Fancy a little John Lewis shopping spree? I say little, because £50 in John Lewis isn’t exactly going to give you the freedom to sweep things off the shelves, but you’d be able to buy yourself a pretty nice treat selection.

Going to John Lewis is one of my favourite things to do. I like wandering around and imagining how my house would look if I had married money, and then remembering I haven’t and instead just buying a single plate for Instagram pictures. If I’m feeling particularly decadent I might buy a candle, or some of those pink champagne truffles in a heart shaped box.

Anyway, I’m feeling generous so I thought I’d buy a John Lewis voucher to give someone.

I know right? How nice am I??

I was looking for a picture that encapsulated a sort of generosity of spirit, but then I saw this one and I liked it, and also it made me thirsty and want some sweets all at once. It’s by Sarah Takforyan on Unsplash.

I do have slightly selfish motives too. View Post

April 30th was a sad, sad day for Belle.

It was the day we had to give back the Hyundai Kona that we’d been test driving for two weeks, having covered around 800 miles in 14 days, three of which I was out of the country for. At a stage in her life, mid-GCSEs, aged 15, when not much in the world feels designed to bring joy, there is apparently one thing that does – driving around in a nice car, listening to Cardi B very loudly and switching on my seat heater every few minutes and seeing how long it takes me to notice.

As you can guess from my mileage, I made the most of it.

Hyundai Kona

Over the course of the fortnight I did test out all the important little things, like the size of the cup holders (key), and all of my finding are in this Twitter thread if you fancy looking back through.

There were loads of clever little features that I loved, like the fact that it turns the music down a bit when you’re reversing and the blind spot detector for motorway driving, and I really enjoyed the high seating position. It was very spacious and the back seats were SUPER easy to put up and down – fiddly seats are a pet hate of mine, but these worked in one movement and were easy to put down from the boot side too.

I feel at this point that I should say something authoritative about the ‘handling’ but to be honest I’ve never been entirely sure what that means. It went round corners, and no one threw up, so I consider that a win. Have a look at the website for all the techy stuff. View Post

As you may remember, I had grand plans for my garden when I bought my house last year. ‘A tropical paradise’ was how I described the picture of it I had in my head.

The reality looked like this:

garden makeover tips

Sexy garden times.

As you will have seen if you read my garden makeover post, I had the foundations put in place for the tropical garden of my dreams, and the last few months have been spent gradually adding in plants and pots and strings of solar powered vintage lights, so that now it looks more like this: View Post

Note to my Dad: this is one of those posts you’ll want to skip over.

I was out for dinner a little while ago with some friends. We’d had a small half glass of wine or so and we were talking about boys. We were discussing one boy in particular, who I had happened to say in passing that I thought was nice.

‘Ooohhh!’ said one of my so called friends, ‘I’ll message him and tell him you LOVE HIM!’

‘I don’t LOVE HIM,’ I pointed out, ‘I just said he was NICE.’

She messaged him to tell him I loved him.

God.

‘While you’re there though,’ I said, only slurring very slightly, ‘you could casually drop in my renovated vagina?’

Everyone looked at me.

‘Renovated? Like with scaffolding?’

‘Oh,’ I said, the half glass of wine clearly muddling me, (an allergic reaction maybe?), ‘not renovated. REJUVENATED. That’s it. My vaginal tissues have been rejuvenated.’

We got distracted then by talk of my vagina, and then the fried camembert arrived, so I don’t think the boy had the opportunity to be seduced by my vaginal tissues, rejuvenated or otherwise.

Probably for the best.

Geneveve treatment review

A pretty dinner and wine photo in lieu of a close up vaginal tissue shot View Post

This week I got a cold sore.

SUCH FUN!

I made a special trip to Wilko for cold sore cream because of this:

overpriced branded medication

Yep, that’s two IDENTICAL cold sore creams as far as I can see. The Wilko own brand is £1. The branded version is £5. That’s FIVE TIMES the price. (Note that the Zovirax version doesn’t have a price per 1kg – perhaps it wouldn’t fit on the tag?)

There is no obvious difference between them, they both contain the same amount of the same active ingredient and they both do the same job.

So WHY??

Overpriced branded medication is something that has always wound me up. It just feels wrong on so many levels. Not only is it a total rip off generally, but it feels like you’re being ripped off when you feel at your most vulnerable. (Me going shopping with Belle when she is sad.)

Looking at the myriad different examples on the shelf it’s hard to believe that it even EXISTS as an industry. It’s so obviously just the same product sold in ridiculously over the top packaging, and yet people MUST be falling for it, or there wouldn’t be a market. It makes me cross to think of all of these big brands chuckling to themselves while innocent people are coughing and spluttering over their remedies.

Picture yourself with a bad cold. You’re trying to get through the day, you’re not thinking straight, you just want anything that might make you feel better, so when you see words like MAX STRENGTH you’re in. View Post

I have to say, single life is growing on me.

I don’t miss anything much about being in a relationship to be honest, apart from cups of tea in bed. I feel happier than I have in a long time – relaxed, peaceful – I like it. There are very few things that I feel I can’t do perfectly well either for myself or by myself.

Apart from cars.

Everything about cars fills me with dread to the point that I don’t even like putting in petrol. I put it off and put it off until my petrol light has been on for about two days and the stress of potentially embarrassing myself by running out at the side of the road ultimately outweighs the loathing of the task ahead.

It’s one of the only times when I find myself fantasising about having a boyfriend. He would be the kind who notices that my fuel is low and goes and fills it up, ready for next time I want to use the car, possibly leaving a tin of peach flavour travel sweets in the glove box just as a little extra.

The main reason I put that satsuma in front of the engine warning light was that I couldn’t bear the thought of having to DEAL WITH IT. I didn’t want to phone a garage, talk to a human, take in the car, talk about things I don’t understand, go back to fetch it…

God what a faff. I don’t know what it is but the whole process makes me feel kind of hopeless and weird.

What I really need when it comes to car maintenance is some sort of service that you can book online, where someone reliable and trustworthy just turns up at your house and gets on with things. No phone calls, no scary garages with Heart FM blaring in a tinny way at a ridiculous volume, no awkward wandering about the streets waiting for them to call and say you can come back and pay a MILLION POUNDS to pick up your car. Just nice and simple, no effort required.

OH HELLO THERE TYRES ON THE DRIVE.

Basically Tyres on the Drive is the service I would design if I could design my own tyre fitting service. You simply visit the Tyres on the Drive website, pick your tyres, pick your time slot and away you go. They’ll come to you at work or at home, operate 12 hours a day, seven days a week, and even promise to beat any like for like quote.

What, quite honestly, is not to love? View Post