Public Transport Costs

Well, time for a rant methinks! This time, it's about the outrageous cost of travelling on the bus these days.


I don't know if it's the same all over the country, but ever since public transport went from being public with Merseytravel to being private with Arriva - the price of travelling has soared, sometimes as much as 3 times in 1 year!


Just yesterday, I went to the city centre with the hubby and our son - we walked there but got the bus home as it was raining heavily - 2 adult fares and 1 child fare cost £4.50 in total (2x £1.80 and 1x £0.90) - 7 bus stops, less than a mile home - it's the minimum fare for a bus ride in Liverpool - it's ridiculous! In fact, if we had got a private hire taxi home (which means you can get home straight to your door from any location, without having to wait around for ages (and when it's busy stand up for the journey), sometimes in the rain), it would have cost £3.50-4.00 - taxi's used to be more expensive than buses, but no it's the other way round and it's ridiculous! All you ever hear is that people should ditch their cars in favour of public transport - that may well help the environment, but there are no advantages other than that which I can see - they are unreliable, you get to wait around ages, spend a fortune and stand up for your whole journey sometimes - doesn't sound very good to me!


In my opinion, there is something very wrong when a taxi journey (which you could say is personalised and it takes you directly to and from your desired destination), costs less than a bus ride - £1.80 to go 1 bus stop is not a good deal!

Copyright ©2011-2012 Yvonne Brownsea

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Defining Friendship

In this day and age, with social media playing a very big part in day-to-day life, I find people are very quick to still define friendship as only being someone that you personally know and have met.


I've met many people through Facebook and Twitter that I would now consider friends. I've never met them and probably never will - some of them live at the other end of the country or in another country entirely - yet I chat to them and share common interests with them - isn't that what friends are?


Most of you that know me, know that amongst other interests, one of my favoured ones is comping (entering competitions for fun). Through this, I've won a lot of prizes and met a lot of new people who share my hobby.


I have a separate account on Facebook for comping than my personal account. On my personal account, I have several "friends" that I used to know at school that I have hardly spoken to since I added them or they added me - so I put "friends" in speech marks as I have to ask - can they really be considered friends? On my comping account, I've got a lots of friends, many of them I speak to a lot more often than some of those added on my personal account - and most importantly, we share a current common interest - entering competitions - does this not qualify them for friend status?


The thing that inspired me to write this blog post, was voting competitions. I see a lot of people complaining about vote exchanges being a cheating way of gaining votes, and I disagree. A voting group is a group of people with a mutual interest/hobby - competitions. If one real person is asking for a vote - the other people are not obliged to vote and do it out of choice should they want to and you can vote on theirs if you want to. What I don't agree with about voting competitions is buying votes or those people that make numerous fake accounts. I don't see where the problem lies with a vote exchange as long as it is genuine people, who share a mutual hobby, helping each other out in a competition. Just because you are in a voting group, it doesn't, and shouldn't, invalidate you as a real person.


There is no-one in the world who is born with friends. You meet and make new friends usually through shared hobbies and interests. The same rules can be applied to comping friends. If you share an interest, why should you be called a cheat when it comes to voting competitions for voting on each others competitions? The competitions often state "ask your friends to vote" - they are no less friends just because you don't personally know them (i.e. have met).


It is often other compers who complain about it the most as well - they state they are not interested and don't enter - so why does it matter so much to them to have a go at voting comps with a vengeance? I know at the end of the day, the bigger the prize, the worse the cheat and that's not fair, so I equally would prefer no voting comps - but I don't think it is right for people to go bad-mouthing fellow compers just because they choose not to enter into it. I have my own voting group on Facebook - Competition Likes - it's a bunch of mutual friends and family, who all vote for each others competitions - where's the crime in that? We're all real people and it just saves on sending each other a lot of e-mails or posting a lot on each others walls - we're all there because we want to be and none of us have fake accounts or try to cheat - we just want to help each other out.

Copyright ©2011-2012 Yvonne Brownsea

REVIEW: Lego - It Never Fails To Entertain!

This is my toy review to apply to become a Toyologist with Toys R Us - I think it is suitable for the 'Family Fun' or 'Rainy Days' review categories as Lego is good for most occasions! In fact today was a rainy day here in Liverpool and we wanted something to do as a family!

My 8 year old son, David really, really enjoys playing with his Lego - it keeps him entertained for hours sometimes. His 31 year old Dad, Paul is equally content when he's playing with Lego! I don't mind joining in the fun, but I get annoyed when there's not enough pieces left for me because those 2 build stuff quicker than me! Today we were all playing with Lego as a family - David was off school today as his school was being used as a polling station, and as it was rainy out, Lego was his choice for us all to play together.

David doesn't have the biggest collection of Lego ever - he has a tub his Grandma bought him for a Birthday or Christmas a couple of years ago and he's enjoyed playing with it ever since. We also managed to get him a bag off a very kind freecycler whose child had grown out of it. We've also collected numerous free Lego sets out of the newspapers for David - though his collection still remains quite small - despite him not having much he makes all sorts of wonderful, imaginative creations from it.

The thing I, as a parent, like most about Lego, is that it allows my son to be as imaginative as he likes and he comes up with very zany ideas, but it really gets him thinking - sometimes he puts more thought into what the thing he has made does than the time it has actually taken him to make it - he often comes up with very futuristic ideas about the 'functionality' of his creations - so all the time he is having fun, he's keeping his brain active which is something he wouldn't get from simply watching television.

Above right, is a photo of our finished creations today. Mine is on the left - it's an important King on his throne with his minion SpongeBob SquarePants waiting to be of service alongside the red carpet which has flowers along the side and a seating area for visitors to the left. David's is in the middle - in his words, "It's a double decker bus that has boosters to make it go fast and a sun shade. It has a propeller to make it fly and it can go into water too" - that is word for word what he told me. Paul's is on the right - he says "It's some sort of super police car with a jail in it" - again word for word. We all had fun together and we spent at least a couple of hours together - which not only meant we were having fun, but also spending time together, as a family which was really nice.

Above is a video of David playing with his finished creation - he had lots of fun making it and then playing with it afterwards. He says he likes Lego because it is fun and he can make anything with it.

For anyone who does not know what Lego is - it's quite a simple idea... It's a set of bricks that stick together - anything from single pieces to large platform pieces, or - you get Lego people and trees, Lego windows and doors, Lego wheels, Lego flowers - basically, your imagination is the limit - it's very engaging for children, and I think even adults can get a little lost in play too - just because you get older, doesn't have to mean you don't get to use your imagination any more!  You can buy tubs of it or individual items - for example, David has a Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story figure that is made of Lego, and a SpongeBob SquarePants Lego set too. If you have a younger child, you can also get Lego Duplo which is just larger bricks that are less tricky and therefore more suitable for little hands - my son had some when he was younger and he loved that just as much as he likes his 'grown-up' Lego now.

As for price, there is a large variation in price - smaller sets are usually cheaper, character sets (regardless of size) tend to be a little more expensive, and obviously bigger sets are on the more expensive side - in terms of value though, whatever you buy, Lego is definitely worth the money because it provides hours and hours of fun and endless use of imagination and creativity.

DIET: The Beginning Of A New Me

OK, I've taken the plunge and am on a diet as of today (30th April 2011). I would like to give a huge thank you to Slimavite who are providing me with the milkshakes for my diet as part of their trial.


I was ashamed when I finally got on the scales and my weight came in as 15st 2lb - at 5' 3" this makes me very much overweight. I was even more horrified at my waist size - an horrific 48" was what I saw.


I've wanted to lose weight for quite some time. I used to be a clothes size 12/14 (not sure on the weight) before I had my son, but that was more than 8 years and 7 months ago when I gave birth to him and the added weight never went away and I didn't put any effort into shifting it. Instead taking to eating what I like, whenever I like  and gaining even more weight.


I have tried a calorie controlled diet previously using Slim Fast, but I gave in, mainly due to the fact that I was finding it quite costly.


I've been saying for a while I want to lose weight - I'm sick and tired of feeling drained of energy and not being able to do as much with my 8 year old son as I would like. So when I heard from a friend (Sandy Hallett) on Twitter about the Slimavite trial, I was very eager. I would like to thank Sandy for making me aware of it.


I'd been putting off starting, but the decider for me was that I won £2,000 in holiday vouchers from Vue Cinemas back in January 2011 and I knew I would finally be able to visit my dream destination of Cairo, Egypt and I knew I would be going to the beach at some point and I don't want to be the "big beached whale" - that, plus I'm sick of wearing frumpy, unflattering clothes because that is all that is available in my size!


Today, my meals were made up of:


Breakfast - N/A (I got up too late for breakfast)
Dinner - A Slimavite strawberry milkshake
Tea - Jerk chicken with rice and black eyed beans (I was a bit naughty as I had a small glass of wine as we had family & friends around for tea)
Snacks - Low fat yoghurt, 2 bananas
Drinks - Strawberry & vanilla sparkling water, 2 cups of coffee, small glass of wine


I found myself feeling quite full after the milkshake. It didn't stop me yearning for a bar of choccy or a biscuit, but I made sure I didn't buy any when I went shopping yesterday, instead buying fruit, salad and healthy yoghurts for if I needed a snack. I'm quite pleased with my ability to resist my urges - but it is only the first day - better hope it continues!


I must say, I don't want to sound ungrateful to Slimavite, because I really am grateful, but I did prefer the Slim Fast milkshakes. Why? Because the Slimavite has bits in (I think it's granola or something) and I really can't stand bits in drinks (I do realise it is a meal replacement, but bits are a no, no for me) - mainly due to the fact that I have enlarged tonsils (this is a permanent thing) and I spend a very long time eating food (I have to chew food to oblivion basically to prevent me choking), so drinking a drink with bits in is very much a challenge for me - it often sticks at the back of my throat thus irritating it and causing me to cough a lot. I assume the majority of people don't have the same problem as me though, so for most people this wouldn't be a problem. The taste itself is fine, quite nice actually. The strawberry tastes of strawberry (though the after taste is a little straw-like because of the bits). The consistency is nice as well - not too thick like a McDonald's milk shake, but not so thin it's like water either. Despite the bits in the drink, I'm going to push forward with the Slimavite as it does have a nice taste and it's worth the difficulties with my throat so I can lose weight.


I'm going to post short daily updates on my progress over on this page - DIET PROGRESS - so please have a look there regularly and see how I'm doing.


STARTING WEIGHT: 15st 2lb
TARGET WEIGHT: 10st 5lb


My dreaded "before" pictures: