As the world marked World Men­tal Health Day on Sat­ur­day, writer Car­ol Quash took us on an un­ex­pect­ed jour­ney to a cat café, where the com­fort and com­pan­ion­ship of cats are help­ing to cre­ate a safe and wel­com­ing space for peo­ple deal­ing with men­tal health chal­lenges. It is a place where fur­ry friends, con­ver­sa­tion and com­pas­sion come to­geth­er to make a dif­fer­ence.

From a full Trin­bag­on­ian meal to Eng­lish, Asian and oth­er types in be­tween, meals can be made from scratch at Serendip­itea cof­fee shop and tea house in St Au­gus­tine.

hen I was nine years old, my fam­i­ly lived in rur­al Blan­chisseuse, along Trinidad’s North Coast. Our house­hold con­sist­ed of my par­ents, my sis­ter, my grand­moth­er and me. At the time, my fa­ther made bar­be­cue coals, a la­bo­ri­ous process that in­volved dig­ging a large pit, burn­ing pieces of wood in­side it for sev­er­al days, and even­tu­al­ly go­ing out­side to ex­tin­guish the fire and col­lect the coal.

“When I was a child, I spoke as a child; I un­der­stood as a child; I thought as a child, but when I be­came a man, I put away child­ish things.  For now we see through a glass, dark­ly, but then face to face: now I know in part, but then shall I know even as al­so I am known.  And now abideth faith, hope, and char­i­ty, these three; but the great­est of these is char­i­ty."

The term cer­vi­cal in­suf­fi­cien­cy, for­mer­ly called “cer­vi­cal in­com­pe­tence,” de­scribes a sit­u­a­tion in which the cervix—the low­er part of the uterus—short­ens and opens pre­ma­ture­ly dur­ing preg­nan­cy, of­ten with­out con­trac­tions or sig­nif­i­cant pain. This can re­sult in a sec­ond-trimester mis­car­riage or very ear­ly preterm birth.

“He was more than a mu­si­cal col­lab­o­ra­tor. He was like a broth­er to me. He was like a fa­ther to me. He was a very, very good friend to me; we were best friends. I worked ex­ten­sive­ly with him, trav­el­ling in­ter­na­tion­al­ly and ar­rang­ing his mu­sic. He took me across five con­ti­nents with him. Our re­la­tion­ship ex­tend­ed far be­yond the record­ing stu­dio.” These are the sen­ti­ments of ac­com­plished vet­er­an trum­peter, arranger, com­pos­er and mu­si­cal di­rec­tor, Er­rol Ince—the very last mu­si­cian alive who worked con­sis­tent­ly with the world’s undis­put­ed, cap­ti­vat­ing ca­lyp­son­ian, the Mighty Spar­row (Spar­row), from 1955 to his last tune. The world was mes­merised by Spar­row’s mu­sic.

Six tal­ent­ed young girls will grace the stage on Sat­ur­day, Oc­to­ber 17, as they com­pete for the ti­tle of Lit­tle Miss Pleas­antville Queen 2026 at the Pleas­antville Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre.

Have you ever seen a car dri­ving down the road where one door or fend­er is just a slight­ly dif­fer­ent shade than the rest of the body? It is a glar­ing eye­sore that im­me­di­ate­ly screams, “This car was in an ac­ci­dent!” When you take your car in for body­work and paint­ing, you ex­pect it to come back look­ing fac­to­ry new. But achiev­ing a flaw­less, in­vis­i­ble re­pair is ac­tu­al­ly a mas­sive sci­en­tif­ic chal­lenge.

Healthy eat­ing is of­ten as­so­ci­at­ed with ex­pen­sive in­gre­di­ents, spe­cial­i­ty prod­ucts and com­pli­cat­ed meal plans. Eat­ing well does not have to strain the house­hold bud­get. The truth is that these tips should help you bet­ter ap­proach a gro­cery shop­ping ex­pe­ri­ence to pre­pare nu­tri­tious, sat­is­fy­ing meals while spend­ing less.

Through­out Oc­to­ber, WE Life & Cul­ture will share the sto­ries of breast can­cer sur­vivors, pa­tients, care­givers and oth­ers on the front­line of the fight against the dis­ease. Through their ex­pe­ri­ences, we hope to raise aware­ness, en­cour­age ear­ly de­tec­tion and re­mind our read­ers of the im­por­tance of sup­port, strength and hope.

For Nadeira Khan, the pres­sure placed on chil­dren by aca­d­e­mics has be­come a grow­ing con­cern, with young stu­dents ex­pe­ri­enc­ing stress from an ear­ly age.

Lo­cal artist Marin­na Sha­reef gave mem­bers of the pub­lic a peek in­side her mind at her re­cent ex­hi­bi­tion, Po­lar Mythol­o­gy. Through im­mer­sive art­work, she show­cased what it is like to live with and nav­i­gate bipo­lar dis­or­der.