Lifestyle - Sunday, June 7, 2026

These jackets, tents, backpacks, and other outdoor gear are built to be repaired when the inevitable damage occurs Sign up for the Filter US newsletter, your weekly guide to buying fewer, better things Outdoor gear can be delicate. Sometimes all it takes is a broken buckle or jammed zipper to render a $500 sleeping bag or jacket unusable. But it doesn’t have to end up in the trash. Many outdoor brands now tend to their gear long after it’s sold with repair programs, replacement parts, DIY repair kits, and thoughtful designs that help keep it in the wild longer – and out of the landfills. You can mail in your damaged product, or just buy the buckle, tent pole, or strap to fix it yourself at home. Mainstream retailers such as REI have also expanded repair services , making gear repair more accessible to people who don’t have the skills or tools to do it themselves . Continue reading...

Doctors say diagnosis is usually clinical and doesn’t rely on a blood test, with symptoms often starting in the mid-40s There’s a special frisson to period changes in your mid-forties. Every deviation from your usual pattern can feel like a harbinger of the menopause transition, also known as perimenopause. One might spend years staring at their underwear, wondering: am I or aren’t I? Keren Landman MD is an independent health reporter who is also trained as an infectious disease physician and epidemiologist, with experience serving as a disease detective at the CDC and conducting HIV and malaria research in resource-poor countries. Her public health newsletter is called Landmansplained Continue reading...

Here’s your reminder to look for the ecstatic in the prosaic, no matter where life takes you.

He walked out of his way to get me on to the right street, then handed me the brolly saying, ‘Here, you take this’ Read more in the kindness of strangers series It was bucketing down, absolutely pouring. I was on my way to a birthday dinner but got lost in central Sydney’s labyrinth of streets, so I ducked into an internet cafe to look up directions to the restaurant. I then wrote those directions down by hand – such were the times! As I stepped out of the cafe, I realised just how bad the weather had become and how ill-prepared I was for the rain. As I stood waiting to cross the road, swiftly getting wet, a man waiting for the lights in the opposite direction offered up his big rainbow umbrella to share. I gratefully accepted and, still a little unsure of where I was going, asked if he knew the way to the restaurant. Continue reading...

From maximalist pizzas to retro beaches, Piecework brings canvases with a coffee-table book flair to gen Z’s homes The six best US jigsaw puzzles Sign up for the Filter US newsletter, your weekly guide to buying fewer, better things Is gen Z boring ? We barely leave the house, hardly drink alcohol and rarely go on dates. Instead some of us are emulating the hobbies of our elders – crocheting , starting book clubs and even birdwatching . Among younger demographics, “ grandma hobbies ” are cool . Perhaps that’s why I, a member of gen Z, recently felt called to pick up a jigsaw puzzle for the first time in over a decade. It came from Piecework, a puzzle brand that has become a Zoomer favorite. Continue reading...

The actor on becoming famous as a child, being an old soul, and caring for her dad in his final years Born in Islington, London, in 1983, Natalie Cassidy is best known for playing Sonia Fowler in EastEnders. She joined the soap in 1993, and after leaving in 2007, she returned several times before making her final exit in April 2025. As well as theatre work, Cassidy has appeared in TV shows including Psychoville, Motherland and Boarders. She hosts the podcast Life With Nat and co-hosts Off the Telly. Natalie Cassidy: Caring Together is on BBC One and iPlayer now. This was taken on the freezing cold set of EastEnders when I was 13. It was Sonia’s mum’s wedding, so they’d given her a trumpet to play at the ceremony. A genius idea from the writers, as the trumpet brought light and comedy to the role. Sadly, like most soap characters, she got downtrodden over the years. Humour has a tendency to fade after a long time on Albert Square. Continue reading...

Gavin Munro and his wife are realizing his lifelong dream, taking about 10 years and painstaking effort for each chair.

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions explores a topical issue of personal cybersecurity Readers reply: If an alien asked you: ‘What is music?’ what would you play for them? I’ve been struggling to get my head around the idea that a passkey, which can be a PIN on your phone, or facial recognition, can be safer than using a complicated password, and two factor authentication. I get that having something unique to your device, not stored on a company’s server is unphishable, and less hackable by cybercrims, but what if your phone is nicked and someone guesses the password? And what if you lose your phone? Continue reading...

Hanging on to items that you aren’t actively using contributes to a chaotic life.

Brunelleschi's dome, Michelangelo's David and other ways to splice the Renaissance into your travels.