Landlocked Mermaid

It was the AGM last Tuesday for Shrewsbury Sub Aqua Club . Next month, I will have been diving (or rather learning how to) for a year. Where has the time gone?! Most of the meeting was about budgets and the business side of things. But part of the meeting was to decide the new committee members, vote on who'd volunteered, and finalise the new committee. There were a few positions changing this year. I was considering volunteering for them but without knowing what the positions entailed, I was a little hesitant. Instead, myself, my partner, and a fellow from our Ocean Diver course were offered the chance to be general members of the committee. This was confirmed at the AGM. I am very excited to be involved because it means I can learn a little more about the committee roles and what they do, so that next year I can make an informed decision about which I would like to volunteer for. Being a general committee member also means I can give back to the club which has given me a...

Final Friday Top Five! Marine Mammals 5. Blue Whale Photo from Live Science     Who doesn't love the blue whale? They are the largest creature to have ever lived. Ever! And Qi fans will know that the answer has to be blue whale. They are so incomprehensibly huge. It boggles my brain that I share a planet with the largest creature to have ever lived. I genuinely cannot fathom how big they are. 4. Manatee Photo from Defender of Wildlife Dylan told me manatees move forward by farting. What a fact!! But also, they are huge mammals which sustain themselves on a vegetarian diet. I love nature. It's so fun. 3. Polar Bear My reason for this has nothing to with polar bears. It's because of Lucas the Spider. The way he says polar bear is so cute and I cannot say it any other way. 2. Risso's Dolphin Photo from Monteray Bay Aquarium Everyone loves bottlenose dolphins. I love Risso's dolphins. When playi...

I love hot sauce. Hot sauce is life. In particular, I love peri peri sauce. We get through a lot in our household and it is not the cheapest item. Between that and an empty bottle of Kraken rum, I had an epiphany. Make. My. Own. The finished thing. It did not take long to find a suitable recipe online, from Whisk Affair , for me to try! It even teased that it would taste just like Nandos, which is the best way to hook me in. I have actually wanted to make a hot sauce for some time now, but always assumed the ingredients would be hard to come by and too complicated to make. But that was really not the case. INGREDIENTS 250g Red or orange pepper(s) 100g Red onion 50g Chilis - the recipe recommends African chillis, I just got what Morrisons had 10-12 cloves of Garlic 1 tbsp Paprika 1 tbsp Red chilli powder 1 tbsp Dried oregano 1/2 tsp Black pepper powder 1/2 cup White vinegar 2 tsp Salt 1/4 Olive oil 3 tbsp Lemon juice - the recipe also called for lemon z...

Ancient Seas Ichthyosaurus Photo from DK Find Out! Kingdom: Animalia Class: Reptilia Conservation Status: Extinct (EX) Era: Late Triassic - Early Jurassic WHAT WAS IT? Discovered in the early 19th century, Ichthyosaurus was a large marine reptile which belongs to the order of Ichythosaurs. From the early Triassic to late Cretaceous eras, there were at least fifty species of Ichythosaur roaming the ancient seas. It is believed they evolved from a land reptile which returned to the sea - much like with whales and dolphins - and came to look similar over the years through convergent evolution. The Ichthyosaurus is the type genus of the spieces. WHAT DID IT LOOK LIKE? This marine reptile looked rather similar to dolphins, it is believed. They had dorsal fins, flippers, and a large caudal fin. In comparison to the others of the species, Ichthyosaurus was around the average size for the genus - measuring at around 3.3m (10.8ft) - whereas other species foun...

In case you missed it, I love my hair. It is a mad curly mane, but it is my mad curly mane. Since ditching the traditional shampoo and conditioner bottles, I have been working out a haircare routine that is both good for my hair and my environment. For the most part, coconut oil and shampoo bars have been working for me. But sometimes it just needs that extra bit of TLC.   Relatively tame, post-shower mane.   When my hair was longer, I genuinely took twenty minutes to brush it. I'd get the knots out of the bottom but brush more into it when I tackled the top. To combat this, I invested in some leave-in conditioner spray. But my bottle ran out quite some time ago. I have been looking for one I can make myself, but a lot of recipes on google use gylcerin. I have no idea where to buy that from. So I took to my new favourite website. You guessed it, Pinterest. I found plenty of recipes which did not involve gylcerin, and more coconut based products. I decided to...

Giant Clam Tridacna Gigas Photo from Maritime Review Kingdom: Animalia Class: Bivalvia Conservation Status: Vulnerable (Vu) WHERE ARE THEY FOUND? Giant clams are found across the South Pacific and Indian Oceans. They live off the coast of Australia, the Philippines, India, and East Africa. These are mostly tropical waters. WHAT IS THEIR HABITAT? They live in reefs like the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia. They can be found in depths up to 20m (66ft) upon coral sands or broken coral. Being relatively shallow, these waters are light and warm, and support quite a complex ecosystem. Giant clams share their home with microscopic plankton and phytoplankton as well as bigger creatures such as dolphins, whales, sharks, and sea turtles. Not to mention the thousands of fish species which reefs support. Photo from 1770 Reef WHAT DO THEY EAT? Giant clams are filter feeders. They eat the microscopic life forms floating in the water co...

I had every intention of this being a proper Sharks @ 7 & 3/4 video. However, our sister got married this weekend, so all planning went out the window because I was partying all weekend long. The best kind of party.  Instead, I let the kids loose on my shark colouring book! All the colours They seemed to enjoy it.  Co-operating and everything! Getting creative Dylan coloured quicker than Addy, so he started to draw some extras. Naturally, Addy did too. But they are the cutest pictures. And yes, there is blood dripping from the mouth of Addy's shark. The finished thing. Almost, it gains a few more jellies. Addy's was inspired by Elmer the Elephant. Dylan never specified what inspired his.  Sea Turtle and fish. Jellyfish. These were a specific jellyfish, but Dylan speaks too fast and my brain is too slow today to ask him to repeat it slow enough for me to jot it down! Regardless, such beautiful additions to the pict...

I love to read. Always have. As a kid I wandered around Hogwarts with the Golden Trio (and wondered why there was not more Neville). As a teen, I adventured around Tortall with all the heroines. As an adult, I read ahead of Game of Thrones and felt really smug when people were theorising what was going to happen and I just knew.  Over the last few years, I have struggled to keep up with reading. Between busy lives and Netflix being so easy to binge, books have stayed on the shelf. However, my family and friends have a book club which recently celebrated its second Birthday, and that gets me reading at least one book a month. (Providing I actually read the selected book, there have been a few which I didn't.) Still, slowly but surely, my love for reading is returning.  And with that comes a TBR Pile. A small section of my TBR Pile My "to be read" pile largely consists of books borrowed from other people, but in it are a few books which I hope wi...