Home, Health & Style

Tomboys and Girly Girls

The mother of eight year old Isabella wrote about buying toys without glitter, and searching for ‘girl’ clothes in colours other than pink, which got us thinking about the term ‘tomboy’.
What do you call a girl who isn’t a girly-girl? Some people would say, ‘a tomboy’, but does that imply that the girl isn’t a real girl, and do we need a label for this anyway?
Perhaps we should let toys be toys, as this campaign demands, and sell clothes without ‘boy’ or ‘girl’ labels. What do you think?

 

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Sports

Stories from the Stables Part 2 – Topper. Ouch!

Our Stories from the Stables series from Carolyn Ward continues with a  flea-bitten grey with a shocking attitude.

 

Topper.  I swear that pony could scowl.

It was my week to ride him, and I had just hauled him all the way down to the outdoor school and stood him in the middle to check his girth and stirrups.  As I reached under to tighten up the girth he turned his head toward me and eyeballed me, then stepped over with his nearside foreleg; and stamped on my left foot.

I hissed a very rude word and frantically pushed him to move him off. My foot sunk into the woodchip surface with his heavy weight crushing it down.  By now he was still looking directly at me, so I started punching his shoulder to try and get him to step off.  Today’s teacher was a crosspatch I have no fond memories of; if she had found out about it I’d have been bawled out for having my foot in the wrong place or something.

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Science, Nature and Tech

So You Want to Be A Scientist

“To become a scientist you must first take an enquiring mind, blend it with some passion, sprinkle on some creativity. Mix it up a bit, and squirt it out in big, loud dollops for everyone to see”, is how our contributor Dr Lesley Beeton envisions creating scientists.

 

Science is not just for geeks and nerds. It’s not only for boys, or girls, who wear glasses. It’s for those of us with freckles and dimples and turned-up noses. Science is for animal lovers, tongue-rollers, bird-watchers, and teddy bear vets everywhere.

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Home, Health & Style

What Happens After Someone Dies?

Parental information – this article contains a frank factual interview about what happens to a person procedurally after they die.
Have you ever wondered what actually happens after someone dies?  And what is it like to work in this area?
This subject can be a difficult and emotional one, but the whole mystery surrounding death can be better understood with a clear explanation of what happens, step by step.
Carolyn Ward talks to Anna, a mortuary assistant or ‘Anatomical Pathology Technologist’, about what happens when somebody dies, and what led her to choose such a potentially sad career.

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