Berwick & Borders Yoga

15/11/2025

That time has come...

OH, YES IT HAS!

Two Christmas opportunities for us to come together to calm and gather ourselves before the big day.

This year, all profits will be going to Northern Soul Kitchen to help with their fundraiser to move to bigger premises and to continue to fight the good fight against food waste.

On 11th December there's the wonderful opportunity to join me in a slow yoga flow lit by candlelight at Etal Village Hall. Afterwards, we gather together for mulled wine/juice, Christmas snacks and general tomfoolery.

And on 18th December at Babyama Wellness Hub , we'll be holding a Silent Sit where anyone is welcome to come and sit quietly in the tranquil atmosphere of the studio and/or enjoy tea and festive nibbles. A chance to catch your breath at this intense time of year!

Further details and booking to be found here (or directly via the Events page on the Berwick & Borders website):

https://berwickbordersyoga.co.uk/so/acPg8EApz?languageTag=en

07/11/2025

Whoops! Sorry, Saturday Ashtangis! The new block starts TOMORROW! I know, I've totally let time run ahead of me. Booking via the website or through the newsletter below.

All the other blocks starting from Monday, 16th November, are also up for booking and will take us to our Christmas break.

This is it, chaps. The countdown has started! Ho-ho-bloody-ho! T x😘🙏

https://www.berwickbordersyoga.co.uk/so/3bPfVLy8X?languageTag=en

07/11/2025

Anyone with a collie knows they're creatures of detailed, precise, PowerPoint-driven routine.

Here's Kip waiting. Full of judgement. Full of accusation.

With Chris away, his early morning walk is an hour late.

Because I, too, am a creature of detailed, precise, PowerPoint-driven routine.
🐾

04/11/2025

And BLAM! Another book completed when en vacances! 💪🏼🤓

Admittedly neither from the BTUB or the MUST stacks but shut your pie-hole and let's never speak of that again.

The nacho grease on the cover may suggest that "Losing Ourselves - Learning to Live Without a Self" by Buddhist scholar Jay L. Garfield is un-put-downable, even at a posh, UPF dining experience.

Or.

It could suggest that junk food provides the brain with much needed dopamine to get you to the finish line.

In truth, it dithers somewhere in the middle for issues thus:

👉🏼 Obviously, it's a bit niche, eh? If you have zero interest in Buddhist or yogic philosophy, neuroscience and sentences so convoluted that you can't understand them without moving your lips, this may not be the book for you.

To whit:

"If I am truly to address you, whether as an infant or as an adult, I have to be able to recognise the fact that you recognize me. And I must suppose that we each recognize this reciprocity. If I do not recognize this complex relationship, then even if you might take me to be addressing you, I cannot take myself to be doing so."

Yes. In parts it feels like a late-night b**g conversation that feels utterly profound at the time but ungraspable once the good stuff's worn off.

👉🏼 It only really gets going from Chapter Five. Up until then there's a lot of tramping over and circling back and general banging on. But I appreciate that those new to the idea of the illusory nature of the self might need some scaffolding to prevent their brain falling down, so that's a me thing.

👉🏼 I love anyone with passion. I'm the first to scooch up to anyone with "a take". But - and this kinda relates to the point above - Garfield wants to get his point across so badly that he keeps throwing more words at it from only slightly different angles, so unless you eat enough nachos, you're in real danger of tuning out and missing a good bit.

Because it IS good. It could blow your mind with its unassailable logic if you stick with it.

Just be prepared to put on half a stone if you do.

01/11/2025

Spike prepping for a gruelling week ahead as fat and unemployed.

28/10/2025

An amazing enterprise run by folk I'm completely in awe of. Please support it however you can when details become available. 🥰✌🏼

I get emotional writing about this.. Our West Street lease is running out, and we don't have long left in this space.

In our time here on we have witnessed the street coming alive, and it has been so exciting to be a part of. We didn't join a bustling street, let's be honest, but it certainly has turned into one over the past 8 years. So many incredibly hard-working individuals here creating gorgeous spaces with their new ideas. It has been a joy to be neighbours with you all.

So, what's going on with the move - we are not being offered a rolling lease whilst we update somewhere new, we have a ball rolling with a new property though and it is bigger, central and could hold a huge amount of exciting potential for us to grow. BUT the catch is we find ourselves with a very short amount of time to get our ducks in a row.

Funders needed concrete answers, which we didn't have quick enough - basically a chicken and egg situation - we need the funds but don't have solid enough plans... we cannot make solid plans without the money. This is then worsened by the fact it looks like we will need to close for a period of time to renovate somewhere else, therefore losing income entirely during a very expensive time.

I think you see where this is going... we need your help. Like desperately need your help. There is going to be another CrowdFunder, and we are hoping fundraising like this gives us quick results because this is what we need to keep our project alive.

We think it is important for us to continue, we create a safe and inclusive space for all to enjoy food, community, and sharing. Please help us carry on - more details to follow very soon, please share

EDIT - here is the link to the now live CrowdFunder ✨️ https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/northern-soul-kitchen-move



📷 -

28/10/2025

This book was yet another of my Wretched Incompletes, not from the BTUB but from My Upstairs Side Table (hereinafter referred to as MUST).

I'm pleased to report that 'This Mournable Body' by Tsitsi Dangarembga has ascended to the Realm of the Blessed Reads but, crumbs and crikey, it were a right ol' slog.

Not because of clunky prose or inelegant word usage or wooden dialogue. Oh, no. The whole thing leaps forward with all the balletic momentum of a ten-car pile-up.

But hell's teeth. I found main character Tambudzai next-level unlikable all the way to p.358, and the book ends at p.363.

It's a bold move, brilliantly writing such a massive pain in the arse and trusting the reader will understand (and/or care) enough to grant her the grace demanded by the gruelling backdrop of late-90s Zimbabwe. Especially if that reader is introduced to Tambu without any biographical mitigation offered by prequel, 'Nervous Conditions'.

Reading 'This Mournable Body' as a standalone, then, Tambu is a challenging protagonist as she tries everything in her power to improve her prospects.

But, interestingly, the author's device of writing in the second person blurs the line between Tambu and us, so ultimately who's to say that when left with nothing but hope worn bitter-thin through a history of systemic and structural racism, cultural oppression, ingrained misogyny and bloody war, we wouldn't make same choices?

A compelling, thought-provoking read, but prepare to add your own punctuation of groaning and mortified face-clawing.

27/10/2025

❄️ Winter Q***r Cafe Dates ❄️

Morning folks! Here are the next 3 Q***r Cafe Dates for you. We so hope you can join us for a cosy cuppa and a natter.

These sessions are so heartwarming, welcoming and fun. Come and hangout!

We are most excited for our wee Festive Mixer on 14th December, for which we'd love to encourage some gladrags and a bit of festive cheer. We will be serving mulled cider and non alcoholic drinks too including special hot chocolates. Charades anyone?

***rCafe

25/10/2025

Don't fall for it. Do less. 😘

“Productivity is a trap. Becoming more efficient just makes you more rushed, and trying to clear the decks simply makes them fill up again faster… Since finitude defines our lives… livi…

23/10/2025

Fantastic! Well done, team Rise North East ! So pleased to be working with them, providing men with support for managing stress and anxiety through movement. 🥰

"I call her the woman who saved my life..."

A charity has received vital funding to continue its work in Berwick.

Story ⬇️

23/10/2025

As I've said before, I write with all the economy of a paid-by-the-word penny dreadful hack.

And if I can't portion up a sentence with at least one set of em dashes, matching parentheses and commas so multitudinous the whole affair looks like it's been blasted by shotgun at close range, I feel - and I've thought about this hard (although, admittedly, not *that* hard) - that I need to knuckle down and try again, perhaps involving a semicolon; after all, nothing demonstrates mastery of the English language quite so successfully as using a punctuation mark that puts everyone on edge.

So.

When an author like Carys Davies writes with such economy and still manages to encapsulate the more subtle and graded feelings of the human heart... Well. I am all envy and awe temporarily stripped of the ability to subclause.

Set at the time of the Clearances, Clear tells the story of an impoverished minister who, in desperation, takes the job of removing the last inhabitant of a remote Scottish island ...

I don't want to give anything away so I'll simply say accident, blah-blah, convalescence, blah-blah, feelings, blah-blah, wife goes rogue, impending doom, resolution.

Davies crafts the most f* #&ing beautiful intimacy, heightened by the use of the "dying" language of the island itself, where words have a delicate specificity English can't come close to expressing.

A deeply tender and touching story on loneliness, love and language.

A must-read. 🥰🌈
❤️