With a new school term about to commence after the summer break, mental health expert Noel McDermott looks at how to handle transition issues and offers ways to help prepare your child in advance.

As families flee the crowds this summer, Andrew Palmer discovers that Augill Castle's secret isn't its turrets or its 148 windows, but a philosophy its owner sums up in one line: "I make a fuss by not making a fuss." There is a particular kind of fuss that ruins a family holiday.

The Killers frontman’s connection with country runs deep, rooted in childhood journeys through Utah with his father, soundtracked by the likes of Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings. That history gives the album an authenticity that goes beyond simply adding pedal steel and acoustic guitars to a rock record. Flowers understands the storytelling tradition at the heart of the country, using it to revisit memories, places and experiences while giving them his own unmistakable voice.

Earlier this year, one of my miniature Mediterranean donkeys, Jasper, sustained an injury, the cause of which was unknown. Despite a couple of visits from the vet, no diagnosis was made, and the only advice I was given was to give him box rest and painkillers. Unhappy with the vet’s advice, I decided to look into the matter further myself.

Grieg, born in Bergen in 1843 and long celebrated as Norway's National Composer, turned to the piano throughout his career but had little appetite for the German sonata, preferring instead the short forms he called Lyriske stykker — published across ten volumes and steeped in the folk idiom of his homeland. Donohoe has resisted the temptation to record them in sequence, instead ordering the pieces to his own design. The gamble pays off. This second volume is every bit as delightful as the first, with poetry springing from Donohoe's fingers with a delicacy that borders on illusion — his left hand so controlled you barely notice its work until you try to imagine the music without it.

Ribblesdale High School student Alfie Rowley began Thai boxing training at his local gym Northwest Muay Thai in Padiham aged 15 and now having just turned 20 he’s the combat sports coach on board HMS Queen Elizabeth, one of the UK’s two aircraft carriers.

Fletchr Fletchr On The Island We Call Home Tracks: Passenger, Fucking With My Head, For You, Karma, Streetlights Label: FF Records Fletchr Fletchr has been building towards this moment for some time.

There is an obvious risk in committing a live Verdi Requiem to disc: strip away the theatre of the hall and a performance can shrink. Not here. Captured in spatial audio during three January 2026 performances at Severance Music Center, this new Cleveland Orchestra release loses none of the immediacy of the room, and gains something the audience in the stalls never had — the chance to sit inside the balance itself, with strings and voices arriving from every direction rather than simply from the front.

Texas red dirt country singer-songwriter Wade Bowen is finally letting go of an album that has been sitting quietly in the vault. His eleventh studio album, The Version Of Me You Get, arrives on 25 September 2026 via Thirty Tigers, with ten tracks that reveal a grittier, more vulnerable and soulful side of the artist.

Pretending not to Sleep The waiting rooms are full of ‘characters’ Pretending not to sleep. Your eyes are open But you’re far away At home, am Rhein, with mother and the cats. Your hair grazes my wrist. My cold hand surprises you. The porters yawn against the slot-machines And watch contentedly; they know I’ve lost.

The right cars at the right time. That would seem to sum up French manufacturer Renault at the moment. First it introduced us to the all-electric Renault 5, a car that is selling exceptionally well. They are everywhere, with most in vibrant colours making them easy to spot.

Andrew Palmer finds himself looking back across the Leeds skyline towards the Pinnacle tower — once the tallest building in the city, and once the site of his first taste of the view from the top — while getting reacquainted with Thai food that has rather more to offer than its postcode suggests. There is a particular strain of nostalgia that comes from sitting i…

Heaton Jenius Tracks: Can't Get Next To You, Favourite Kind Of Idiot (ft. Rianne Downey), I Want The Job (ft. Rianne Downey), Sad Songs and Lawsuits, She Ain't Pretty (ft. Rianne Downey), One Eye Open, Send In The Clowns, Do Not Ask Me (ft. Rianne Downey), Don't Lean On Me (ft. Rianne Downey), Jet Black Sky, The Whisky Did (ft.