Everyone in this country should be given CPR training, for free. I attended a CPR Heart Saver course last night, and couldn’t believe the misconceptions I had about heart disease, symptoms, and emergency treatment. Here are some highlights; this is stuff everyone should know: Women are generally considered to be at lower risk of heart attack. This is based on bad information. Heart attacks in women manifest themselves so differently from men’s that many, many heart attacks in women are not factored into statistics. Heart attack symptoms in women tend to include a stiff neck and jaw pain, and may not include the typical male symptoms such as crushing chest…

Winter is a strange time of dark evenings spent flipping through gardening catalogues. We watch for signs of spring, but lately with a looming unnecessary war and a PM that won’t quit, signs point to something more serious afoot. Or, maybe I just had too much egg nog over the Holidays. You decide. Signs of the end of days? Or just post-holiday hangover?