Month: March 2011

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Earth Hour 2011 – 26th March 8.30pm – Join Up

Image: federico stevanin / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Earth Hour began in Australia in 2007.    Over 2 million people and around 2000 businesses turned off lights for an hour to make a statement and stand up to climate change.

Within a year, there were more than 50 million people taking part.  Global landmarks were switching off their light, around the world.  Eg, the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and Rome’s Colosseum.

By 2010, 128 countries joined in the action.

This year, Earth Hour will take place on Saturday 26 March at 8.30pm.    Aberdeen will be switching off the floodlights at the Wallace Monument, the St Nicholas Kirkyard facade, and St Marks Church.  Many children will be hoping to use candles to follow Earth Hour, and do their bit for the planet and climate change.  Many other cities will be following along and joining in with it.

There is a map which shows the public sign up commitment to Earth Hour.  You can also sign up, and show that you are comitted to taking part, and will be added to the statustics.  You can find it at:

We can all sign up to take part, and do our bit to help with climate control.

I’m in, how about you?  My children are really looking forward to putting on the candles and sitting in the glow for an hour to support the cause.  We signed up yesterday.  My children learned about it at school, and have been asking me to do it with them.  As I wrote this post at 10.20am, Shetland Islands were at the top of the table, and Aberdeen is 15th in line.   Where are you in the league?

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And The Band Played – Believe It If You Like !

That was one of my mothers favourite sayings.  Whenever she thought I was not telling the whole truth, out came the stock sentence which I knew meant that she knew I was fibbing.  

That’s how I knew I was in trouble when I was supposed to be at college, and when a pal and I were bunking off to sneak to her house and puff our lungs black, way back when smoking was trendy and all the cool girls puffed away.  We’d been dobbed in by her mother who came home early and found us on our second pack of lung bashers.

Mum – “where have you been today?”
Me – “college.”
Mum – “and the band played believe it if you like.”

I didn’t have to say any more, I knew I was caught.

Fast forward 20 years and I have my own kids.

Me “why were you so late coming out of school.”
Son “it was gym today, and we didn’t get changed until after the bell went.”
Me “and the band played………………..”

Arrrrrgh, I’ve turned into my mother

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Mothers Day Giveaway from Interflora – Ends Sunday 27th March

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I arrived home to find a lovely surprise on my doorstep.  There were the flowers and box of chocolates that Interflora had sent me to review.    When they asked me to review one of their Mothers Day Gifts, I jumped at the chance.  We are all mothers, who have mothers, so it is a fantastic product to have.

I was given some links on their website to browse, and I had a good old root through all the products they have on offer for Mothers day.   There was a huge choice on offer, from hampers in the Mothers day gifts section, through to gorgeous Mothers day flowers, and the  absolutely fabulous Spring flowers.

As a mother myself, and with special needs children, a bunch of flowers appearing in our house is a rare occurence.   The only flowers that I usually see are the ones that I buy for other people.  I decided that, for me, a gift with some chocolates would be appreciated in our house, with the flowers for me, and the chocolates for my children.  It gave me the best of both worlds.  As tempting as the Spring Gift with a bottle of wine was, I think my children appreciated the chocolates a lot more.

I chose the Scented Spring Perfect Gift with Chocolates, which was priced at £31.95.

I picked up the vase, with their box of chocolates and eagerly took it into my kitchen.  I tried to take a nice shot of the flowers, but I’m not a professional photographer, so please forgive the shots if they look slightly amateurish.

Here are my flowers in all their glory on my mantlepiece, and they certainly brighten up my room.

The smells were absolutely fantastic as I walked along my corridor.   Even my husband who is usually florally challenged said that they had a lovely smell.   I was surprised to see the flowers were in the vase, with water already in it.  I am guessing it is to preserve the life of the flowers, and for me it worked.  I loved them just for the smell.    The vase is quite a sturdy, heavy glass, definately a substantial vase.

The chocolates, well, they were lovely, as my boys could tell you.  The box is rather nice, and with the little chiffon ribbon, looks very swish.  Inside the box, the Maison Fougere chocolates for Interflora looked lovely.  With 12 gorgeous chocolates, in a mix of dark and milk chocolate, there was something for all of us.   There was even a competition here for who would get the red heart….You can hardly make out the red heart in this picture, but it really was a vibrant, lovely shade of red.

Apologies for this photo, as the chocolates have now been eaten, and I have no chance to take a better one.

The best part of all this, is that Interflora are allowing me to give away the same gift set that I received as a gift for Mothers Day.     You, or your choice of recipient will receive the same bunch of flowers, with chocolates and the vase, and you can choose your own message to put on it.    You can see the gift set on the website here.

Scented Spring Perfect Gift with Chocolates

All you have to do to enter is:

1.  Make sure you either follow me on twitter, or google friend connect my blog if you haven’t already.  If you want to do both, thats fab by me.

2. Hop on over to Interflora using the links on this post, and tell me in a comment how many gift sets Interflora are selling in their mothers day categories.   These two things entitle you to one entry.

3.  For an additional entry, tweet the following:

Win a Mothers Day gift from Interflora with @scottish_mum Enter at  http://scottishmum.com/2011/03/mothers-day-giveaway-from-interflora-ends-sunday-27th-march/   Pls RT

The competition closes on Sunday 27th March 2011 to allow the winners entry to go through for Mothers Day, which is on Sunday 3rd April.  The winner will have to claim their prize before midnight on Monday 28th March.  If it is not claimed by then, it will be given to the runner up, via selection through random numbers, of the entrants. 

Good luck everyone.   It’s going to be a lovely arrival on someone’s doorstep.

 

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My Old Singer Sewing Machine

This is my old singer sewing machine.  It still works and has pride of place in our extension.   The wheel has to be tied up when its not in use so that they kids don’t catch their fingers in it, but it’s eye catching, and I love it.

I put up the picture as @mmeguillotine on twitter is interested in them, and I offered to let her see my one.  I have great memories of the machine when I was younger.   I remember at age 10 or 11, upstairs in my grandmothers house with it, and sewing away on patches of old material, just to use it.

I think it was bought for my great grandmother to mend the fishermens clothes with, and I am a bit sad that I don’t know it’s complete history.    I wish I had paid more attention as a child.   It doesn’t take away from the fact that I have always loved this machine, or the fact that it has always been in my life, in one way or another.

How many of us have vintage machines in our homes??  I’d love to know..

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Who’s Calling?

I felt a rant coming on tonight, and I just had to share it.    I am sure you all really  really want to know all about it.   It’s not often that I get as annoyed with others outside my family (other than education and people who make fun of my kids – but that’s another story)

So, what has got me into a frenzy of absolute rant hood.  Well, I think you might have guessed by the use of the picture of the telephone in this post.  

Yes, the telephone is my first love, and also my first hate.   From an early age, the telephone played an important part in my life.  I remember my grandmothers big, black old fashioned rental phone from BT.   And yes, before someone asks, almost everyone rented their equipment from BT in those days.  I even remember the telephone number we had for it, and that’s not bad, considering it was nearly 40 years ago.

From then, onto teenage pain years, and the main telephone in the hall, which was corded of course.  Everyone else who was anywhere else in the house could overhear your conversations.  Cue early romances and  calls with phone mouthpiece cupped in your hand, as you whispered as quietly as you could to talk.  That’s got nothing on the daily dash from upstairs to get to the one phone in the house downstairs when it rang.  Those were the days.  The days when the phone rang when it was from someone who wanted to speak to someone for any reason that didn’t involve selling you something.

Fast forward, through the mobile phone craze, and the budding cold sales caller.  I can’t remember exactly when I received my first one, but I think I was about 18, and it was from a kitchen company in the local area.    It was quite amusing at first, but quickly became the bane of my telephone life.  With only one phone in the house, and having reached serious dating age, it was a time where no call could go unanswered as there was no answer machine to record calls.    Being upstairs when the phone rang meant a breakneck speed jump down four stairs at a time, just to reach it before it rang off. 

“Good afternoon madame, we are in your area……..”

What bit about stop calling on the last 10 phone calls did they not understand.  It just got worse, and worse, and worse.  I managed to set telephone preference a couple of times, and that did work for a while, but you seen to need to repeat that often enough.  I gave up having name and address in the phone book to try and stop the flow of double glazing, kitchen, bathroom, conservatory, or driveway salespeople.

Oh but it doesn’t stop  there does it??  I’ve had some fun with some of the callers, and turned the tables on them.  There is nothing like asking them if they want to buy something to make them hang up.    Now I know they are only trying to make a living, so I try not to be rude to them, unless they are rude to me first. 

I do have to say though, that the most recent calls about the “government scheme to write off all your debts” annoys me more than all the rest have ever done.  THEY JUST NEVER GIVE UP.   

They call several times a day.  They usually call from International, and they always seem to know more about us than they should.    When I see international on the line, I now just wait for the answer machine to pick up.   It’s usually a morning and tea time call that arrives.  I’ve asked about, ohh, say 100 times for them to stop calling me, and they just keep on a calling.

If anyone has any tips on how to get them to stop calling, I am all ears…….

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A Camera Dilemma – Canon v Nikon – A Shot in the Dark

I have had a really hard choice this week.  I have spent more hours than I care to remember looking at Cameras.  I have dragged my kids from pillar to post to weigh them up and potter about with them, whenever I could.  

I had decided on this one – the Nikon D90, and went to order it. 

Unfortunately I did something wrong somehow, and it ends up that it is out of stock at the moment, and will be back in stock over the next few weeks.    I didn’t want to wait for a camera – as I have serious camera envy at the moment – of ANYONE who has a nice DSLR.


I went and retrawled the shops, and came across this – The Canon EOS 550D.  I loved the video capabilities of it, and was almost at the point of purchase, when………the salesman graciously decides to tell me that there is a new camera coming out this week.

The Canon EOS 600D with the swivel screen.

At this point, I am tempted to hang up my camera seeking self for a week or two and then come back to it.  I now have no idea what to choose.

It looks like poeple end up being loyal to the first brand of camera they buy, as the lenses are so expensive.   It’s a minefield.   Who knew that buying a camera would be so complex.   I am so confused by them all, that I think I am just going to pick the cheapest one out of all of them and live with it.