Sign up for Locomotive small group training at a fraction of the cost of one-to-one coaching…

Signed up for gym membership but never go? Or maybe you haven’t even got that far. If you are serious about losing body fat, toning up and getting in shape, the solution might be small-group training with Maciej Gross…

Maciej – pronounced Mah-cheh – keeps it simple, makes it fun and laces sessions with health and nutrition tips, while keeping your programme results driven.

‘I love Maciej – he is so funny and such a nice guy’: Anna Richardson, broadcaster and weightloss expert.

Everyone knows that working with a personal trainer gets results. But perhaps you’re afraid you’ll have to fork out a small fortune? Not so! Maciej has created a programme for Park Life readers to work with him at a fraction of the usual cost by teaming up with friends and paying for a 10-session course before the end February…

EXCLUSIVE OFFER TO NEW CLIENTS:
Enjoy 10 group-training sessions for only £10 a class. Usually it costs at least £50 a session for personal trainer but Maciej is inviting you to team up with two friends and pay an introductory offer of £100 for 10 classes – that’s an 80 per cent saving when you book a full course.

Or pay £150 for 10 classes between two people, which works out at only £15 each a session.

‘Most people find it easier to stay motivated if they exercise with other people,’ says Maciej. ‘If you’re interested in getting in better shape, find a friend or two, who are interested in achieving similar goals. You don’t need to be the same level of fitness, and sometimes just having people there to share in your experience and to support each another is one of the biggest battles won.’

To learn more about Locomotive personal training and to arrange a free consultation, email maciejgross@hotmail.co.uk or ring Maciej on  07946 705498 now.

Find Maciej Gross on Facebook or follow him on Twitter.

Give mind, body and soul an MOT at the Chaim Centre, 10a Station Parade, Willesden NW2 (020 8452 0900)

Ring now and ask for a 20 per cent discount on all treatments.

The Chaim Centre is not a spa. Nor is it a medical clinic. But chances are whatever your ailment or symptoms, a therapy there might be just what you need. So unassuming is the entrance to this little wellbeing wonder opposite Willesden Green train station, chances are you have walked or driven right past the secret to a better you.

Not wanting to sound a total hypochondriac but don’t we all have something about our health we’d not only like to improve? And, even better find out what’s making us tick out of time. Who hasn’t logged on for a consultation with Dr Google, and punched in a few key symptoms and then find themselves in a worldwideweb waiting room with patients telling you that their great aunt died of the same size verucca. Or that the slight sniffle you have is the first signs of buggy creek virus aka Chikungunya? Next thing you’re in a chat room with someone in Idaho suggesting you get read your last rites. So: Don’t. Do. It.

Our advice instead is to go straight to the Centre for Complementary Health and Integrated Medicine’s website. Peruse the list of treatments, or give them a ring about which therapist might be best for you to see.

All too often when we’re not feeling well, we trot off to our GP, have a whinge at the (chances are) locum and then the (overworked, most likely) doctor prints off a one-size-fits-all prescription. There’s too much focus on short-term curative medicine rather than helping to tackle the real causes. You never know, a chat with a naturopath or iridologist could be what you need?

Look into my eyes…
Thanks to a taster session with Yvonne Davies (ND, Dip Herbs, Dip Irid Naturopathy, Herbal Medicine, Iridology), she gazed into my eyes and in seconds rattled off things about me I thought only I knew. In short, the main thing is my pancreas isn’t working properly, which explains a lot of things…

This inspired me to look at my diet, fitness and lifestyle: thanks to the Detox Kitchen and personal trainer Maciej Gross of Locomotive (blog posts to follow, naturally) I hope not to be bothering Google or the NHS, during a whinge-free 2012. Stay tuned.

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Happy Blue Monday. Chances are you need cheering: today is supposedly the most miserable day of the year. The next holidays are ages off, we’re still broke from Christmas, we’ve failed to keep our new year’s resolutions. Park Life prescribes these spirit-lifters…

Feeling depressed? Ring Samaritans’ helpline for emotional support. Someone is on the end of a phone to help anyone feeling distressed or struggling to cope, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Contact the Samaritans on 08457 90 90 90, or email jo@samaritans.org, or text 07725 90 90 90.

Have a clear-out! Much of the money Brent Samaritans needs to maintain the service is raised by the Samaritans charity shop in Willesden. Why not spend an afternoon doing a long overdue cupboard tidy and donate unwanted Christmas presents or high-quality goods from nearly-new clothing to electrical goods?

Hit this bargain-hunter’s paradise Picking up fashion accessories, much-needed homewares or DVDs for a snip not only feels good but does good. Retail therapy, indeed. The added bonus is you get to say hello to manager Denis or assistant manager Cathy or one of their hard-working team of volunteers.

Becomes a volunteer The charity relies on volunteers to provide their listening service and staff the shop – to find out how you can help, or to enquire about the training provided to make you a helpliner, ring 020 8961 7633.

Audio-visual Prozac And finally, for an instant serotonin-stimulater: crank up the volume for a dose of Blue Monday by New Order.

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A) Brent Samaritans is at 1 Leopold Road, Harlesden NW10
B) Samaritans charity shop is at 11 Walm Lane, Willesden NW2 (020 8830 0034)

Brent Samaritans is a registered charity number 252048

Entry £1 donation to Trekstock and Mayhew Animal Home. The shopping, music, eating, drinking and social event recommended by Time Out, Daily Candy, ES magazine, Metro, Le Cool, Urban Junkies is back on Saturday 24 March (11.30am–5.30pm). RSVP on Facebook.

 Art, jewellery, homewares, vintage fashion, and much more, including Rag & Bow, Anna Richardson’s secondhand chic, Fleamarket Floozy, Epstone accessories, cool kidswear, a pop-up Contact the Elderly tearoom, delicious pub snacks and sit-down Paradise gastropub fare…

Paradise by Way of Kensal Green, 19 Kilburn Lane, London W10 4AE
(020 8969 0098)

The siren-like Kensal Review Choir is luring all sorts of would-be local chanteurs, such as Bruce Traynor,  from their hiding places…

I came out of the closet last year. And the shower… and the car… and all those other places where I secretly sang (howled) to myself. Yes, last year I went loud and proud – all thanks to the mighty Kensal Review Choir.

There was much agonising, but the deal-making words on the flier were: ‘There are no auditions’. Because I knew I wasn’t a Mikey Bubbles, or whatever that annoyingly perfect lad’s called. But I also knew that singing gave me a buzz that needed pursuing. So I thought I’d just tuck myself in amongst the more accomplished crooners and hope I didn’t get chucked out.

I was doubly impressed I actually made it to the first ever KRC practice at the Inter Faith Centre on Salusbury Road as I’d only returned from Glastonbury Festival a couple of hours earlier. TBH I think the lingering Dutch Courage may have helped. I can hear your alarm bells! No, not about me being a caner, I mean about whether the choir is a religious thing. It’s not – although we are frothing fundamentalists regarding our beloved KRC – the centre is simply a good venue.

Our wonderful leader Carol, The High Priestess of Uplifting Tuneage, knows how to nurture and treat the variety of talents and, ahem, challenges within the 15 or so of us. And she doesn’t take any nonsense from the immature ones pratting around at the back. Keeps me in line anyway.

Songs are democratically chosen, and an unwritten rule seems to be that they should be moving, euphoric, soulful and fun to sing.  Then Carol does an amazing job of breaking them down into parts for highs, middles, lows and leads, so all we have to do is follow our songsheets. Easy, huh?

Six months and two public performances on, and the KRC is on ruddy fire! To a packed, rapt audience at The Island’s open mike night we evangelised Primal Scream’s ‘Movin’ On Up’ and emotionalised (?) Labi Siffre’s ‘Something Inside So Strong’. Then just before Christmas we belted out these, plus ‘Fairytale of New York’, ‘Holly & The Ivy’ and ‘Come Up And See Me’ to pink-cheeked shoppers and friends at the Queens Park Farmers Market.

Admittedly, it can be an effort to get to the weekly practice. But it’s ALWAYS worth it. Without doubt, there hasn’t been a single time when I haven’t bounced back out of that hall feeling a hundred times better than when I went in. Sometimes I’m bouncing, grinning and tingling all at once. I’m a right mess.

Then just when you thought it couldn’t get any better… for those so inclined – and I usually am – there’s the post-practice option of lubricating those well-exercised throats while talking absolute pubbish across the road in the Corrib Rest. And to date, touch wood, they haven’t thrown me out either.

We meet to sing for two hours (with a break!) every Tuesday, 7.30pm, at the Inter Faith Centre, 125 Salusbury Rd, Queen’s Park NW6 6RG. Term durations and holidays pretty much tie in with those of schools. Costs a mere £35 per term (5 sessions).

Kensal Review Choir is recruiting so come on down and join Bruce and the gang, whatever your ability. KRC was started by local author Anne-Celine Jaeger as an offshoot of the Kensal Review group, but it’s open to absolutely all adults…

Exactly two years ago this week, Park Life was born: our first ever blog post called out for bras for the Sustainability Institute. Here, Alix Wilton Regan remembers her trip to South Africa to explore the eco-village project which our Lexi Cinema in Kensal Rise supports, which inspired the campaign…

‘I paid a visit to the Guga Stheba centre in Langa. Here, local towns folk develop their talents for arts and crafts with the view to selling their pieces to visiting tourists. The also run art, dance and music programmes for younger locals, helping to keep them focused and included in community activity and away from the drugged fuelled gangs that patrol the area. We watched a group of young boys perform in bright blue get ups, complete with builders hats and welly boots, energeticaly stomping all over the stage to raptuous and well deserve applause… Then on came the girls. Many of them were either in the early stages of puberty or (very clearly) fully developed into womanhood. However, unlike the boys, the vast majority of these young women looked neglected in ill-fitting, too tight clothing, self-conscious of their developing yet over looked bodies… What stood out for me most was that absolutely none of them were wearing bras.

While I appreciate that a good bra is not top of a parent’s list while raising children in the townships of South Africa, in western culture, I’m sure we females will mostly agree, a good bra is not only essential to helping develop beautiful breasts and good posture, it’s also an essential right of passage into womanhood. You never forget your first bra: especially those horrible under-wire free bright white training ones they normally first make you wear!

Chatting to some of the project’s workers, it became clear that bras were simply an unaffordable luxury for the young females and women of the townships, centres and orphanages we visited. But having experienced first-hand how empowering and confidence boosting a good bit of under-wiring and support can be, we wondered how to bring these benefits to these self-conscious and embarrassed young girls and hopefully the wider female community at large. Of course one can survive without a bra, but why should they have to do so when the average British women owns 16 of these basic necessities at any one time?

Next came the call out to the wonderful women of Kensal Rise and beyond (along with the odd cross-dressing male) to BRING US YOUR BRAS! We received an overwhelming number and every single one was gratefully received (sometimes with the odd blush from our former marketing manager, Adam).

These wonderfully donated bras soon took on new owners and were distributed across a network of projects and initiatives, in and around Cape Town. We started with our girls at Lynedoch, the eco village which the Lexi Cinema supports, and then moved on to the Guga Stheba centre in Langa which started it all, where both the local women as well as the girls look set to benefit from the generous donations. From there, the bras have travelled to a nearby informal orphanage and finally to one of the poorest communities in the Cape Flats… And that was only half of them! Tracy, one of the programme supervisors at Lynedoch, sent more to USIKO and their girls, the girls from the school and then to another informal orphanage in Strand desperately in need of the support.’

Jess, a local South African from the eco-village at Lynedoch says:

“The bras were in amazing condition and really beautiful – please thank all the ladies of the Kensal community for these wonderful gifts that have put amazing smiles on a lot of faces on this side!”

The Lexi Cinema is only little, but with your continued support, we like to think that we’re making a big difference… Support comes in many colours and cup sizes, so please keep giving yours!

Words: Alix Wilton Regan; Pictures: Sally Wilton.

Our favourite local Caribbean restaurant Island on the Rise on Station Terrace, NW10 (020 8969 0405) lures in our Cornershop Cuisine columnist, fresh from a Barbados trip

‘What? Queens Park now has a Caribbean restaurant?’ you cry. Actually, no. That’s Queens Park, Barbados where my winter getaway offered an easy headline and the opportunity to cross-check the quality of local Caribbean food. ‘Whaat? Kensal Rise has a new Caribbean restaurant?’ you shout even louder. Certainly does. Calm down and I’ll spill the rice and beans on Island on the Rise.

Much selfless research of Bajian street stalls, sunset bars, shacks and backstreet eateries revealed a couple of key ingredients in those Caribbean greats – so let’s see how Island on the Rise stacks up…

Traditional family favourites served up bustin’ with flavours? Rich curried goat, just-made dumplings and patties, crispy fried chicken, barely-charred jerk pork that slaps and tickles the tastebuds… Yup, they’re all there, fresh as can be and made from scratch.

And this is hearty stuff, so resist any post-Crimbo temptations to be all January detoxy and play it healthy with a salad. You need to have that creamy coleslaw with your order, you’ve got to have spicy gravy drowning them rice and peas, and mac & cheese counts as a side here. Oh yeah, IotR got dishes licked. And if you only fancy a quick snack to go, the chicken, beef and vegetable patties (pictured below), £2.50, are alone worth dropping in for.

The other authentic ingredient in Barbados? The warmest of welcomes. ‘Friendly’ just doesn’t do the locals justice and none of it’s forced. OK, some might argue this ain’t necessarily so across all the Caribbean islands, but it’s certainly the attitude taken to heart at Island on the Rise.

This Kensal Rise restaurant is a proper family joint: Beverly (pictured, above left) is the affable owner and chef; you’ll often find her mother in the kitchen helping cook, her daughter is regularly at the front serving, and chances are one of Beverly’s siblings are there mucking in too.

Indeed, Island on the Rise is a place that welcomes everyone with open arms and a totally genuine smile. Just strike up a conversation and see where it takes you. So how’s about you put down those Christmas and New year’s leftovers, switch off that re-run and cram some sunshine into your pie hole…

Take your appetites to the Caribbean by way of a trip to Island on the Rise: you’ll thank us.

Island on the Rise: open Tuesday to Wednesday 9am–8pm, Thursday to Saturday 9am–11pm, Sunday 12pm–6pm. Free delivery on orders over £12 within three miles. Opposite Kensal Rise overland train station.

With the couple who are at the helm of Graham & Green nearly our Kensal Green neighbours, we thought we’d share their six steps to sprucing up your home in the new year…

From moving your artworks around to freshening up your soft furnishings, here’s how to give your pad a boost with their top tips. Especially handy too now that the G&G sale is now on.

2011 was busy in the Kensals and Queen’s Park, and we enjoyed sharing snapshots from our mighty neighbourhood…

Here’s hoping 2012 is a great year for you. As Park Life is just a hobby, it is impossible to run as many posts as we could or we’d like but please do share your news and views through Park Life’s Facebook page and tweet us on Twitter.

‘A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm’ – Henrik Ibsen

Thank you for your support over the last two years. Sadly, we can’t link to or write about every business and event in the area, but we hope you enjoy our recommendations for places and people we have had great experiences with…

Annie Pollett, owner of Iris boutique in Queen’s Park tells us what she thinks you might like under your trees this weekend…

Party dresses

‘Two winners from Vanessa Bruno: one in scarlet-red chiffon, £292, and the other black with a gold thread print, £315: a super-flattering shape that ties at the waist. Both dresses will ensure you greet your Xmas festivities with some serious wow factor – just add seriously vertiginous heels if possible.’

Stylish childrenswear

‘Bob & Blossom’s tutu skirt (comes in dove grey and pale pink), £42, with Dandy Star T-shirt, £25, are on every little girl’s Christmas wishlist – perfect for twirling in for Xmas parties. Looks adorable with our Penelope Chilvers metallic flamenco shoes.’

Beauty and…

‘Iris are delighted to be selling scrumptious Oz beauty brand Mor – their scents and packaging are seriously luxurious and any girl will be delighted to unearth this little selection in their Christmas stockings – we give you our word.’

…Fragrant delights

‘Mor candle £33, dinky soap in tin, £12, wrapped soap bar, £15.50 and delicious marshmallow-rich body butter, £16’

Iris, 73 Salusbury Road, Queen’s Park, NW6 6NJ (020 7372 1777)