The Northern Echo The lifestyle magazine for the North-East MAY 2003 IN ASSOCIATION WITH WIN a day at Seaham Hall Spa Gardening and your star signs DIY tackling tiles INTERIORS MOTORING GADGETS BEAUTY FASHION 2 May, 2003 Online: www.thisisthenortheast.co.uk contents WIN A LUXURY DAY FOR TWO AT SEAHAM HALL SPA – P23 ELCOME to NE Magazine, the the North-East and a DIY column will new lifestyle magazine which give you lots of handy hints for keeping Wwill be going out free every your own home in tip-top condidion. month to all readers of The Northern Motoring correspondent Ian Lamming Echo. We’ll be covering all aspects of will be keeping us up to date with how we live today, including the best what’s hot on the road; Nigel Burton, beauty products and tips for staying NE magazine’s own Gadget Man, will be young and beautiful; a slimming page giving some guidance on which gadgets each month profiling the slimming are worth buying and which are best 20 industry, the latest diets and people avoided, and the Six Of The Best who’ve been success stories when it consumer column will highlight the comes to losing weight; the changing best tools, utensils and electrical goods. face of fashion, on our bodies and in our Meanwhile, Sharon Griffiths will be homes. We’ll be taking a peek inside giving us her own individual take on some of the most interesting homes in life... 14 IN ASSOCIATION WITH 21 11 SHARON GRIFFITHS BEAUTY 3 Why gardening makes 15 Allison, stylist me happy magazine to the stars INTERIORS SLIMMING is produced by The Wimpey’s biggest ever How to eat and still Northern Echo/ 4 17 Newsquest Ltd., Northern home lose weight a Gannett Company, SIX OF THE BEST GADGET MAN Priestgate, Darlington 7 Pick of the 18 Who will win the DL1 1NF bathroom scales home recording wars? (01325) 381313 INTERIORS FOOD ADVERTISING 8 Hini: the darling 19 The nation’s Trish Taylor of Durham favourite dishes (01325) 505 233 GARDENING MOTORING 10 Horoscopes and 20 The second hand EDITORIAL horticulture prestige car market Jenny Needham (01325) 505 082 DIY TRAVEL 11 Time to tackle 21 The revolting those tiles smell of success FASHION COFFEE TIME FRONT COVER: 12 The season’s top 22 Crossword and Your Clothes by Laurèl, jacket £285, matching trousers accessories Stars, PLUS the £165. For stockists call 020 7580 6066. ME AND MY chance to win a day www.laurel.de. 14 WARDROBE at Seaham Spa Claire Bromley CHAMELEON MIRRORS May, 2003 Online: www.thisisthenortheast.co.uk 3 FRONTIER OF FASHION STRAIGHT from the streets of Soho, carrying the most eclectic blend of skate and branded footwear Newcastle has ever seen, comes Frontier. The independently owned company picked sharon griffiths the stylish Grey Street location to become their flagship outlet in the North and only other store in the UK outside London. Labels include Dunlop, Merrell, DC and New Balance. Proprietor Mark Blackburn said: “Newcastle is rapidly becoming one of the most stylish cities in Britain. This is the reason why after Soho, Newcastle was the most obvious choice for our new retail outlet.” ALL RIGHT FOR NEW Yorkers swear by it for their martinis because of its LEFTIES smoothness. So for real style LEFT-handers of all ages and and glamour to match TV’s interests will benefit from a range Sex and the City cocktail of innovative new products that bar lifestyle, try a little Grey have just been launched by aI do not Goose in your martini. The specialist retailer Anything Left- spirit was voted best Handed Ltd, on their website tasting vodka in the World www.anythingleft-handed.com. Spirits Championships. As Greater understanding by product believe there well as Grey Goose designers of left-handers’ needs Original, there is also the has led to an increase of new Grey Goose L’Orange. specifically left-handed items If you want to make a being developed, and Anything can be many classic martini at home, Left-Handed are delighted to add rinse an ice cold martini glass with a a host of new products, including swish of dry vermouth. Add two shots the first ever left-handed camera, suicidal of vodka and stir. Garnish with an garden and DIY equipment and olive, or lemon peel. For those who children’s developmental games like their martinis shaken, not stirred, to the huge range of household window shopping us a cocktail shaker and fresh ice and stationery products already gardeners... each time. Grey Goose is available featured on their award-winning from Binns, High Row, Darlington at website. Call 0208 770 3722 for around £24.25 a bottle. a free catalogue. HIS is the time of year that makes things in places where we have forgotten that optimists of us all. Foolish optimists no we planted something last year – and so the doubt – because we think this year we lupins will shoot up through the middle of the T shall have the perfect garden. rose geraniums. And very fetching they will Well, why not? After all, just a few weeks ago look too. the garden looked like a battlefield. Frost and Yes I know, I know, I should keep a garden flood, snow and storm had reduced it to a soggy diary, a map, a plan, but that’s far too mossy mud patch enlivened with a few dead organised. Then sometimes, I just don’t know twigs and a cracked pot of slimy geraniums. what I’ve put in. Kind neighbours will leave Very Tate Modern. clumps of muddy leaves on my doorstep and Then the violets showed through. In January. with no clue as to what they might be or how At first I thought the purple by the hedge was a they might grow, I will pop them in any crop of discarded chocolate wrappers. But no, available space. Of course, the stuff I put in the they were a clump of wild violets that arrived – front turns out to grown to five foot high while probably courtesy of some bird – last year, and that at the back is a mere three inches of flower this year have spread. What a bonus. They were born to bloom unseen. soon covered with a few inches of snow, but Which is why I spend much of my gardening appeared again, not much the worse for wear, time digging things up and moving them. with sun sparkling magically on the little chips Sometimes, of course, there are disasters. Some of ice in the leaves. That’s the sort of sight that of those expensive plants from garden centres really can get you through the short days and tend to give up the ghost and curl up and die long nights of January. when they get to my garden. They are Then, of course, there obviously much too well-bred for the likes of were snowdrops, aconites us. and the daffodils – On the other hand, last year some strange splendid daffodils. Who young branches in a rather bleak corner turned can look at daffodils and out to be a buddleia that had arrived not be cheered? unannounced and decided to grow there all by There must be a good itself. It even, magically, chose the perfect site case for providing spades for itself. and seeds on the NHS. I do not believe there can be many suicidal Apart from the physical gardeners. They know the way the world turns, benefits of gardening... that just when everything looks at its bleakest (Now don’t moan – we only get bad backs and is the time when we can be surprised by violets creaky knees because we don’t garden little and snowdrops. They know too, that even in the and often, but in occasional excessive blitzes)… days of instant gardens, there’s still a lot of growing things gives us something to look work to be done. Such gardens are not made forward to. By singing “Oh how beautiful!” Once you’ve planted those bulbs – however and sitting in the shade... hastily – or sown seeds, or stuck some cuttings Another bonus for me this year was my olive in a jam jar, you have a stake in the future. tree. Bred on some hot, dry Italian hillside, it’s Grand people plant woods of young trees, the been beaten about by Yorkshire snow and rain rest of us have apple pips in a yoghurt pot, or and has not only survived the winter – amazing African violet leaves on the kitchen window – but looks remarkably well on it. It’s only sill, but the effect is the same – we have in a about three foot high and it will probably be way, created something and want to watch it half a lifetime before I’ll be pressing my own grow. Beats Prozac. olive oil. But I can wait. I have patience. I’m a And now is the time to get out there and gardener. start clearing, digging, planting. As things are And this is the year my garden will be bursting through. Sometimes in the spring perfect. I’m convinced. A bit like Highgrove, sunshine when you can smell the soil, I swear only better. That’s what spring does to you. Eat you can also hear things growing. your heart out, Prince Charles. This energy is infectious. We will rush to nurseries and garden centres and pile our Gardening and your star sign trolleys with instant gardens. We will plant – see page 10 4 May, 2003 Online: www.thisisthenortheast.co.uk interiors IN ASSOCIATION WITH Chameleon Mirrors Looks that will stand the test of time HEN it comes to interiors our Trocme: ‘‘An unadorned dress can be just individual tastes vary as as attractive as an adorned one; the much as they do over clothes: decision depends on spirit and occasion.’’ W while some strive to be the last word in up-to-the minute fashion LIGHTING trends, others prefer a more enduring and ACCORDING to Trocme, lighting is an classic style.