Shark Week! Lets talk blood! - Pink Parcel Review

That time of the month, Aunt Flo from Redcar is visiting, the painters are in, you've fallen to the communists, it's the red tide, you're cursed, on the rag, on the blob, surfing the crimson wave...basically it's shark week...yes ladies let's talk periods! (but gentlemen, do not stop reading, you can score awesome caring points later in this post, from the lady in your life!)

Poor Mr TM lives in a house with two ladies. (I use the term loosely) there is me of course, but there is also the adorable DD and of course being female and living together we not only experience shark week we synchronise it!

All that baggage that Aunt Flo brings with her when she comes to visit! Having the painters in would be bad enough but there's the delightful hormone swings, the cramps, the the THE JUST FEELING BLOODY ANNOYED ABOUT EVERYTHING OK!?

So it was with delight that DD and I agreed to review the Pink Parcel and the Teen Parcel.

The idea is fairly simple, they choose nice things for you each month and send them to your house along with your chosen sanitary protection. Thus both delighting you and saving you the sudden rush to Tesco Express on a Friday night in your worst pants and a dressing gown, clutching a hot water bottle.

The website allows you to choose your sanitary protection choice from tampons and towels and make a choice within that about flow etc (sorry to be graphic chaps, bear with me) You set up your dates (which you can change at any time if Aunt Flo is late etc) and then you just wait for the goodies!

There are sweet things for that carb craving, fancy teas because , well we are British we do tea at times of national crisis so on a day we've fallen to the communists sounds like a good excuse! There are beauty things to make us feel lovely (we still are lovely obviously but we don't always feel it)

DD was very excited with them both, but being a fairly grown up 15 year old she was equally happy with the contents of the Pink Parcel as the teen one, though she has found use for the spot cream!(and eaten my chocolate!)

If I had one criticism  it's that they don't cater to hippy ladies like me that don't need disposable sanitary protection each month, maybe they could look at an extra option maybe with a pair of nice panties or something? Just an idea.
The boxes are beautifully designed and unpacking them is a fun joy - DD even squealed about the cute little tampon bag.

Your first Pink Parcel is £5.95 and after that they cost £9.99 a month, that includes postage. They are filled with really nice branded goodies and I would say that they are worth the money.

I would think that they would make a super gift to yourself to remind you each month to love yourself, make your visit from Mother Nature more of a celebration than a curse. They would also be a lovely present for your daughter to welcome her to the world of womanhood.

And now chaps - you still reading? Good -Here is where you gain maximum kudos, buy a subscription for the lady in your life, show her that you appreciate the discomfort of a period, that you know she has a hard time of it once a month, and that you want to let her know it's OK to treat herself. Make her feel special at a time when she doesn't feel very special at all.  And after shark week maybe she'll remember how nice you were....WHEN YOU ARE NOT ANNOYING THE CRAP OUT OF HER! sorry where was I ? Oh yes, so there we are, a gorgeous gift box to make surfing the crimson wave a little more lovely.

Pink Parcel is specifically looking to create more open conversations around periods, so that women and teens no longer feel embarrassed or afraid. They encourage women to join the conversation via Twitter using the hashtag #AMonthlyThing. Pink Parcel also hosts a blog on their website with tips and information to debunk period myths. Why not follow them on Twitter and Facebook?

Teen Parcel &  Pink Parcel on Twitter

Disclosure - I was sent one of each Teen and Pink Parcel for the purposes of the review

Ranty Rant - Paid to stop smoking

OK so I’m pissed off, I’m not alone I know and I bet this post is echoed on mummy blogs across the UK right now but…well this is Random Rantings, I encourage a rant. Here’s my rant of the day.

‘Women paid to give up smoking when pregnant’ An eye catching and rant worthy headline indeed.

You will recall I was similarly ranty about ‘Women paid to breastfeed’

I imagine most people would instantly balk at the idea, paid to do something you should either do anyway or at least that you should just make a personal choice over? Why bribe someone into making a good choice? Why reward someone for doing the right thing? Don’t we as humans have intellect, a moral compass, and a brain capable of making rational and informed decisions?

It’s not the only time ‘incentives’ have been used either. People have been paid to lose weight too and I’m sure there are other examples. (Who else remembers this little gem of an idea from 2009)

Ranty me can’t help wondering if, as I am, you are lazy is it not reasonable for the NHS to chuck us £20 or so to go for a brisk walk! It might sway me.

Yes but it works you say? It saves money and lives you say? The ethics don’t matter if it works the politicians cry!

Don’t they? Really? They are arguing that the end justifies the means? Well then I suggest a cheaper but I’m sure equally effective idea. We bring back the stocks. People caught making the wrong life choices should be placed in the stocks on the village green with a sign round their neck and we can fling rotten fruit at them. I bet that would work too. Would it make it OK if it worked?

Copyright: / 123RF Stock Photo

Do the ends ever justify the means? What do you think? Is paying people to behave well a reasonable idea?

First World Problems

Jam on cream? Cream on jam? #firstworldproblems

It's a weird phrase and one that many dislike 'First world Problems' . It appears to have been created at first to poke fun at people that have it all but still manage to complain about it - to make them think about what they are saying and as a gentle prod to remind them that many people would be glad to be able to moan that their shower water was too hot, that the white wine ran out and you had to drink red etc...shades of Marie Antoinette and her (probably fake) announcement that if the peasants had no bread, they should eat cake.

It was then appropriated by people as a tag, at least on twitter, to show they knew, they knew they were being a a bit silly, that the complaint was at best petty, but they wanted to moan anyway. And why not. Saying you cannot have a problem because someone else has worse ones is as silly (in my eyes) as saying you can't be having a good life because other people have better ones!

So I had a little snigger at this tweet earlier

My bread is too tall for my toaster. #firstworldproblems
— Elizabeth (@Eliza_Do_Lots) January 26, 2015

It's a problem I'm very familiar with. I'm 49 and have used a lot of toasters and a lot of sliced bread in my life and I have NEVER found a toaster to toast the top 1cm of a slice. I'm with the tweeter above, why don't toaster manufacturers and bread makers go out for a beer and sort this out! Surely it can't be too complicated after all, as Spencer pointed out, the future is here!

Ermagerd! Just seen a man call someone USING HIS WATCH. IN IKEA. The future just arrived, and it's wearing A LOT of denim.
— Spencer (@ADadCalledSpen) January 26, 2015

Also today I was reading the BBC article, quoting bank Credit Suisse about where the 1% of the wealthiest people on earth live. It's based purely on assets and takes no account of cost of living or income, so it's a statistic rather than a useful fact but it's still interesting. The top 1% of the wealthiest own £530,000 or more each (and there  are 47 million of them, so I doubt they all play golf together)  the top 10% have £50,000 of assets and the top 50% only £2,400 in assets! Makes you think doesn't it.

But what of actual income vs cost of living? That would make more sense. So I had a hunt and found a site that would compare that with the rest of the world too. Another surprising statistic. A single mum with one child taking home £10,000 in the UK for example is in the top 18% of the world and earns 6.3 times the global average. Try it for yourself and see what you think.

I'm pretty sure that we are all richer than we think and the #firstworldproblems tag is no bad thing as a reminder sometimes. We can complain of course but if you are reading this chances are you are high on the list of wealthiest people on the planet even if some months it's hard to believe.

Online communication, social media and the perils of reading between the lines

I was chatting to Mr TM this morning because a blogging chum had dared raise her head above the virtual parapet and declared that vlogging (video blogging) was not for her. She wrote that she didn't like it, and wouldn't do it.

I agreed with her as did several other people, we also discussed whether maybe it was age related as young people (and here I cite DD as an example) frankly love Youtube and vloggers and would probably cheerfully watch video blogs of other young people unwrapping lipstick and boxes of Lego until the cows come home.

But some people suggested she may have 'upset some people' and she (and I ) wondered why. Why does having a personal opinion upset people online, because it certainly seems to!

In our discussion Mr TM and I decided that maybe, particularly on twitter where characters are in short supply, but also on blogs, the fact that there is no dialogue only a statement means that not only can you not quickly clarify your position, as you would if chatting, but also people read what you haven't written...and I don't know why.

For example, If I state "I loathe bananas" I am stating just that, I, me, personally, dislike bananas to an extreme amount. But often the reader, a passionate lover of yellow bent fruits, reads "Bananas are loathsome" they may also read "and therefor anyone who likes them is an idiot, only fools like bananas, bananas should be banned." But it's not there, it's not a subtext, no one said it.

So Internet people, chill, let people have an opinion, read what they write, not what you think they mean and even more importantly, check who they are, some people, myself included, often post things online in a very tongue-in-cheek way.

By the way, I did find Wolf Hall last night dreadfully boring.

Book Review - Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey

For Christmas the lovely Mr TM bought me a book token, for a HUGE sum of money as he cunningly remembered how I cannot walk into a bookshop without needing all the books.

I'm sure some of you know that feeling. The smell of the paper, the rustling sounds of the words wriggling impatiently on the pages, itching to be picked up, read, taken home...

So a couple of weeks ago we went out into the cold and wandered into the warm and cosy land of the book shop. A proper bookshop with tables of enticing new reads, an upstairs with a coffee shop, with carpet in all book sections and randomly spaced comfy leather sofas, the sort of shop that wants to envelope you and keep you until you are one with it.

I had asked twitter for some book suggestions and had been recommended 'The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry' by Rachel Joyce, and while looking through the H-K section in hope I stumbled on a rather interestingly covered book, 'Elizabeth is Missing' by Emma Healey. The cover looked fascinating, a scrap of paper, a drawing and some rather good reviews...I turned the book in my hands. I knew I needed it when I saw it was about a woman called Maud, what a super old lady name.

Maud has dementia, maybe Alzheimers, she is not stupid but she struggles to keep pieces of her life in order, to keep words together, to remember things. She leaves notes but what do they mean? And is the note about not cooking really for her? Who keeps buying tinned peaches? One note says that Elizabeth is missing. Maud is convinced of this one fact and no one, not her daughter, not the police, will make her give up her search.

The book twists through Maud's days, entwining her past with her present, sometimes even the reader cannot see what is real, what is remembered, what is dreamed. But Maud is a stubborn old bird, she will get to the bottom of the mystery, she will find out what has happened to Elizabeth, and we are swept along with her to the end.

The book is harrowing at times, I had a neighbour very like Maud, who would pop round to tell us the same thing each day and at all hours, who would forget who we were, or forget she lived next door to us when she had left her driveway, the portrayal of Maud in this book was terribly accurate, heartbreakingly poignant.

And the writing..I was caught by the brilliance of the style and the phrasing in this book, often more poetry than prose in it's clever use of imagery. I leave you with one of my favourite bits from the book.

"A bang, somewhere in the house , makes my eyes skitter across the sitting room, there's an animal, and animal for wearing outside, lying over the arm of the settee. Its' Carla's. She never hangs it up, worried she'll forget it, I expect. I can't help staring at it, sure it will move, scurry away to a corner, or eat me up and take my place. And Katy will have to remark on it's big eyes, it's big teeth.

...

The front door clicks shut and I hear Carla locking it after her. Locking me in. I watch her through the window as she crunches across my path. She wears a coat with a fur-edged hood over her uniform. A carer in wolf's clothing."

I cannot recommend this book highly enough, it made me laugh and cry by turns. Read it. You can follow Emma Healey on Twitter

Oh, and I bought 'The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry' by Rachel Joyce too - next to read and review!

See what else is being read at

News Round up - this week - Women in the News

I love to surf the web reading odd news from around the world each morning before I get up - so I thought I'd gather some of the best (may not be the correct description) news stories in a blog post to spare you the hunting. To keep it somewhat organised I've decided to go with a theme, so here are my favourite (again may be an inaccurate description) news stories from around the web. Not all are nice, not all are happy, not all are funny, but they are all about women. Enjoy (or at least - read)

Let's begin with a particularly horrible tale of a missing actress. Her family worry she has been kidnapped and maybe forced into the sex trade, but then residents in her apartment block notice the water in the taps starts to taste bad...

Police said the body of aspiring actress Carmen Yarira Noriega Esparza, 27, was found in the tank by council workers responding to reports of foul tasting water.

 Moving right along to a horrific account of a beheading of a woman in Saudi. Found guilty of the abuse and murder of a child a woman is publicly executed. Don't click if you are easily upset, contains graphic description.

There are two ways to behead people according to Mohammed al-Saeedi, a human rights activist: “One way is to inject the prisoner with painkillers to numb the pain and the other is without the painkiller,”

 Meanwhile in Philadelphia a woman is killed while taking a photo,from the ledge of an eigth floor window, as you do

On Thursday evening during rush hour, a young woman fell from an apartment building

  OK enough with the unpleasant, the tragic and the sad, next on news round up a more light hearted affair, a woman sues a tights manufacturer over her lack of pantyhose inspired orgasms.

Wang’s suit argues that the company didn’t follow through on its ‘tension relief and massage claims’ and says the ads used misleading language.

 In BBC News the Lords say there are just not enough women in current affairs programs. Maybe they should give me a call...

  Lord Best said: "Although on the surface it appears that women are well represented, the facts tell a different story.

  The telegraph wants to know if white wine makes women 'loopy' (spoiler - The evidence for the "crazy white wine effect" is entirely anecdotal.)

  women interviewed variously blame white wine (but only white wine, not any other sort of alcohol) for sending them into such a crazy rage that they smash furniture and break windows

And on both web and TV a campaign has both lovers and haters. How do women really feel about exercise? Do you exercise? does being fat and jiggly and sweaty impact on what you choose to do? or where you choose to do it? I have to confess that the slow girl on the bike muttering 'I'm lapping everyone on the couch' did make me think that I could do maybe just a bit of exercise...

 a national campaign developed by Sport England—is inspiring women to feel confident and get active, whatever their size, shape, age, or fitness level.

  And last but not least an opinion piece in the Guardian about boobs. Should we stop policing breasts? Who is complaining about them (I have a hint it's more likely to be women than men) and if women are right to bare breasts should we complain if men look at them?

So, to recap, breasts imagined through a man’s eyes and painted by his brush are high art, but women choosing to use these parts of their own bodies to feed their children is potentially offensive

Poem - written after passing a dead fox in the rain

Reynard in Rain

Fur; dirty, limp, in flying spray

sad and quiet, laying flayed

each passing car is washing fur

the only sound the rasping purr

of an engine.

Blood; long dried and stilled

in a body cool and killed

fleet of foot but none can outrun death

and now just skin, fur, bone, no breath

is left behind.

Copyright: / 123RF Stock Photo

Dieting, New Year and a free app

I don’t usually do ‘health’ blogging, or diets…rarely even recipes and I don’t think I’ve ever reviewed an app. But it’s dark and cold and wet and January and I haven’t been out much except to work and I’m feeling fat and the TV is all diet ads, so why not eh?


As you know I decided (for reasons explained here) to take part in Dry January and to see if the lack of alcohol would make any difference to my weight (after all it’s just empty calories) I needed to weigh myself…big mistake. I think the last time I stepped on the scales I was a little over 10 stone (140lbs) so imagine my look of delight horror when the scales didn’t come to rest until they hit 11st1lb (155lb). This is the heaviest I have ever been and I'm pretty sure that includes when I was pregnant! Obviously this insidious creep of fat upon my person must be stopped!

But I am not one of those weirdoes that dons a pair of ‘toed’ running shoes and zips about the neighbourhood after dark like a neon lycra clad ninja, no. I am a more subtle lazy dieter. So I did what any tech minded geek would do, I looked for an app to help.


A fitbit was mentioned by many (pft! you twitter folk!) – but after a swift look at price and use (I cannot wear anything on my wrist at work, I rarely exercise) it seemed fairly pointless for me. The FatSecret app however seemed perfect. Not least as it is available on line, on ipad and on android AND you can add sleeping as one of your forms of exercise! Perfect.

The app is very simple and you can sync all devices with web access too. You add your gender, age, height, weight and target weight and how quickly you want to get to the target. The app calculates your necessary calorie intake and all you need to do it put in what you eat and what you do each day. Simple. There are graphs, food tracking etc it’s all very slick looking and I found it easy to use on android and ipad. Perfect for dieters but could be just used as a food diary too, or for recipe ideas (it has recipes too did I mention that?) for general info on fat, sugar and carb levels in food and drink too.

The best thing is that the app is free! Give it a try. I really like this app and can see lots of possibilities. DD says it needs ‘cheerleading’ in the exercise types list, and I think it needs the addition of ‘Running Nerf Battle’ but as it includes 'breastfeeding' , ‘sexual activity’ and ‘hunting’(I'm going to use that for the Nerf battles) amongst others, I think the exercise choices are pretty comprehensive!

Wish me luck – and if you choose to try the app, let me know in the comments what you think and how you get on.

Dry January

I'm taking part in dry January this year. For those not au fait with what this entails, dry January is sadly not a guarantee of a rain free month but a chance for people that normally imbibe to ...erm...not.

So for 31 long days I shall be shunning alcohol, no sneaky beer after work, no bottle of cava (and subsequent drunken blog post) on a Sunday after noon, no downing shots until I puke during The Musketeers (well not until February anyway).

What is the point? Well may you ask, it's not long enough to really rest the liver or help my liver function in any way (though I am going to take some milk thistle to see what that might achieve!) and I'm not doing it to raise money for charity (do not get me started on sponsored stuff - that's a whole other post).

I'm doing it because it will be good for me, for me, I'm not saying it would be good for you or you should do it. I hope it will help me sleep better (actually I barely need help there, but maybe I'll be more refreshed from the sleep I do get), I know it will help me save money, at around £5 for a bottle of wine or case of beer I should be £10....£20 .....£30 .... quite a bit better off for not buying it. I also hope it will break the habit of an alcoholic drink each night after work, maybe letting me get back to 'not on a school night'. I'm not a saint or a martyr or better than you, I'm just choosing to not drink alcohol during January.

Why tell us all about it them? Another good question. I think it will be easier and dare I suggest, more fun, to do this as a group with other friends in real life and on social media, also a promise is somehow easier to stick to when you tell everyone about it.

Do you think it's really such a big deal? Well no, not really, I gave up booze no problem for 9 months when I was pregnant and only drank small amounts for the ten months after that as I was breastfeeding, so no I don't think it will be anything other than a minor annoyance.

I'm spending some money on drinks though, just non alccoholic ones. I will be stocking up on Ginger Beer, J2O, sparkling water and various fruit juices, not becasue I think they are healthy but I know I'll get bored of tap water.

Are you taking part? If so what are your reasons? And what will you be drinking instead? I'd love to know.

Thinking outside of the toybox

Talking on twitter about children’s toys led in turn to a chat with DH this morning, which led on to a plan. So here is the thing:

I am a fan of #LetToysBeToys and have been for some time. I am old enough to remember when the ELC (Early Learning Centre) first came into being, with an advert blatantly decrying Action man and Barbie as unfit for its shelves. Promising parents and children alike a toy shop that was different, where there would be no ‘war toys’ no ‘girly’ rubbish, just sensible well made, mentally stimulating but fun toys for children of any gender and any age up to about 8.

But according to a twitter friend all that has long since been vanquished by pink for girls and action for boys. Knights and swords it seems are back, pink princesses are what you should aspire to if you are female, that or a lifestyle of beauty products, babies and cleaning.

Why do online stores insist on allowing us to search by gender?

But this isn't about bashing a specific retailer, ELC is actually one of the 'least bad' . The comment that annoyed me most was on the gendering of toy food in some toy shops. Food FFS! How can an aubergine be a gendered product!?! But it is if you box it in pink, and tell children it’s for girls, either subtly by suggesting you can ‘be like mummy’ or by making the box over pink and sparkly, or blatantly by declaring ‘for girls’ and ‘Girls love to cook!’ on the box.

Which led DH to comment. “When I was a kid you were lucky to get a toy in a box, toys were just loose.” And that was the moment of the lightbulb flash! Why do we keep letting ourselves be dictated to? – lets grab back control. Buy our kids what they like, but unbox it before gifting it (I loathe the words ‘unboxing’ and ‘gifting’ btw and was violently sick as I typed that)

Let’s use just a tiny bit of crafting skill to sew a personalised bag maybe, to fill with wooden bricks, play food, toy cars, dinosaurs, toy money, etc Sew the child’s initials or name onto the bag to make that toy theirs, not a ‘girl’s toy’ or a ‘boy’s toy’ but their toy. If you have no crafty bones in your body you can buy personalised items easily online or just buy a gift bag from a 99p or Pound store and pop the items into it. You can often get shoeboxes free if you ask at a shoe shop and these are easy to cover with wrapping paper, magazine pictures etc, you could even use last years washi tape skills!





Why haven’t I thought of this before? (Now you’ll all tell me it’s what you’ve all been doing for ages, in which case why didn't you tell me!) Suddenly a girl can play with her toy garage without seeing a box with pictures of only boys on it and the wording ‘Boys love a garage’ or similar, and boys can be chefs with a bag of play food that no longer tells them ‘Girls love to cook!’

Thank goodness some retailers still manage to #LetToysBeToys but for those that don’t, those gender dictators, let’s grab back the power, destroy the box, make your toys child specific not gender specific.

 If you are sitting there thinking it's all silly and doesn't matter - have a read of this, to see why play and gender stereotyping do matter

Looking forward to 2015

Having looked back over 2014 and looking forward to 2015 I can’t help but think I’m a tiny bit predictable!

So far my plans (subject to change) are looking like this

Starting January with no alcohol, for a month! Yes ladies and gentlemen of the internet, I’m signed up for Dry January to give my waistline a chance to shrink, my purse a chance to refill and maybe my liver to take a holiday! Following on from that my year is shaping up like this:

Spring. In the February half term I’m hoping to visit China Town in London for the Chinese new year and also, at another date, meet up with Motherscuffer for the infamous Pizza Express meal (which I won before she was up the duff and so now I have to drink all the prosecco myself! Which I think you will agree is pretty tragic)
In May I am all booked up for the Elderflower Fields Festival (keep checking my blog for news on tickets for this, I’m hoping to have a competition and some discount codes soon)

Summer will continue the festival theme with a repeat of some of the great festivals of last year, kicking off with Camp Bestival (this year with UNDERWORLD / CLEAN BANDIT / KAISER CHIEFS, and THE CAT IN THE HAT and even DICK & DOM! ),Then Wilderness again, and once more the mad glory of Wadfest – if you have a wacky sense of humour and a Nerf gun (and a tent) you really should join me – so cheap, silly, and kids go for 1p!!

Autumn is looking empty at the moment….plans to be made, DD and I have been toying with some more travel and Iceland is looking like a popular choice, we need to browse some travel sites and books.

Winter will spell my 50th birthday – I probably should have a party – I may also get a new tattoo.

Have you any 2015 plans yet? Or are you just hoping to survive! Let me know what you are up to!