Landlocked Mermaid

Final Friday Top Five! Outdoor Water Activities Legit just chilling in a river. The water is my happy place, so in these trying times I thought it's be fun to look at my top five things to do at a body of water! Never mind that we are on lockdown and this might be legit torture! 5. Canoeing Me in a canoe last Earth Day   Best time to canoe? Well, when picking litter out of a canal for me, of course! I've never done a proper canoeing course because honestly the thought of purposely capsizing my boat freaked me the hell out. Naturally, I understand why they teach you it, it's so you can get back out of the boat. However, I have done canoeing and kayaking through school residentials and with my partner on adventure days. I always enjoy it and when my arms start to ache, I just like to chill and look for fish. Or mermaids. Or gindeylows if it is particularly weedy.   4. Stand Up Paddle Boarding An activity for everyone, pups included! Phot...

I am a massive advocate of reusable cups. Having worked in a coffee shop, I've seen first hand just how many paper cups are handed out every day - and the store I worked at was not a busy one. And even the stores which recycle their paper cups, the lids are still non-recyclable and that relies on the good will of people bringing them back and not just flinging them on the ground. Let's be honest, how many paper cups do you see strewn on the floor on a twenty minute walk into town? I would say on average around five. Count it next time, I'm curious! With this in mind, I thought it was high time to put my advocacy to the test and do a Pro/Con list on reusable cups. To start with: They are better for the environment. Reusable cups are much less wasteful than paper cups. 2.5 billion coffee cups are thrown away a year in the UK alone. Having a reusable eliminates the opportunity for litter or cups ending up in landfill. If every person switched to reusable cups th...

With more cases of COVID-19 cropping up over the UK and people self isolating, it's looking more likely that we'll go the way of Italy and lockdown. It's daunting and I am not ashamed to admit the coming months scare me. As we slowly shut down, what is the likelihood someone will hire me? Who do I know and love will come down with the virus? Will I get it? Who will it take from me? How difficult is it all going to get? #Coronanxiety These questions take up far too space in my head. And I have very little control over them or their outcome. So I really shouldn't waste my brain power on them and concentrate on the things which are in my power. For a lot of people, the idea of working from home and staying indoors feels like a surefire way to descend into lethargy, depression, and the days blurring into one. This is not really much of a change for me - I have been unemployed for six months now. So I am going to be a friendly neighbourhood mermaid, and share my...

Marine Creature of the Month Famous Fish: Jaws Poster from arthipo Great White Shark   As March is my Birthday Month (yes, I milk it for that long) I thought it was high time I covered the OG Famous Fish on #MCotM.  Photo from Oceana Kingdom: Animalia Class: Chrondrichthyes Conservation Status: Vulnerable WHAT IS JAWS? Thanks to the 1975 blockbuster, Jaws , the great white shark is possibly one of the most famous sharks swimming about in the ocean. It belongs to the Mackerel Shark family, which also contains basking sharks, goblin sharks, and thresher sharks. Great whites are known for their size, being among the biggest sharks alive today. Females are larger than the males, averaging at 4m (13ft) for the males and 4.9m (16ft) for the females. Certain specimens have been known to grow as large as 6m (20ft), like the one living off the coast of Mexico known as Deep Blue .  Like all sharks, great white skeletons are made out of ca...

In case you missed it, it was my Birthday this week. I am 29 whole years old. Although, I fear I can remove the "29 whole years" of that sentence and it would still be true! Now, my Birthday often creeps up on me - I think it's because of how short February is, maybe? I don't know. But I had a whole extra twenty hours this year - so if that was not an excuse to do something then I don't know what was. The best birthday cakes are a pile I have bought many cupcake recipe books over the years despite having zero patience for the intricate icing they often demand. I turned to these for inspiration for my cake. The first was very much too much faff for me to deal with and none of the flavour combos seemed worth using, so I turned to the second which I found for 80% in WHSmiths many years ago: Cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery. I have no idea where the Primrose Bakery is but I am apparently powerless to a £3 cookbook. (I got one for Chinese food at the sam...