Typecast

You'd think after blogging after all this time that I'd remember important dates such as the "birth" of this blog?  Oh no! Not me.  I missed my blog anniversary.  Again.  For the third year running!  For those who don't know, this blog was reborn on 27th July 2009 with the post " From Young Mum To Young Grandparent in 17 Years " so, to celebrate, I started  a Tumblr account that was long overdue .  I have a feeling that this will be a funnel for all the randomness that I find round and about.  Stuff that's too short for a blog post and too long for Twitter. I've celebrated with cake, naturally.  Cake supplied by a company called Baker Days* who wanted to send me cake because I'm a lovely person.  Who can argue with that? ( You don't need to answer that last question ) Anyway, I've noticed over the past year or so that the bloggers I connected with back in the olden days are seen as "Top Bloggers" with...

"Cup of tea with three, please." Did you just wrinkle your nose up at that? Yeah, that's the expression I am usually met with when someone ask me if I want a brew. "What's the problem?"  I ask.  "It's me that's drinking it!" The brew maker usually eyes me suspiciously and tries to counterbalance their shock with the fact that they are using extra sugar for me. "Not really," I reply and continue with the explanation that my husband has no sugar in his brew (he's a coffee drinker - let's just park that there for now) but could have two sugars in it like he used to.  If I had two and he had two that would be four spoons of sugar so, in actual fact, by me having three sugars, I'm saving you some.  Reverse logic or just an answer for everything? Truthfully, there is nothing better that a good strong cup of tea though although I am quite specific with my brew making.   I'm not one for newfangled flav...

If I asked you how busy you were at the moment what would your answer be? Me?  I'm swan-like.  You all think that I'm calm and serene but under the surface I'm paddling like mad. I'm incredibly busy at work at the moment (new job role, brand new project, exciting times), my blogging life is on the up and up (fantastic) and at home the long summer holidays have just started which means trying to keep a 13 year old occupied without it costing the Earth (impossible)! As you all know, I'm a little bit addicted to my online life and keep tabs on everything via my laptop, my new android tablet or my phone.  I've got apps for everything and I'm always trying to find the shortest and cheapest route from A to B, whether that be connecting with friends, paying the bills or being entertained. British Gas have approached me and asked if I could take part in their online campaign.  They want to showcase their brand new app that allows you to ...

What do you think when you see this picture? Apologies for the crapness of quality but we were driving through the countryside  at speed in the gypsy van and I only had my mobile phone with me.  We were on our way to Rochdale the other day to pick up a door (long story) and as we were driving over "the tops" we saw this wind farm. I'm not about to go into "the science bit" which discusses possibly how un-green renewable energy is or how renewable energy is responsible for a lot of the climate change issues.  From a layman's point of view, I personally think these are a thing of modern beauty. Should we be more receptive to harnessing natural resources?  I  originally saw this video in the b3ta newsletter a couple of years ago and it's stayed with me as it's such a clever commercial for a German company called Epuron . (popout : http://youtu.be/2mTLO2F_ERY ) I often wish that using natural power/energy wasn't quite so...

Sticking to my ethos of attempting recipes and making mistakes so that you don't have to, today's "recipe" is Orange Smoothie .  Now, bearing in mind that I cleaned the kitchen from top to bottom today and found a blender that I forgot I had, this was just a " chuck in what I think is supposed to go in " attempt at a smoothie. Ingredients: A blender (it doesn't have to be new) Some oranges or satsumas (I used five medium sized satsumas) 2 cups of milk ⅔  of a cup of sugar 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract Some ice cubes or 2 scoops of vanilla ice cream Method: Squeeze the living daylights out of the oranges and extract the juice.  Don't do what I did and just pick all the pith off and throw them in the blender because you don't have a juicer as you'll end up with "issues"*.  However, this does give me an opportunity to share this picture with you that hasn't had enough attention over the last two ...

This week's Soundtrack To My Life has been submitted by Neil Henderson.  Yet another Twitter introduction from a mutual online friend after - if my memory serves correctly - similar Strictly Come Dancing tweets from us both were tangoing their way across the interwebs. Neil tweets out the #tomorrowspaperstoday updates most evenings and can be easily distracted.  Here is Hendo's musical life story. ¨¨°º©©º°¨¨ Charles Jolly (Penrose) - The Laughing Policeman It doesn't matter how awful life is, this ancient 1890's recording of a musical hall artist always makes me grin.  I think it's the innocence of it. "He never can stop laughing He says he's never tried But once he did arrest a man And laughed until he cried!" Officialdom is inherently absurd and bad regimes reserve their toughest punishments for those that laugh at them the loudest.  So promote jolly police officers, say I !! (popout :  http://youtu.be/hI1nPd7hezM ) Jerusalem ...

This post was submitted to me within the ethos of  Blognonymous . The author is a friend who asked me if I would post this as a guest post but I think it's more appropriate as a Blognonymous post. I would be great if you could offer feedback or advice from both sides of the fence very much in a WWYD (what would you do) sense.  If you  prefer to remain anonymous yourself then there is  a "guest comment" facility - sign out of Disqus (if you have used it before), write your comment, click "Post as..." and you will see "guest" appear as an option. If you would like to contact the Blognonymous team please click on the image to above for more details. ¨¨°º©©º°¨¨ Today my 14-year old son (J) came home from school with a story.  First a little background.  He has a girlfriend (A), a sweet girl he's been friends with for quite a while but they've only been a couple for four months.  She's not his first girlfrien...

To the person in America who has bought The Inbetweeners . Keep your thieving hands off our stuff. Now fuck off and write your own comedy show. You're usually pretty good at it. I honestly can't understand how you can take the script, keep it almost exactly the same and it be so unfunny. How does that work? This version is so shit that you've not even allowed it to be embedded on websites. (Reader, hit the image to see the trailer.  But be warned.  You cannot unsee things.) I really hope this is an MTV wind-up and Ashton Kutcher is going to jump out from behind my settee and shout PUNK'D or Xzibit is going to cheer me up and pimp my ride...

If you'd have asked me a few years ago, I would have said that my greatest fear was never actually achieving anything with my life.  I was stuck in a rut of being a "stay at home mum", little confidence, few resources, living on benefits... you know what I mean... and then my mum died after a life-long battle with asthma, bronchiectasis and other lung-related illnesses ( I've still never plucked up the courage or found the right words to write about that yet... one day I will ) at the age of 55. My life and my goals changed immediately.  I knew there and then that I needed to live... to do something with my life and to get out of the rut that was slowly getting deeper and deeper.  Without going into details, we found ourselves more financially secure that we ever had been so we moved away from the town we were living in and started afresh where no-one knew us; where we were equals.  Changes were made within our family unit too.  I became the breadwinne...

I've been working with My Family Club for a while now and they are great at helping you to stretch your money a little bit further. We all know how exciting a trip to the flicks can be. But we also know that visiting the  cinema can be a pricey business. To help you get the best out of your summer, Diana from My Family Club  has rounded up the very best cinema deals and discounts.  For more details about guest posts please contact me and have a quick look at my disclosure policy . ¨¨°º©©º°¨¨ Orange Wednesdays 2 for 1 If you’re an Orange customer you can get 2 for 1 cinema tickets each Wednesday saving you money  on pricey group tickets!   But that’s not all, Orange Wednesdays also means free pizzas! Visit your nearest Pizza Express and  Orange customers can get 2 for 1 on both pizzas and dough balls. To take advantage of this delicious  offer, make sure you show your Orange Wednesday text tickets when you place your order.   L...

My own experiences of Wales and people speaking Welsh are limited to  not really understanding   the ' Owain Hughes'  joke in  Gavin and Stacy,  childhood trips to Rhyl and Prestatyn and knowing how to pronounce  Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch correctly .  The language is a mystery because learning it is not as easily accessible as you'd think.  It has a very 'sing song' type of rhythm and has always fascinated me.   Rewind to a Friday evening (post- #fridaytwiz ) conversation with Gwyn ( @KingOfAnkh ) and an in-depth conversation about solving maths problems (fuck, yeah... we know how to kick it on a Friday) and he drops the fact that he has to translate all numbers before working out the problem and then translate back.  Now, something stirred deep in my brain about Gwyn being Welsh (he makes no secret of it, after all) but I didn't know that Welsh was his first language.   ...

I've been a bit cheeky with Soundtrack To My Life and asked all sorts of people to participate.  I am very lucky that they have said "YES" without hesitation too.  One person that owed me a favour was Jez Clark - you may know him as one of the presenters on the Heart FM (Wiltshire) Breakfast Show (alongside my mate, Molly Forbes - her STML is coming soon).  Here, Jez plots the musical accompanyment through his radio career and tells us the story behind each of his choices. ¨¨°º©©º°¨¨ Rod Stewart - Maggie May I love this song as it reminds me of spending very hot sunny afternoons in my Dad's Kent garden near Tunbridge Wells playing with Porky the Airdale.  My parents divorced when I was very young and every other weekend my Dad would drive to South East London, collect me and take me out to rural Kent.  I remember my Dad's eight track cartridge machine in his Mini 1000 and he would often play Maggie May as we drove towards Tunbridge Wells....

Today is my 20th Wedding Anniversary  Rather than write about my wedding day again you can read the two posts that already exist. The Wedding To Have And To Hold I love this picture because I now realise how young we actually were when we got married and my mum is reflected in the car window.   Katie from orlajames.com said "Reading stories like the ones linked here is really moving, the determination to get married and be happy despite all odds is real love."

Do you name your gadgets?  If so, how you pick a name?   The other day I was reading Claire's blog and she mentioned that she called her Macbook Air " Doris " .  I  thought I'd jump on the bandwagon and name my beloved new Android tablet.  It is full of awesomeness, has been fawned over by everyone who I have allowed to touch it and I have already taken time out to write about the apps that I think every Android user should have .  But, short of a bit of inspiration, I opened it up to Twitter to help out.  Testament to my merry band of followers, the first two suggestions were: Dream of Electric Sheep from @Pattenicus Twiki from @KingOfAnkh Just in case you don't get the references straight away  like me then a quick search on Wikipedia provides links to a science fiction novel and a list of names given to (fictional) robots and androids from literature, cinema and television.  Clever...  But it's all a bit too clever...

Editors Note: It has been a while since we had a Cancer - Your Story post on the blog but the door is always ajar and I am very grateful that people spread the word on my behalf.   Heather Von St James emailed me after a conversation with Peggy ( Narrowboat Wife ) and has offered to share her journey with us.  Heather is a 43-year old wife and mother and upon her diagnosis of mesothelioma, she vowed to be a source of hope for other patients who found themselves with the same diagnosis.  Now, over 6 years later, her story has been helping people all over the globe.  She continues her advocacy and awareness by blogging, speaking and sharing her message of hope and healing with others.   You can read more of Heather's story at the Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance Blog  and find her on Twitter as @HeatherVSJ . Picture Credit | Flickr To share your story click on the image above for more details  ¨¨°º©©º°¨¨ Most have heard the sayi...

The internet is an amazing place for discovery of new interests and wonderful people.  I attended the podcasting session at Cybher that was run by The High Tea Cast and instantly became a fan of the ladies behind the scenes and the whole concept of podcasts.  I've managed to stop short of stalking the High Tea Cast team but only because Sam agreed to share her Soundtrack To My Life .  Here are her song choices and the story behind each one. ¨¨°º©©º°¨¨ Dire Straits - Money For Nothing This song reminds me so much of my childhood that when I hear it I feel instantly transported back to being five years old, in my Nan's front room, on a bright orange, 80s-style sofa.  My dad used to play Dire Straits, Pink Floyd, Queen and Elvis on a loop to me, even when I was a baby (through headphones) and this song in particular makes me smile. (popout : http://youtu.be/wTP2RUD_cL0 ) Green Day - Welcome To Paradise After going through a hideous boy band phas...