UK Holiday

Recent reports of the stagnant economy are forcing more and more families to consider taking their summer holiday in the UK - or to give it a funky name a Staycation.  Hard up families are beginning to explore the wonders of camping and are discovering that a camping holiday can actually be a relaxing comfortable healthy experience.  For those who insist on luxury but at affordable prices glamping is all the rage - no need to buy and pack the most important items such as tents and sleeping bags - they are already waiting for you when you arrive at the site.

Many glamping resorts have opened up in the South West in the hope of attracting visitors from Europe as well as the UK.  In fact the tourist industries of Devon and Cornwall have ironically benefited from the squeeze on the economy and are expecting to attract visitors who are keen to lower their carbon footprints and enjoy the seaside and beach life that the South West is famous for.

Run to the Sun

Depending on how far you expect to travel a staycation can rack up an eye-watering fuel bill as well as wear and tear on your family car - a vist from London to St Ives is not only tiring but is close to 800 miles round trip.  Families are once again the delights of travelling by train - exploring the benefits of family railcards that simplify the cost of journies

Duplicate content?

The beauty of glamping is the provision of all necesary camping equipment so make sure you find out what you actually only need to take to avoid duplication.

Hire a car

Without the palavar or need to pack and carry camping equipment with you an thought from the shelf is to consider using local UK car hire companies and arrange to pick up a hire car at the station when you arrive - relaxed and rested from a fast, cool comfortable train journey. A short drive to your location and you will find everyting waiting for you - a tent ready erected, decent beds and essential camping equipment.

When you think about it the average family only uses a car to make a few visits to local attractions and for shopping trips so why clock up all that mileage and gallons of fuel to simply have the occasional use of your own car.  Hiring a car makes sense.

Save money, have fun and enjoy your staycation in the UK.

uSocial is offering companies a paid service that will find followers for users of the micro-blogging service for a fee starting at $87 (£53) for 1,000. The companies offer packages that go up to 100,000 people, a significant boost to the audience companies can market through Twitter.

uSocial will find potential followers by searching Twitter and working out what individual users are interested in. USocial will also profile where people are so it can more closely match users with feeds they might want to follow.

USocial then sends messages to potential followers telling them about the new Twitter user they might want to follow.

“It’s up to the user to follow them or not,” said Mr Hill. He added that uSocial continues to look for followers until the specified number had signed up.

“A woman who runs yoga classes is one of our clients,” he said. “So are some religious organisations including one man that just wants to get the word out about God.”

“Twitter started as a way for just friends to keep in touch,” said Mr Hill. “As with any social media site once they get big, every business or marketer jumps on the bandwagon.”

The estimates value put on a follower on Twitter is 10 cents a month for a company that gets a user to sign up. The money would be made from adverts and sales on websites that followers click through to.

Here at The Shelf we make bring you the rundown in what furniture to look for this summer. First up sideboards:

Sideboards are often a highly under-rated piece of furniture; they are incredibly useful in many different spaces and rooms throughout the home; they fit inoffensively and neutrally with the rest of your furniture as they are not tall enough to impose upon or dominate the space in a room. In fact, most sideboards are effective in creating extra space, as they act as both a useful storage facility and a make shift coffee table and extra surface to display vases or ornaments.

Like dressers, a sideboard can be used as either an attractive piece of furniture and neat way to organise things in your home, or a cheeky space to clear the clutter away when guests announce a surprise visit! Sideboards are ideal as a piece of Indian, birch hardwood or oak furniture, as the solid wood makes them appear elegant and sophisticated. An Indian side table offers a much richer depth of colour to a room than oak furniture, which is more light and natural, but the ideal choice depends on personal preference, the existing furniture within the room and the colour and décor of the space.

Sideboards are most commonly used in dining rooms, living rooms or hallways but they would also make a useful addition to bedroom furniture or in a bathroom, where they could store towels or bathroom products.

The range of sideboards available is extensive. It is possible to choose sideboards with or without legs, sideboards with varying patterns, a sideboard of birch, Indian, mango or oak furniture, sideboards with drawers, cupboards or a combination of both depending on what exactly you intend to store, and sideboards of varying length, width and height so that the furniture will fit neatly and exactly into your home and complement the other furniture in the room.

Why has it taken so long for charity shops to refrain from being dumping grounds?

Partly due to the drop dead gorgeous Mary Portass’ TV programmes charity shops are raising the bar in an attempt to attract both better donations and higher revenues to support their work.

Donations should be given as individual unwrapped items so at least two people can accept or politely reject items - no stuffing black sacks with tat from now on.

I notice that some charities are upping thier game online - Oxfam for example are developing an online shop for donated clothes and second hand books.  Browsing the Oxfam Unwrapped site I was particularly interested to see a range of charity gifts that go directly to those who need them most.

Charity Gifts

For example currently entire communities are threatend by Bangladesh floods which have been worse than usual - a possible effect of global warming?  Here the provision of basic items and clean water are essential to prevent growing hunger and disease from spreading now.  Looking ahead these people can be helped buy charity gifts to re-build their homes and begin to farm their own food once more.  Oxfam’s campaing to aid victims of climate change has been likened to a humanitarian aid system as a “postcode lottery on a global scale”,

Goat

I Kid You Not - Give a Goat

Charity gifts such as seeds or even a goat can make the difference between long term sustainability or disaster.

Seeds and livestock have to be reintoduced to destroyed lands - interestingly a hugely popular gift is the donation of a goat.  The beared billys can be bred for milk and occasionally meat supplies but don’t forget the fertilizing power a herd of goats can offer.

Charity shops are at at last moving forward and full marks for those crusading for change and deserve our support buy donating high quality items and not trying to haggle prices at the till!

While eating smart is always a good idea we should also remember that we spend a third of our lifetime sleeping! We spend more of our life in bed then anywhere else, so comfort and support is a key factor to making sure your body feels refreshed and rested. Your sleep pattern can have a drastic effect on your mood, productivity, energy, blood pressure and stress levels; a night of sleepless tossing and turning can effect end up having a negative impact on the relationship of those around you personally and professionally.

It’s important to account the health benefits both short and long term of a great mattress, it’s one of the most important decisions you will make, so it’s worth investing your money wisely.  Buying a new mattress might seem like an expensive and hassle filled task, but if you break it down good quality double beds will end up only costing you around 10p per night each, over the average period of its lifetime.

“After 10 years, a good bed will have deteriorated by as much as 75 per cent from its new condition,” says Lisa Helmanis, author of Sleep Better Naturally . So experts recommend buying a new beds every 8 - 10 years. However our needs and preferences alter over time, too - changes in lifestyle or physical conditions also affect our bed requirements.

Not only does the mattresses orthopaedic state deteriorate over time, but there is the eventual build up of dust mites, dead skin, and general grim that will slowly build up in your mattress. These can lead to allergies and breathing difficulties. So its not recommend you purchase mattresses second hand or use hand me downs unless you just need a spare to use on occasion that is not used as the primary bed you sleep in.

Although everyone should have a good quality mattress that is not wore out, there are also minor preferences to ensuring you are comfortable and that your body feels well fitted into a firm or soft type mattress. You can buy mattresses made from foam, latex, spring, water or special air mattresses. Everyone has their own recommendations of what kind of mattress you should buy, so make sure you get the one that best fit you.

Considering how you sleep will ultimately end up affecting your physical and mental comfort all day, everyday, it’s probably the best investment you could ever make to your general health! Make sure to look after it.

Here are details of five of the best family attractions that you can visit during your holiday on the Costa Blanca. All of these attractions are only a short trip from the popular tourist resorts of Alicante and Benidorm.

Terra Mitica Theme Park

Terra Mitica is a huge theme park situated just outside of Benidorm. You can drive from Alicante to Terra Mitica in about 35 minutes.

The Terra Mitica theme park is divided into five historically themed areas, each of which is packed with rides and shows to suit all ages, together with shops and restaurants:

* Egypt: You can ride on an Egyptian boat, get drenched on the Falls of the Nile log flume, take part in The Battle of the Pyramid paintball game, or watch the Heartbeat of the Sea multimedia show.
* Greece: Enter the Labyrinth of the Minotaur, get soaked on the Triton Fury log flume and enjoy a meal at the Acropolis

* Rome: Some of the biggest thrill rides are in this area, including the Magnus Colossus rollercoaster, the Flight of the Phoenix free fall ride and the Inferno rollercoaster. You can also see shows including a gladiator fight.
* Iberia: Ride the Tizonalooping rollercoaster or test your driving skills on the Ariete bumper cars.
* The Islands: Cool down on the Rapids of Argos bumper boat ride, enjoy a ride on the Mithos carousel or learn about mythology on Ulysses Rescue.

Mundomar Marine Exotic Animal Park

If you hire a car during your Costa Blanca holiday, you can drive to Mundomar Marine Exotic Animal Park, just one of the attractions surrounding Costa Blanca outside of Benidorm. Here you can see flamingos, turtles, seals, sea lions, penguins, parrots, and a whole host of other animals and birds. The park has a bat cave, a play area for children and a dolphinarium, where you can watch a dolphin show.

It will take you about 40 minutes to drive from Alicante to Mundomar Marine Exotic Animal Park.

Aqualandia

Aqualandia is right next to Mundomar Exotic Animal Park, just outside of Benidorm, and it is easy to reach in your Costa Blanca hire car.

This large water park offers rides and pools to suit the whole family. You can ride the rapids, try out the exciting Big Bang chutes, race family members on the Splash multi-track slide, bob along on the Amazonas and even watch a sea lion show.

Terra Natura

The Terra Natura wildlife park is located about 5km outside of Benidorm, and it is a great place to visit during a Costa Blanca hire car holiday.

Terra Natura is home to more than 1,500 animals, and is divided into four separate areas:

* Pangea: You can see lizards, scorpions and snakes here, as well as other animals and reptiles.
* Asia: In this area of the park, you can see elephants, rhinos, tigers, leopards and many other animals and birds.
* America:This area is home to animals and birds such as flamingos, jaguars and monkeys.
* Europe: Residents include donkeys, horses, deer and turtles.

You can also ride a donkey, see crocodiles and alligators being fed, and see a number of different shows.

Aqua Natura

Aqua Natura is a water park right next to Terra Natura, and is a great place to cool down from the Costa Blanca heat during your car hire holiday.

Park your car at the entrance and enjoy the water slides, wave pool and jacuzzi. There is also a great play area for children, an aquarium where you can see rays, sharks and many different species of fish, and you can even swim with sharks!

The Japanese are well-known for their odd adverts, but this one for a tea that claims to reduce blood pressure takes the biscuit.

Bizarre Advert

Two men stop at the roadside and begin weeing together, a potential forest fire breaks out and in a totally inaccurate representation of the effects of high blood pressure one fellow shoots out more blood than a vampire film. It starts with… ah hell, just watch it and be ready to laugh more than you ever have at an ad with a health focus - but careful with your own blood pressure - you don’t want to blow a gasket.

Japanese Tea Advert - For Blood Pressure

More crazy Japanese adverts can be seen over on this site - not forgeting the curious penchant Japanese men have for young ladies.

If you’re thinking about ordering flowers online, you’ll find a wide range of bouquets and arrangements to choose from.  You can order British flowers from a number of online retailersincluding M&S, Debenhams and Flowers R Us.

It is easy to forget that many flowers are believed to represent lifestyle and fortune - see this blog about the true meaning of flowers. Note there is also a fantastic recipe and instruction how to make elderflower champagne from the same author

Many of the cut flowers that we find in florists and supermarkets are grown abroad, in countries such as Holland and Kenya, but there are also many flower farms in Britain. By buying British flowers, we can help to support our own commercial flower-growers, something that it is particularly important in the current financial climate and of course a help to climate change

Britain has an excellent flower-farming industry and some parts of the UK have gained great reputations for producing beautiful, sweet-smelling blooms. One of the primary regions for flower-growing in the UK is the Isles of Scilly.

The Isles of Scilly lie about 28 miles off of Land’s End in the South-West of England. They consist of five inhabited islands (Bryher, St. Agnes, St. Martins, St. Mary’s and Tresco) together with many uninhabited islands. The proximity of the Gulf Stream means that the Isles of Scilly benefit from warmer winters than the rest of the UK and rarely experience frost or snow, whilst also having slightly cooler summers than the rest of the country, making them the perfect location for flower farms.

Flower farming first began on the Isles of Scilly during the late nineteenth century and flowers quickly became one of the islands’ main exports. During World War II, the industry began to suffer, as it became much more difficult to transport the flowers to the mainland, but Winston Churchill is said to have intervened in order to ensure that the flower farmers had access to fuel and transport after having been sent a bouquet of flowers from a flower farmer in the Isles of Scilly whilst he was in hospital. Since then, the Isles of Scilly flower industry has grown and is vital to the local economy. Flower farms on the islands are still very much family businesses, with many of them having been handed down through the generations.

The flower farms on the Isles of Scilly are best-known for growing narcissi. More than 25 varieties of narcissi (a genus of flower that includes daffodils and jonquils) are grown on the islands. Narcissi are usually white, yellow, peach or pink and many varieties are scented.

British flower farms also produce many other types of flowers, including tulips and peonies. Tulips were originally found in the Middle East, but began to be grown commercially in Europe during the sixteenth century, particularly in Holland. Today, many tulips are grown on British flower farms. In Britain, tulips are usually harvested between January and April, so herald the start of warmer weather, and they are available in a wide range of varieties and colours.

Peonies are both beautiful and fragrant flowers, and you can find them in many shades, including white, pink and peach. Peonies traditionally symbolise luxury and indulgence, and are popular flowers to give as a gesture of romance. They are available from late May until early June.

So, what can people do if they are in this situation?

Re-training is a popular choice, you might even find a new career in a recession-proof job. There are loads of adverts on the telly regarding this - driving instructor, plumber and web designer to mention but a few. With some of these places you can “earn and learn”, ie if you want a career change and are still in employment, you can study in your own time.

This is actually quite a hard thing to do and takes determination and dedication, sometimes the last thing you want to do after finishing a day job is to sit down and study for a couple of hours. It helps a lot if it is something you are interested in, and you obviously need to be capable of completing the course.

Jobs are getting harder to come by and competition is increasing for those which are available, but conversely the current situation is being seen as an opportunity by some. These people seek to spread their wings by quitting a job they don’t enjoy and either start their own business, spend more time with the family or seek a position elsewhere. Companies are looking to save money by making job cuts, so they want to keep the best staff, therefore this could create opportunities for someone with a good reputation.

Furniture Construction & Comfort

Sofas

When you’re buying a new sofa, although it’s important to choose one that looks right in your living room, it’s also important to remember that it needs to be comfortable and durable. Sofas should last for about ten years, so need to be well-constructed in order to provide value for money. Here are some hints and tips to help you to find a sofa which will stand the test of time.

Sofa Frame and Springs

When choosing a new sofa, make sure that you pick one with a sturdy, well-constructed frame. Sofa frames can be made from wood or metal, but the highest quality and most durable sofa frames are made from hard wood, such as beech. Some sofa frames are made from a combination of beech and softer woods so that certain parts of them have more give, and some people may find these types of sofa more comfortable. Although they may be cheap, avoid buying sofas with frames made from low-quality materials, such as chipboard or plywood, as they won’t last as long and so won’t be cost-effective in the long term.

The frame should be glued and screwed together rather than stapled, and you should check to make sure that the frame meets or exceeds the relevant British Standards before buying a sofa.

You should also find out how any sofa that you are considering has been sprung. Ideally, you should look for a sofa that uses proper springs, rather than pre-fabricated wire coil units, and you should avoid buying sofas that use what are known as zigzag springs, as they won’t last as long.

Sofas Padding and Cushions

The type of padding and cushions used will affect how comfortable a sofa is. Look for a sofa with seat cushions which have been made from high density foam, as this will mean that your sofa will provide you with more support and will last longer. It’s also a good idea to choose a sofa that has shape-retaining foam, as this will mean that your sofa looks good and remains comfortable for longer.

If you require extra support for your back and neck, you may find that a sofa with a firmer, more upright back and high-back cushions may suit you.

Choosing Sofas – Upholstery

Sofas come in a wide range of finishes and the type of upholstery used can make a huge difference to the comfort and durability of your new sofa. A leather sofa, for example, will usually be more durable than a sofa with fabric upholstery, but leather can take time to wear in, so it may not initially be as comfortable.

Fabric, on the other hand, can be less durable than leather, and won’t provide as much support, but may feel softer. Many sofas with fabric upholstery have cushion covers that can be removed and washed, so it’s easy to keep your sofa looking in great condition, and some are made from stain-resistant materials.

Reputable online retailers usually provide information about the construction of the sofas that they sell on their websites, so check the product descriptions carefully before ordering to ensure that your new sofa will look and feel like new for as long as possible.