Innholdsfortegnelse for 13-Mar-2017 i Woman's Own

After a short break, Amanda Holden and some of her best pals are coming back to the stage in the hit comedy show, Stepping Out! And look who tap-danced his way in for a cheeky catch-up in rehearsals – our columnist Richard Arnold! Amanda is joined by pals Tamzin Outhwaite, Nicola Stephenson, Tracy Ann-Oberman and Natalie Casey to tell the story of a group of tap-dancing women – and one man – who are all trying to dance their troubles away. The show runs until 17 June in London’s West End (vaudeville-theatre.co.uk). Subscribe to Woman’s Own from £10.99* Subscribe online at magazinesdirect.com/ 11ZL  or call 0330 333 1113, quoting code 11ZL *Quarterly by UK Direct Debit. This price is guaranteed for the first 12 months…

Martine McCutcheon has told how she was attacked in the street in an unprovoked incident that left her fearing for her life. Speaking about the incident, which happened in West London as she was walking to a party, the Love Actually star said, ‘I was walking past the Natural History Museum. This four-wheel drive came past me, it had foreign plates on it and these tinted windows came down and there was a gaggle of guys in there and they were saying what they wanted to do to me. It was violent sexual comments and as I went to say ‘Go away’ one of them got hold of my coat collar and I was almost running with the car.’ And Martine, 40, said she couldn’t pull…

WHY AM I SO JEALOUS? I feel like such a horrible person. Every time something good happens to someone in my life, I feel a wave of jealousy, and bitter about it. I congratulate them to their face, but inside I feel the opposite. Two recent things showed me this – my sister-in-law told me her daughter had won a scholarship and, while my niece deserves it, it really bothered me. I kept thinking why hasn’t my daughter got one and that it wasn’t fair. And, when my best work friend was recently promoted – something she deserves – instead of being pleased, my first thought was, ‘Oh no’. I’m happy, I have a great job, and my kids do well, so why do I feel like this? Hannah, 46,…

3 instant BAD MOOD BEATERS! We spend a year and eight months of our lives in a bad mood, says a new study. Here’s how to make it better 1 THE REASON: BAD NIGHT’S SLEEP It’s the most likely reason to wake up grumpy, with half of us saying we have days where we’re in a bad mood from then. THE FIX A calming extract of valerian and hops, such as A.Vogel Dormeasan (£9.99 for 50ml, Boots). It helps with sleep disturbances, stress and anxiety. 2 THE REASON: YOU’RE ‘HANGRY’! When you’re hungry, the drop in glucose in the brain makes you unreasonably irritable. Your brain sees it as a life-threatening situation, as it’s dependent on glucose to function. THE FIX Linwoods Snackettes (£1.69, ocado.com) are new organic, low-carb, high-protein…

JUNGLE FEVER The tropical trend is big this year, so go wild with lush green and blue shades and rainforest-inspired prints MIX’N’ MATCH Brighten up your dining table with this cheerful collection of graphic tableware. Nadi bamboo plates, from £10 for set of four side plates, Habitat SAVE Vs SPLURGE Give your room an art-deco feel with a statement side table. 3 of the best Geometric cushions Tired of your neutral scheme? Bring your sofa to life with an eye-catching patterned cushion in a kaleidoscope of colours. We love… TESCO’S ROMANTIC BEDROOM COLLECTION Blooms are flourishing this season, so treat your bed to some delicate floral prints for the ultimate romantic boudoir.…

‘I burst into tears of shock’ ‘Then the real work began’ Standing outside the school gates, you’ll see me waiting as four children run from their classrooms into my arms. Perhaps you’ll think I’m a childminder, there to collect the youngsters who are all in the same year at school. But all four of them are mine and no, they’re not quads… Growing up, I’d always wanted a big family but aged 17, I was dealt a bitter blow. It was August 2003 and I broke my pelvis in a horse-riding accident. Doctors said in the future that it could make me more likely to miscarry. Three years later, I was diagnosed with polycystic ovaries, making conceiving difficult. While I was upset, I pushed it to the back of…

Sad to hear the Moffatt family are leaving Gogglebox ! They’re so natural on screen – we’ll miss you, Scarlett, Ava, Mark and Betty! Yvonne Creevy Happy 67th birthday, Julie Walters! From Molly Weasley to Mrs Overall, thank you for your humour. Lynwen Gwynne I read that a glass of wine a day could delay the effects of ageing, reduce memory loss and help spotty skin! If one glass can do all this, imagine what a bottle could do! Susan Wolstenholme…

HOW FABULOUS! After the movie last year, and a successful series that started way back in the 90s, could Absolutely Fabulous be making another comeback? Writer and star Jennifer Saunders has hinted that it could! ‘I always say that the 2016 film was the final outing because I want people to stop asking me about it,’ Jennifer, 58, admitted. ‘If you say no, you then start thinking up different ideas for it and you go, ‘Oh, but what if we did this?’’ And it seems her fabulous co-star Joanna Lumley, 70, would be keen too, after revealing it would be ‘agony’ to leave the show behind for good. Watch this space! TOM’S TALES We were left swooning on Valentine’s Day when our favourite hunk, Tom Hardy,…

How are you settling back in on Corrie ? I feel like I’ve been back for ages as I’ve been so busy from the get-go – 40-plus episodes already! Everyone was thrilled when you returned. Why now? Honestly, it was the first time they’d asked me to return full-time. They did ask me to come back for Les and Cilla’s wedding, but I didn’t want to be sat in the back of the congregation for a couple of episodes. You have a great storyline with Chris Gascoyne, who plays Peter Barlow! I’ve joined a long list of Peter’s lovers. It was one of the main reasons I wanted to come back. When they told me Toyah had been seeing Peter for months before I came back,…

‘I’m still getting used to saying my new surname’ Samia Longchambon has been absent from Corrie for a couple of months while her character Maria Connor serves time in prison for her sham wedding. But the star, who’s been in the soap since 2000, has had plenty to keep her busy in her time off, including looking after her children, Freya, seven, and Yves, one, while also finding time for romance with her new hubby, personal trainer Sylvain Longchambon, 36. We caught up with Samia, 34, to find out about family life and what happens when she and her Corrie pals let their hair down… You’ve had a break from Corrie . Have you enjoyed getting back to…

‘I tried to forget about it’ ‘It was a miracle I was alive’ As the manager droned on, I glanced at the stranger next to me. ‘He’s going on a bit,’ I muttered jokingly. It was July 2014 and, with 12 others, I was at an induction talk on the first day of a new job, working on the factory floor of AB World Foods in Leigh, Greater Manchester. Afterwards, I introduced myself to my new colleagues. ‘I’m Deborah,’ I smiled, extending a hand to the bloke next to me. ‘Brian Deakin,’ he replied. A tall, well-built man, he had a shyness about him that made him seem somehow smaller. But being a kind person, I couldn’t stand to see someone on the sidelines. After that day I tried to…

1 Have a plan. If you feel you never get anywhere, chances are you don’t know what your goals are. Set three tasks a day and establish a daily routine. 2 Identify your procrastination pit stops. Is it social media, your phone, the coffee machine? Eliminate the actions that stop you from doing what needs to be done. 3 Give yourself deadlines. It’s the only way to get things done. They can be daily or weekly but the shorter the deadline, the less time there is to procrastinate. 4 Don’t let setbacks derail you. Life happens and things go wrong – just regroup and re-plan to get things going again. 5 Prioritise. Work out which tasks require completing first. Take the hardest or most important task and get it done.…

‘I thought I was born to be big’ ‘I was killing myself’ After a busy day as a carer there was one thing I always looked forward to – a bath. There’s no feeling quite like running a warm tub full of bubbles and then relaxing as the stresses from the day are washed away. Only one night, in January 2013, I pulled the plug before trying to get out. As the water drained away, I found myself sticking to the sides of the bath. I wriggled to the left and right, and tried to push myself up, but I was stuck fast. ‘Gary!’ I screamed and my husband came running in. He realised straight away what had happened. At 28st and a size 32, I was way too…

I’ve been a member of Woman’s Own Bingo for about six years and I love it. It’s my way to sit and relax. It’s not just me who’s a fan though – my housemate, Shaun, also plays on there too. The great thing about Woman’s Own Bingo is the huge choice of games. Most of the time I play the slot games, and my favourites are Cleopatra and Double Bubble. But in July this year, I logged on and, for a change I thought I’d play a few games of bingo. Every half an hour in the Sapphire bingo room there are Linked Games and the jackpots for those games are higher than usual. In the day they might be £400, but on that evening £1,200 was up for grabs!…

Coleen Nolan 12 MARCH The outspoken Loose Woman should put her foot in it less over the coming year, but her love life could be disappointing. Aries 21 Mar – 20 Apr You have until Friday to take advantage of the influence of your ruler Mars in Aries. He helps you get things done, stand up for your rights, conquer your demons and tackle difficulties at home and at work. So what are you waiting for? • For more call 0901 609 4780* Taurus 21 Apr – 20 May On Friday, Mars arrives in Taurus. Given his attributes are anger, sex, energy and action, the next few weeks will be hectic and, at the least, interesting. What’s possible: a flirt, temper tantrums and achieving goals, especially if as a…

Geri, 44, reveals how the 90s changed her in the BBC’s The Decade That Made Me . Here she explains more… Hi! You’ve been delving into the past for this show, did you enjoy it? It was an amazing experience. It stirred up lots of memories that can easily be forgotten. It really made me realise how far I’ve come in my life. Sometimes we have to look back to move forward, so that we can take the best bits from our past. What are your favourite memories from the 90s? I think music is the most evocative memory. It is the soundtrack to all our lives and it was a decade of powerful, strong and diverse music. Do you have any regrets from that decade? I…

We’ve missed seeing Lisa Maxwell on our screens since she quit Loose Women back in March 2014 following five years on the show. But now the star, 53, is back starring in Channel 4’s Hollyoaks as Tracey Donovan. Here we sit down with Lisa, married to Paul Jessup and mum to Beau, 17, to find out sad regrets and best-kept secrets… If you had 24 hours to yourself, what would you spend it doing? Probably doing the washing! Isn’t that glamorous? I’d like to take myself off to a spa but if I’ve got 24 hours and no interruptions, I’ve always got a pile of bed linen to do! I live in the countryside now, so people come up from London to…

DIRTY DANNY! Uh-oh, what’s Danny Dyer been up to now? It’s claimed that the EastEnders star, 39, used Cockney rhyming slang in a string of late-night sex texts to a starstruck fan just nine weeks before marrying his childhood sweetheart. Danny’s loyal wife Joanne Mas, 40, has been with the actor since they met as teenagers in 1995 and married him last September, but the woman, in her early thirties, claims that in one message he asked her to ‘bend over and show me that bottle’ – rhyming slang for bottom, as well as sending her lewd pictures of himself. Danny has admitted to straying in the past, revealing in 2009, ‘I’ve done so many things I’ve regretted. I hate myself for what I did and for being tempted by…

‘Only if certain panellist were let go [sic]’ Carol McGiffin has excited fans after suggesting that she might make a return to Loose Women . The TV star, who left the show in 2013, dropped the hint during a Twitter conversation with one of her followers, who asked her if she ever thought she would return to the show. Carol replied, ‘Yes, I would go back, but only if certain panellist were let go.’ [sic] Taking issue Carol, 57, quit the show after 10 years, explaining at the time, ‘I’d been thinking about it for at least a year. It seems mad to quit one of the best jobs in the world – you talk for an hour with like-minded women and get paid. ‘But I felt…

WHICH? You might have fallen for that dreamy apricot blusher, but is it making your skin tone pop like a firework, sparkle like a diamond and glow with the light of a thousand suns? We thought not. Picking the right shade of blusher, while perhaps not quite that mighty, has the power to transform your complexion from peaky to perky, fatigued to fresh, dull to downright gorgeous in seconds. It’s the make-up equivalent of a facial peel, making you look like a younger, healthier version of yourself. An easy way to find the right shade for your skin tone is to think about the colour you would flush naturally. That translates as pale pinks for fair skins, apricot and coral for complexions with yellow undertones and berries for black skin.…

1 Log into your Google or YouTube account and load the YouTube website. 2 Click on the ‘restricted mode’ button, which is found at the bottom of the YouTube homepage. 3 Click the ‘on’ button and then click on the link to lock the page. 4 To make sure your child doesn’t just turn the restrictions back on again, log out of your Google or YouTube account so they don’t have access to the settings. 5 The same mode is also be available on the YouTube app on your mobile. Go to settings and ‘restricted mode filtering’.…

GET PAID £200 for switching banks!   If you’re among the one in three of us who haven’t yet switched bank accounts you could be missing a trick... 1 ACT NOW TO GET THE BEST DEALS There are still great cashback deals to be had but some incentives to switch are being reduced. From 1 March, Halifax is slashing its payout from £100 to £75 for switchers and the previously high-paying Santander 123 account has cut its generous interest rate by half. 2 FIND ACCOUNTS WITH THE BEST INCENTIVES At the moment, these are the best perks out there. But do check with the bank directly or at moneysavingexpert.com/banking/compare-best-bank-accounts#bonus. First Direct: Offers £125. TSB: Get £125 and 3% interest on £1,500. HSBC: Receive £150 when you switch and £50 if…

Actress Cathy Shipton has been back in Casualty since June playing nurse Lisa ‘Duffy’ Duffin – a role she originally found fame with in 1986. And it’s certainly been a busy eight months for Duffy, who’s not only become a grandmother but also reunited with and married old flame Charlie Fairhead (Derek Thompson). We sat down with Cathy, 59, who lives with actor Christopher Guard and their daughter Tallulah, 15, to talk family life and marriage proposals… You’ve been back on Casualty for eight months. Are you still enjoying it? Yes. Obviously I’ve worked with Derek a lot over the years, but then suddenly you get to work with all sorts of different people and that’s great. Casualty won the…

BRITAIN’S NEXT TOP MODEL THURSDAYS, LIFETIME Twelve aspiring models are back to fight for the chance of winning an exciting contract that could land them on the catwalk. But with judges Abbey Clancy, Paul Sculfor, Hilary Alexander and Nicky Johnston watching their every move through a series of testing shoots and challenges, who will make it through and become Britain’s Next Top Model ? John Bishop: In Conversation With... THURSDAYS, W Comedian John Bishop has lined up some stellar names for the second series of his interview show. The first episode kicks off with Lindsay Lohan, and Olly Murs will also be popping by for a chat later on in the series. Get ready to laugh and cry as things get candid. BIG LITTLE LIES MONDAYS, SKY…