Landlocked Mermaid

Bruce and Chum's Shark Spotlight Let's learn about.... Bamboo Sharks Juvenile Burmese Bamboo Shark. Photo from Shark Sider Shark Family: Carpet sharks Shark Brothers: Epaulette sharks, Speckled Carpet sharks, Wobbegongs Conservation Status: Near Threatened (NT) Chillin' during the day. Photo from Memorial Library Life Cycle They develop for 100 days in an egg before hatching. As yong sharks they have bold patterns. They are nocturnal sharks; hunt at night and hide in rocks during the day. When mature, females lay one or two round egg cases every six to seven days, for around two months. Bamboo Shark egg sac. Photo from MarineFishEZ Facts Bamboo sharks can survive out of water for half a day! They hunt in small pools along the corals and rocky reefs. When the tide goes out, they can get stranded among the now exposed seabed. They have muscular pectoral fins which they can use like legs to traverse dry land. Unfortuna...

Final Friday Top Five! Top Five Sea Songs There are loads of songs about the sea, or the seaside, here are my top five. 5. Beyond the Sea - Robbie Williams Back when this song came out, I was a massive Robbie Williams fan. Rock DJ was my jam. Swing When You're Winning came out shortly after, so naturally I had to have it. This album is responsible for my love of big band music. (Well, this and the Pop Idol album .) I genuinely used to sing Mack the Knife around the playground.  Bonus, this song was used on the Finding Nemo soundtrack which was a classic from my childhood. So whenever I hear this song, I can picture the beautiful ocean animation. To date, it is still my favourite version of this song.  4. We Belong To The Sea - Aqua Yes. That Aqua. Barbie Girl and Doctor Jones aside, they did a few good songs. And this is one of them. I have a lot of music. Like, 10,000+ songs on my iTunes. I am slowly working my way through all ...

Ordinarily, I would be taking this opportunity to talk about diving. But as it is way too cold to dive in semi-dry suits in the UK at the moment, my only update is that people loose an alarming amount of plasters in pools. So I thought I'd talk about another aspect of my life: adventure and fitness. As I have mentioned in the past, my partner and I love a good adventure and we are hoping to have plenty this year. We are also entering a few running events this year and are actually taking training seriously this year. Our town hosts a 10k road race every year; so far my training has consisted of two runs in January and then one the week before the event. I have had little to no improvement over the years! But this year we are upping our game. There is a schedule. It is colour coded. And it is on a whiteboard, so less wasteful than paper! It took some serious brain power to get those boxes even! And to further my dedication to my fitness this year, I have even boug...

Over the last nine or so months, I have been slowly making changes in my life so that I depend less and less on single-use plastics. It's not been as hard as I feared; it was all very daunting at the beginning with so much to change. But it's amazing to see how much I've already done and what ideas I have to further it all.  Jay cloths --> Microfibre cloths I have actually had a load of microfibre cloths for ages. My Nan gave me a packet when I moved into my flat. I used to use them as tea towels, with varying success, so when I moved in with my partner they just got chucked in with the rest of the towels and largely over looked for the ones which actually dried stuff. But when I was considering jay cloth replacements my brain finally kicked into gear and remembered what they are actually good for! They are great for cleaning down the counter, soaking up spills, and don't scratch the hob. And I have enough that I can rotate them every few days and not...

Hello everyone! Welcome to one of my new shiny regular segments: Mermaid Kitchen. I love to bake, always have. Admittedly, I do it with varying degrees of success, especially in my old kitchen with bad counter heights and an oven which only cooked on one side! But since living with my partner, I have a nice big counter to prepare on and a decent oven so my baking mojo is alive and well. As part of my 2019 goals, I want to make more. Make more food from scratch. Make more crafty things. Make more beauty products. This is all part of my way of trying to reduce my plastic impact on the environment. So I thought it'd be prudent to share incase it inspires anything for you guys or (better yet) you have any tips for me to improve what I'm doing, or any ideas you'd like me to guinea pig for you. Changes are easier when you do it together. One of the reasons why I want to bake more is, well, because I like cake. I like to have something sweet in my lunchbox, pudding is a m...

At University, I used to drink a lot of coffee on the go. Between poor sleeping habits and deadlines, caffeine was a staple of my diet.  I would mostly use the paper cups. Occasionally, I would try to save myself some money and take fruit tea in my thermos but it terrible - it leaked both heat and liquid so my drink would be cold and/or gone before I even made it up the hill to Uni! I recall walking through the town centre with a mug of coffee on more than one occasion. I thought it made me quirky. But thanks to a 180 flip, my body no longer relies on caffeine and makes me feel pretty crappy when I do fancy a cup.  However, I do work in a coffee shop. (I know, right?!) I see the same people, day in, day out, who rely on their coffee to go. Sometimes it is hard handing out the paper cups. I even try to tell them of the monetary benefit - many coffee chains give you money off or double stamps for bringing in your own cup. Sometimes it doesn't fall on deaf ears. But, sin...

Originally this was going to be a three part piece, but I have decided that it isn't really needful. The edible part of my gifts were fudge, of both the vegan and non-vegan variety. You'll be getting both recipes today. Both were found on Pinterest, aka my new favourite place for recipes and all things fun. (Seriously, I have sent my sister so many crochet squid hats, you wouldn't have thought there were that many!) My unofficial new year's resolution is to make more things. I say "unofficial" because I did not need January 1st to start this and was already doing it towards the end of 2018. What I am going to do is blog more about it. I want to get crafty and my bake on; all as a means of reducing my plastic intake and living sustainably. It's going to be a steep learning curve, and probably a lot of my brain going, "jsbdfekjbwrgouh." Are you ready for this? 😂😂 But back to Christmas. Fudge and bath bombs, packaged and ready for Sa...

Happy New Year! I hope you all have a happy and healthy 2019, full of adventure and fun! While I get my new schedule and posts in order, I am going to take this one last opportunity to look back on 2018. I think it's been a good start to the blog and I'm looking forward to aiming for bigger and better things! I thought it'd be fun to list my top five viewed posts.   5. The Waterbike Collective (posted 20/7) This was when I discovered the Say Yes More initiative and the YesTribe . All thanks to my partner being their hero, I got to find out about their Waterbike mission to pick up a million pieces of river litter, Yestival, and hopefully more of their future projects. Hughie in action on the bike. 4. Finding My Fins: Porth Ysgaden (posted 24/7)  One of the biggest things I have done this year is learning how to dive. This was my first sea dive, off the beautiful Welsh coast with SSAC.  I am looking forward to going on more trips ...