In early October, weather permitting, a number of residents from the village of Grosmont in south Wales are planning a party with a magnificent hog-roast as the centrepiece. The village, home to around 200 households, is cushioned on all sides by Monmouthshire’s Black Mountains and, with local life revolving around a small pub, The Angel, and the church, little excuse is required for a knees-up. Still, this particular celebration will be a very special one, marking the completion of the first cycle in Grosmont’s plan to become a sustainable “eco-village”. The hog-roast itself will be far more than tasty party food: it will be the end of the road for one of 13 piglets from two litters born this spring, which the villagers will rear themselves over the summer months; before slaughtering and butchering the animals and sharing out the meat.

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The average family’s weekly shopping bill has risen to £136, according to research.

The leap of nearly six per cent since the start of the year has added an estimated £500 million to the nation’s monthly groceries bill, as the cost of living continues to stretch already strained household finances.

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Nearly a third of Britons think people should aim to give at least 2% of their income to charity each year, a survey has shown.

Around 29% of people thought consumers should hand over 2% or more of their pay to good causes, including 8% who thought they should give 5% away and 4% who thought 10% of people’s pay should go to charity.

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/41983/Give-more-to-charity-say-Britons

A local authority has admitted that it spied on a family trying to get their daughter into the local nursery school.

The officials from Poole Borough Council in Dorset kept a log of the family’s movements during the two-week stakeout. They tailed the mother for two hours each morning and afternoon as she did the school run with her three children. Later they returned to watch the house.

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A local authority has admitted that it spied on a family trying to get their daughter into the local nursery school.

The officials from Poole Borough Council in Dorset kept a log of the family’s movements during the two-week stakeout. They tailed the mother for two hours each morning and afternoon as she did the school run with her three children. Later they returned to watch the house.

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Parents with stressful lives may be making their children as well as themselves vulnerable to illness, research suggests.

A University of Rochester study, reported by New Scientist, found sickness levels were higher in children of anxious or depressed parents.

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Many hospitals across England had to turn away women in labour last year because they were full, figures show.
Some 70% of trusts provided data, with more than 40% saying they shut their doors - one in 10 more than 10 times - or diverted women to other sites.

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A ruling by a California appeals court that parents “do not have a constitutional right to home-school their children” drew harsh criticism from religious conservatives on Friday, one of whom said the decision makes tens of thousands of parents into criminals - “the equivalent to drug dealers or pick-pockets.”

“The court is guilty of an imperious assault on the rights of parents,” James Dobson, chairman of Focus on the Family, said in a press release responding to a three-judge panel from the 2nd District Court of Appeals, which ruled on Feb. 28 that parents without teaching credentials cannot home-school their children.

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