Annique Extremely You Health & Beauty

Ciao from Chef Fabio! 🇮🇹👨‍🍳

With nearly 20 years in the kitchen, Chef Fabio brings the heart of Italy to your table — from soul-warming homemade lasagna to decadent tiramisù. Whether it’s a family meal, private event, or a custom dish made just the way you love it, Fabio blends tradition, flavour, and a whole lot of heart.
🍝✨ Dessert included, of course.

Meet Milena — pasta-maker, food lover, and Italian soul in the kitchen 🇮🇹🍝

From rolling out fresh pasta to belting Italian tunes while she cooks, Milena brings flavour, warmth, and heart to everything she does. After years in Italy learning from real kitchens and cozy trattorias, she’s now sharing her love for handmade food right here in SA.

Whether it’s a pasta-making workshop, a soulful bowl of ragù, or a chat over espresso, Milena makes every moment with food one to remember.

When life gives you lemons, book your events at Create! 🍋🎨

"My name’s Morris. I’m 78. Live alone since my Edna passed five years back. Every Tuesday, I catch the 10:15 bus to the library. Same seat. Same walk. For years, it was quiet. Just me, the pigeons, and that old green bench at Oak Street stop.

Then last winter, I started noticing the kids. Not playing. Not laughing. Just.... sitting. Heads down. Fingers flying over phones. Even in the rain. One Tuesday, a girl in a purple backpack sat hunched, shoulders shaking. Not crying, just empty. Like the bench swallowed her whole. My chest hurt. I remembered my grandson, Liam, before he got that scholarship. Same look. Like the world forgot he existed.

I went home restless. Edna always said, "Morris, you fix what’s broken." But what’s broken here? Phones? No. Hearts.

Next morning, I dug out my grandson’s old tablet. Spent three shaky hours learning QR codes (turns out YouTube tutorials are for young eyes!). Printed simple signs,

SCAN ME. TELL ME YOUR STORY.
I’M LISTENING.

Taped them to the bench corners. Used duct tape—Edna’s favorite "fix-all."

First week? Nothing. Kids walked past like the signs were trash. Mrs. Gable from 42 scoffed, "Foolishness, Morris. They want screens, not old men." Maybe she was right.

Then, a miracle. A boy, maybe 12 scanned it. Sat there 20 minutes, typing. Later, I checked the shared Google Doc (yes, I set one up! Edna would’ve laughed). His words,

"My dad’s sick. Mom works nights. I’m scared. But I drew a dragon that breathes glitter. It’s in my pocket."

My hands shook. I bought glitter glue and left it under the bench with a note, "For the dragon artist. Keep shining. —Morris (the bench friend)"

Next day? A folded paper airplane landed beside me. Inside, a glittery dragon. And "Thanks. Dad’s smiling today."

Word spread. Kids started coming early for the bus. Scanning. Typing. A girl wrote, "Bullies call me ‘robot’ ’cause I love coding. But robots don’t feel sad, right?" I left a book: "Ada Lovelace, Girl Who Dreamed in Code." She left cookies the next week. "Robots eat sugar too"

It wasn’t perfect. Rain washed away signs. Some ignored it. But slowly.... the bench changed. Kids sat together. Talking. A teen scanned and wrote, "I’m failing math. Too ashamed to ask." Two girls saw it, messaged him, "We’ll help. Meet us here Saturday." They did. Now they tutor three kids a week.

Then came the cold snap. I slipped on ice, broke my hip. Two weeks in hospital. Felt useless.

The day I got home, I shuffled to the bus stop... and stopped dead.

The bench was covered. Not in trash—but in notes, drawings, tiny gifts. A knitted coaster ("For your tea!"). A Lego robot ("From the coding club!"). A photo, kids holding a sign "MORRIS’S BENCH: WE SEE YOU."

Mrs. Gable was there, hammering a new sign into the post. "Took you long enough to heal," she grumbled. But her eyes were wet. "We added a real mailbox. For stories too long for phones."

Now? Twelve bus stops in town have "listening benches." Run by teens, retirees, even the grumpy postman. No apps. No donations. Just... space to be heard.

Yesterday, the glitter-dragon boy (now 14) helped me plant marigolds in a pot by the bench. "You taught us," he said, patting the soil, "loneliness is the only thing that really needs fixing."

I think of Edna. She’d say I fixed the bench. But the truth? Those kids fixed me. They reminded me that broken hearts don’t need grand gestures. Just a safe place to whisper, "I’m here." And someone willing to say back, "I hear you."

We’re not waiting for buses anymore. We’re waiting for each other. And that? That’s how the world gets warmer. One scanned story at a time."
Let this story reach more hearts...
Please follow us: Astonishing
By Mary Nelson

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March sees some fabulous items available

Last day on offer

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“I ONLY GAME WITH MY FRIENDS MOM, I PROMISE”🕹

An interesting new study on the gaming habits of our tweens and teens found that 70% of kids who game, want to socialise within the gaming worlds BEYOND gameplay. Yup, that means that seven out of ten of our children WANT TO DO MORE THAN GAME when they are online.

SO WHAT MUST I DO?

1. You need to become familiar with the concept of the “landing pad”.

The landing pad is the place where all this ‘beyond gaming’ engagement happens is in an area called a “landing pad” – think water cooler at work – it’s the social spot where everyone chats (virtually of course).

WHAT MUST I SAY?

Because every child says, “I am only going to game with my friends” (and sometimes they even believe that to be true), your question has to allow them to think about the fact that there are other factors at play like their engagement on the landing pad:

1. So where to you go in Minecraft/Roblox/Fortnite/Call of Duty when you die and you are waiting for the others to finish?
2. Who do you to chat to online when you are on the landing pad?
3. How many new people have you met on Discord and/or Twitch (the apps they use to chat to each other while gaming)?
4. Do you know any of your friends who met someone online and s/he asked them to slide into their DM’s to have a private chat?
5. I know it can feel really exciting chatting to new people, especially when you have things like gaming in common.

AND THEN PAUSE!
6. At another time, you can have the chat about the dangers associated with talking to strangers online. But that is for another day – because to earn our t/weens trust and to help them to believe that you can be curious without being judgmental/angry/anxious/all controlling about their online life, *you sometimes have to just get the answers and NOT FLY IN IMMEDIATELY with ‘oh my soul that is so terrible/dangerous/self-combusting?

THAT conversation could begin another time with “I was thinking how you told me a few days ago that it feels exciting to chat to new people online – sometimes that can go really wrong…” Check out our blog on how to talk to t/weens about the dangers of online gaming here: https://klikd.co.za/parent-video-game-guide/

Stay connected
Sarah and Pam