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Older
A sociopath managing an aged care facility: What could go wrong?
Precocious and pretty Maxine Gilbert is a clever and talented nine-year-old, adored by a doting father. She is also cruel, sadistic and without remorse, delighting in manipulating others and torturing small animals. When her mother is diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease, Maxine is disgusted, not just by her mother’s disability, but by the inconvenience it brings. Watching a nurse care for her mother, Maxine learns that nurses can hurt or heal. Maxine decides to be a nurse when she grows up.
Forty years on, after countless complaints against her nursing in various clinical care settings, Maxine scams a job as Managing Director of an aged care facility, Treetops, and the residents are in for a rough time.
Under Maxine’s management, physical and medical restraint of residents is encouraged, and neglect, poor hygiene, and restrictions of residents’ liberty, nourishment and medical support are exhorted. Frightened, depressed, and malnourished residents are left isolated, locked away, and laying in their own waste. They develop excruciating infections, suffer illness, and even die. Maxine faces rising antagonism from Treetops’ residents, and their friends and family.
A new carer at Treetops, Seleena, who recently escaped an abusive marriage, cannot stay silent. Along with warning residents, and others, Seleena writes a letter of complaint. After finding a suspicious lump in her breast, could Maxine, who always hated illness and vulnerability in others, finally learn compassion? Or will she continue her ruthless ways?
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Ollie and Lola's Woodland Adventure
Each day, Ollie and Lola embark on a new journey together. Today’s journey begins with helping some of their woodland friends from Treehouse Woods.
This is a story about friendship and helping each other, accompanied by beautiful illustrations.
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On the Bible's Back Roads
The Bible contains many stories of what might be called ‘bit players’; those who appear briefly, sometimes only for a few verses, and are not central to the narrative, but who still play a significant role. These old stories feature and were written by people with whom we share a common humanity and whose encounters with God have much to teach us. In their stories we see something of our own stories and, if we listen aright, we can hear the divine voice speaking through their strength and weaknesses, their triumphs and tragedies and their joys and sorrows.
Their stories also throw light on the heart of the narrative, the story of Jesus, and demonstrate the rich inclusiveness of the Bible. They also offer us a fascinating reflection of who we are as Christian believers and the nature of the world in which we try to live out our faith. Their journeys, however marginal they may seem, make significant contributions to the story Scripture tells.
This book can be used generally by individuals or groups but is also suitable for use as a series of Lenten reflections. As we listen to some of the lesser-known voices and stories we encounter in Scripture we will find that they are not there by accident and have the power to profoundly enrich our Christian understanding.
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One Week in 1952
The story is set in June 1952 and describes one week of action between Tom, 8 years old, and his Aunt Siobhan, 18 years old, who looks after him while his parents are forced to leave home. An unexpected event enables them to holiday in Kent, where exciting adventures befall them both. Throughout the book there is a surprising comparison between the way of life in the 1950s, much of it based on historical fact, and that of the modern-day world.
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Onvoy: A Tale of Pain
A tale of a world at the brink of falling apart being abruptly thrust into a new beginning – life changes forever. Our hero finds a mysterious and powerful sword, something that amplifies his own emotions immensely, engaging them into physical manifests of a devastating heat that scorches everything, even himself. With so much hate, loss and sorrow on his shoulders, our hero must contain himself and not let go of his emotions lest they become too much and send what’s left of his world crumbling to ashes.
Life might never be the same again but that doesn’t mean it’s the end – only an opportunity. An opportunity for what? That is the decision of the holder. Where others not know what to do, feeling lost and hopeless, our hero has a purpose – to learn more about this mysterious power and sword which has entered his life, find his family and take back the apocalypse no matter the pain.
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Opening to the Realness of God
Humanness was created and brought to life 75,000 years ago. Every 25,000 years there is a harvesting of souls according to both positive and negative service polarization. At the end of the third cycle, those harvested as the positively polarized begin the process of working towards collective ascension. This is how humanity evolves from third density negative into fourth density positive that then ascends into fifth density, because that density is not physical.
What ascends collectively is the humanness of will, love, light, and consciousness as they pertain to and involve God—Creator or what brought us to life—and the universe. They are our mind, body, spirit, and soul. What they correspond to is the sun, earth, moon, and universe as a human ideal.
God’s will to be and know extends and expands by inversely reversing into a focus. It begins with a consciousness that is then shared with all else. This is true service polarity. There is only the oneness of God, the healing of life, the wholeness of the Christ as the human, and the ascension of that which ascends after service is performed.
We are only here to be kind and get along.
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Otto Papesch
Otto Papesch was my father. I was four years old when he died. I asked myself for years what kind of a human being he was. I have attempted to paint a picture of that handsome, charismatic, cultivated, professional chemical engineer, enthusiastic sportsman, photographer and family man by basing myself on the vast correspondence that still exists, his diary of 1917, stories about him from my mother and grandparents and the innumerable photos he took over the years. This has been an attempt to describe his prominent characteristics but also shed light on his dilemmas and the contradictions in his personality and thereby to describe the important events of his short life. Would his destiny have been different had he been born a year later?
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Outside Looking In
“A characteristic of autism can be a difficulty using speech to express thoughts, feelings, and experiences. However, there is often an eloquence in self-expression using the arts, including poetry. Clare’s sensitive and engaging poems provide an insight into her mind and her autism.”
Professor Tony Attwood, author of The Complete Guide to Asperger’s Syndrome.
What if you were given a life-altering diagnosis at 57? One that meant you aren’t who you thought you were? But one that explained everything?
These poems vibrate with intensity and curiosity about life, and because she came to this knowledge so late in life, many of Clare Smith’s poems focus not so much on what it means to be autistic, but on what it means to be human.
Throughout her life, as she struggled to fit into a world that to her was utterly strange, she poured her hopes, her joys and at times her despair into words.
She trained as a journalist, taught to cut out all emotion from her reporting, but her private writing is different – she created poetry that spoke to her deepest needs. There, exposed in her writing, is her yearning to belong, her astonishment at the physical world, her knowledge – decades before the doctors confirmed it – that she is different.
She’s spent a lifetime trying to make sense of her life – a journey that many of us, whether autistic or neurotypical, are on, and one in which we all face the same questions. -
Part of the Family
An inspiring story of one family’s journey through the British care system, from the point of view of a foster carer. It tells of the funny, challenging, and often harrowing times of living life in an ever-changing household of temporary children.
Steering a course through the muddy waters of the care system has provided many obstacles but has overall proved to be a rewarding and heart-warming experience for the author.
Children who find themselves removed from their birth families are thrust into a system which, although trying its best, is so often lacking in the love and good quality nurturing they deserve.
As a society, we need to look at the way we deal with vulnerable children.
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Peace of Wild
An enticing book for children of all ages.
Can animals communicate?
Can their voice be heard to make their plight known?
Are there still magical and mystical beings hidden from us?
Meet the charming animal characters representing endangered species, read their interesting, exciting, and informative adventures and stories.
What exactly is Javerwop?
The wonder of the wild, the magical and mystical all await you within the pages of this book!
Unfortunately, with the wonder, magical and mystical come the dark foes!
Which side will you take?
Will you answer the plea to help?
Mankind seems determined to destroy our beautiful world. They use and abuse nature’s abundance with no thought for the future.
Lady Eleanor and many of her animal friends have witnessed and experienced first-hand the devastation and destruction that can result.
Will people listen to their pleas?
A Fusion of Fact and Fiction
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Percy the Plastic Bag
Percy is a proud plastic bag and wants to work hard, and he loves to carry things for people. After leaving the Feed Me Supermarket, Percy is happy to be heading out to have a life of usefulness. Unfortunately, things don’t work out quite the way he thought they would. After Percy helped carry some cupcakes to the fete at the village green, things take a terrible turn for the worse, and Percy finds himself in all sorts of trouble. Plastic pollution is having a serious effect on our environment and wildlife. This story is about the travels of some plastic characters who find themselves going from being useful to no longer needed and getting themselves into all sorts of difficulties. It is both funny and sad and is written in a way to highlight awareness to single-use plastic. Have you ever wondered what really happens to some plastic after it is used and no longer needed? Where does it go and how does it get there? Through the eyes of the plastic characters and their humorous and tragic adventure, it is hoped in a fun way, to bring a greater understanding to children about the responsibility we have to protect our world against plastic waste.
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Pets Aplenty
Join novice vet, Paul Mitchell, in a further six months of hilarious escapades he experiences while working at Prospect House Veterinary Hospital. He's confronted by a ravenous pig while sunbathing naked in a cornfield. He locks jaws with a caiman with scale rot and battles with Doug, a vicious miniature donkey that's always sinking his teeth into him. It ends with a Christmas pet blessing which erupts into pandemonium as frightened pets and owners scatter through the pews. Throughout his adventures, Paul is loyally supported by the team at the hospital - in particular Beryl, the elderly one-eyed receptionist, and, Lucy the junior nurse - together with whom he shares this merry-go-round of mayhem. It's a gripping, fast page-turner that's guaranteed to keep animal lovers entranced.
Praise for Malcolm Welshman
‘... paints a vivid picture of many fascinating characters.'
Jim Wight, son of James Herriot‘... brings a smile to your face.'
Sir Terry Wogan‘Your story is a corker.'
Richard Madeley‘... hilarious stories straight from a vet's pen will keep you chuckling.'
Stella Whitelaw