Viking longboat sailing, giving up social media and more uplifting stories
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Viking longboat sailing, giving up social media and more uplifting stories | The Guardian
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Viking longboat sailing, giving up social media and more uplifting stories
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Good morning,
It’s the vague question in the mind of everyone who is of working age – what should I do during my retirement (if, indeed, it ever comes)? Lars Bill and the Oseberg Viking Heritage foundation he volunteers with took the bull by the (Viking) horns and chased his dream of building, and sailing, a longboat. Bill had learned how to sail on Viking ships years before the voyage, he says, “but most of the crew were learning from scratch”.
They finished the construction of the 20m replica of the Viking KlĂ„stad ship, which dates from AD998 and was excavated in 1970 from a farmer’s field, and have since sailed it around the world. “Arriving in Istanbul, we saw the full moon over the city’s Bosphorus Bridge. Travelling 2,175 miles (3,500km) across Europe’s waterways and seas to Istanbul, as the Vikings had done centuries ago, was a moment to celebrate.”
Read on for more inspirational stories.
The Guardian newsletters team
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‘A big chunk of positive energy’: Green Man celebrates 10 years of training refugees
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 Afghan Javid says he had never attended a music festival before working at Green Man. Photograph: Green Man festival
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Green Man festival in Wales runs a training scheme that helps refugees and asylum seekers gain skills, confidence and community. Participants get to learn communication skills, front‑of‑house work, food safety and money management while experiencing their first festival.
Many, like Mina and Javid from Afghanistan, say the programme helped them connect with British and Welsh culture, rebuild confidence and form lasting friendships. The scheme has involved 191 people from 52 countries, offering equipment, guidance and a safe environment. Green Man organiser Fiona Stewart says the project counters hostility toward refugees and shows how much they bring to UK culture, helping them feel accepted and included.
“Overall, it’s really like something to give you a fresh start and I’m pretty sure when we return home it will be very positive vibes. And you can spread this back,” Olga, from Ukraine, said.
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The one change that worked: I banned myself from social media – and my children have never been happier
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Anna Mathur says setting limits on her phone use has improved her mood and relationships. Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian
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Many of us struggle with putting our phones down. Anna Mathur was no different – until she banned herself from social media and saw her relationships thrive. By placing time limits on how much she scrolled, installing an app to block email and social media at certain times of the day, and using her laptop instead of her phone for work, she was present for the moments that matter most.
“What I didn’t expect was how much calmer I would feel,” she writes in The one change that worked. “The low hum of overstimulation I had normalised turned out to be costing me more than I knew … I was less irritable, more present, in a way that didn’t require effort.”
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‘A very angry gay man’: activist’s 11-year fight to overturn Trinidad’s homophobic laws reaches final hurdle
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Jason Jones has been fighting to remove Trinidad’s homophobic laws. Photograph: supplied
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Trinidadian Jason Jones has been fighting for a decade to remove his country’s homophobic laws, which derive from laws introduced by the UK to its colonies during the British empire. This week he will make legal history when he brings his fight to the privy council in London, which remains the Caribbean island’s final court of appeal. Since beginning his campaign to decriminalise same-sex intimacy, he’s won friends and supporters along the way. A previous court victory inspired Trinidad’s inaugural pride event and legal challenges by activists in other countries, including India.
Speaking in the UK parliament earlier this year ahead of this final court hurdle, he told a meeting attended by lawyers and LGBTQ+ activists, including the former Love Island winner Amber Rose Gill, whose father is Trinidadian. “I’m nothing special. I dropped out of college. I survived HIV. All I am is a very angry gay man. I think about all the friends and lovers I’ve lost over the last 40 years. This is a dream we couldn’t dream back then.”
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The rise of blue-space therapy: how the sea is helping people deal with trauma, anxiety and addiction
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Can the sea solve the stresses of today? Photograph: Cavan Images/Getty Images/Cavan Images
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For the Guardian’s Seascape series, Tamara Davison spoke to men and women who have turned to the sea to confront problems ranging from anxiety to addiction and trauma.
“Research from ecotherapy shows us that nature, but particularly water, gives us this feeling of calm that we don’t get in other spaces,” geographer Catherine Kelly tells her. “A lot of our daily lives are spent on very focused attention – often on screens, unfortunately, and that makes our brain quite tired. When we go to the water, our shoulders drop, our eyes and face soften. We start breathing more slowly … we’re in a state of drift.”
Davison reports that it’s not only wild swimming or simply dipping our toes in that has restorative value: “Therapeutic practices are now emerging in scuba diving and freediving, where participants can experience the added sensations of weightlessness in the water.”
Whether that sounds truly relaxing is up to you.
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‘Is he a nice guy? No. He’s a good guy’: how Harry Kane became an England great
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Harry Kane with his first football manager Dave Bricknell at Ridgeway Rovers in 2011. Photograph: Exo Photos/Alamy
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Harry Kane has always been an enigmatic footballing superstar, his humble, affable, slightly awkward demeanour – recently showcased in the funniest and certainly squeakiest post-match interview of all time – contrasting with his deadly finishing. And yet, it’s these unexplored qualities that have stood the England captain in such good stead during his meteoric career, writes Sam Cunningham.
“Harry’s great company. He was quietly confident he was going to have a good career,” said the former England under-20s manager Peter Taylor. “You could just tell there’s something about him – he was confident. It wasn’t a case of ‘football owes me a living’; it was: ‘I’m gonna work me socks off to have one.’”
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| Stronger, better, braver: how my netball family helped me come back from injury |
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When a dislocated shoulder put Natalie Morris on the sidelines, she thought her netballing days were over. But her teammates refused to let that happen. From daily check-ins to celebrating the small wins – “You did up your own bra?! Huge!” – it was their unwavering support that helped Natalie return to the court. In this love letter to her teammates, she says thanks for it all.
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