I hope you have had a good week and — joy of joys—  January is at last done!

Welcome February, in particular hyacinths, daffodils, snowdrops, tulips … it's all happening. We have bluetits already in our bird box and squirrels stealing all the bird feed! The nights are drawing out, and it's getting lighter in the mornings … we are heading in the right direction, so let's take some happiness from all of this, right here, right now.

All Face-to-Face Classes are running as normal this week.

Regarding Face-to-Face Classes, I have been asked this week about dates as we move through 2024. At the bottom of every Newsletter, and always at the bottom of the website, there is a link to our Interactive Calendar of Face-to-Face Classes. Once you click this it takes you to the Calendar page. The Calendar itself is on a week-by-week basis, and you can scroll through each week to see the class dates.

But if you simply scroll to the bottom of the page you will see there are lists of dates for each class for the year 2023/2024.  Please note that these dates may be changed with events, so always keep checking back to see if there are changes. 

We do try to keep all classes running at more-or-less the same times, but we obviously have to be flexible to deal with teacher illness, or holidays, plus venue availability, but I hope this is all helpful.

Online Classes are running as normal this week, and this week’s highlighted class is the Mindful Session from my Pilates and Your Whole Self Programme. This class was very popular when I first made it available so I wanted to highlight it and bring it to everyone’s attention again — enjoy.

Every month I am going to focus on one Pilates Exercise, and this particular exercise will be taught throughout my weekly classes. In February, I will be choosing this side lying kick series. 

In last week’s Newsletter I showed the foundation level, so this week I move it up a notch.

Side Lying Kick — level 2. Taking everything from the set up last week and showing a variety of movements to mobilise and exercise the muscles that support the hip joint. 

Focus on set up and feeling the movement. Remember to release and stretch at the end to let go of tension and fatigue. 

Keep away from pain and work appropriately for your body. Message me if you have any questions.

Do you love your garden? 

I have certainly grown (no pun intended) into loving my garden and appreciating it more. I love having an outside space where I can potter, hang my washing, or just sit and think in the peace and quiet if that is what I need. I also realise how lucky I am to have this and feel very grateful that I can step outside and have the enjoyment of watching the new plants starting to break through at this time of year.

Having the garden does make me think about the link between nature and our lives. 

Negativity can creep into our minds and sometimes choke any positivity that could be there, just like the weeds in the garden, so get your mental gardening gloves on and start pulling out those negative thoughts, so you can leave room for the flowers of positivity and gratitude to bloom.

We need to water our garden, and get some fertiliser to help nourish and feed the plants to enable them to grow. Think of laughter being our fertiliser for the mind. Sprinkle some giggles, and fun into your life every day. Laughter is nourishment for the soul and helps gratitude grow stronger and stronger.

Then those flowers and plants start to blossom and bloom and we start to see colours, and we can be thankful for our blessings, things that we are grateful for in our lives. Every little blessing will add colour to our garden of life, the sun on our face, enjoying a warm cup of coffee, the smell of freshly cut grass, standing back and showing gratitude.

And just as we might share an abundance of fruit from our garden, we can share our gratitude, spread some kindness and appreciation for life with our neighbours, helping everything to feel a little brighter. 

So, here's to cultivating a garden of gratitude with a little bit of humour. May your days be filled with laughter, your hearts with joy, and your gardens with an abundance of gratitude.

Have a fun filled week everyone — keep moving, feeling and looking good.

With love

Jane xx