the fresh air, on dry sunny days, and check your winter protection, stakes, ties and supports are still working after any severe weather. Also put out food for birds and leave some garden areas uncut, a little longer, to provide shelter for garden wildlife.

Prune apple and pear trees

Pruning an apple or pear tree can be daunting for many gardeners. Rather than be put off completely or panic and inadvertently harm the tree back by excessive pruning, instead try our easy guide and enjoy a well-shaped, productive tree.

Clean pots and greenhouses ready for spring Cleaning greenhouses, whether glass or plastic, greatly improves the growing environment for plants. By removing the algae, moss and grime it lets in more light and helps control pests and diseases too.

Dig over any vacant plots that have not been dug already

Soil cultivation or digging may be hard work but, if taken slowly, it need not be back-breaking. In fact, here we describe how it can often be omitted or at least minimised.

Worm casts in lawns

Earthworms are useful in the garden, including in most lawns. Worms casts on fine low

cut turf and gravel pathways are considered by some gardeners to be a nuisance.

Start forcing rhubarb

For an early harvest of tender and pink rhubarb, cover the crowns in December or January with a layer of straw or bracken and cover over with an upturned bucket or a traditional clay rhubarb pot to exclude light. Stalks will be ready to pull two-to-three weeks earlier than uncovered crowns. Crowns that have been forced for earlier harvest should be left without pulling for the rest of that season.

as coconut shells or logs with holes drilled in Alternate different recipes to entice a range of birds; peanut cakes for starlings, insect cakes for tits and berry cakes for finches

Put out finely chopped bacon rind and grated cheese for small birds such as wrens Although fat is important, do also provide a grain mix or nuts to maintain a balanced diet

Plan your vegetable crop rotations for the coming season

The principle of crop rotation is to grow specific groups of vegetables on a different part of the vegetable plot each year. This helps to reduce a build-up of crop-specific pest and disease problems and it organises groups of crops according to their cultivation needs.

Keep putting out food and water for hungry birds

Help birds in winter by placing fat blocks in wire cages. Balls in plastic nets are not recommended as birds such as woodpeckers can get their tongues caught

Create your own fat blocks by melting suet into moulds such

Sparrows, finches and nuthatches will enjoy prising the seeds out of sunflower heads

No-mess mixes are more expensive but the inclusion of de-husked sunflower hearts means there is less waste. Inferior mixes are often padded out with lentils

Use wire mesh feeders for peanuts and seed feeders for other seed. Specially designed feeders are needed for the tiny niger seed, loved by goldfinches

Feed placed on a wire mesh held just off the ground will entice ground-feeding birds such as robins and dunnocks

Thrushes and blackbirds favour fruit. Scatter over-ripe apples, raisins and song-bird mixes on the ground for them

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Fiona Dwyer, broadcast journalist, PR & media consultant, slave to 2 children and a husband.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I really can’t believe it’s 2023. Whilst last year held some amazing moments, there were also some really difficult ones too – and the more I speak to people, the more I hear them say they’ve been waiting for the New Year to start so that they could shake off 2022 and attack 2023 with renewed energy and motivation. After all, that’s what a New Year is all about, isn’t it? So, let’s all get to it! What are your plans, your resolutions? This year, I have specific work goals I’m working towards (including hosting my 8-week group PR Bootcamp again starting this month!), I’m determined to get fitter and healthier and, as a bookworm that rarely seems to find time to read a book anymore, I’m going to commit to reading at least one book a month, just for fun! I’m currently reading Richard Osman’s ‘The Thursday Murder Club’. So, I’ve declared myself, which means I have to do it now! So why not decide what you’re going to do and declare it to someone you know. Accountability is the key! Let’s make 2023 a year to remember for all the right reasons. Good luck!

VEGANUARY

Speaking of being healthier, who’s trying Veganuary? I’m not necessarily going the full hog (no pun intended!) but I am definitely going more plantbased this month. I got a Vegan cookbook for my birthday last year, so I’ve been trying out some of the recipes – and they are incredibly tasty. I‘m not a massive meat eater anyway but I do have difficulty giving up dairy and eggs. I am loving black beans though – and I’m going to give oat milk a try – or

maybe almond milk! I see it as a win-win situation. It’s not only healthy eating, it’s also been proven to be good for the environment. Definitely worth giving it a go!

DECLUTTERING IMPROVES YOUR ENERGY LEVELS

While we all know how much better we feel when we declutter, did you know there’s actual science behind it?! Various studies have found that clutter affects our mood and self-esteem, our behaviour and our mental health. It can increase the stress hormone cortisol and lead to lower productivity, insomnia, weight gain, procrastination and depression. So why do we do it to ourselves? “That might come in handy one day.” Sound familiar? Well, not any more! Time to get tough and throw stuff out! I’ve already started and I’ve been feeling great. Bag or box things that don’t ‘spark joy’ anymore and take them to charity shops or donate them directly to those who need them. Did you get my Marie Kondo reference there?!! Take everything else to the tip! The key thing is to remove it from your house so that you can see and feel the benefit immediately.

You know, I think 2023 is already shaping up to be a great year! I wish you all good health, happiness and prosperity. Best of luck!

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Fiona x

Twitter: @fionadwyer • Facebook: Fiona Dwyer PR