by Fern Shaw | Jul 15, 2016 | Uncategorized
Summer is upon us – lift your hands in air and say – Hey ayyy! But what to do and where to go inside of our now less than frosty shores? Here are a few suggestions that may shine some light on your wintery grey matter:
Woodland Trust – The UK has centuries-old oaks, beeches and cedars – and the Woodland Trust is keen to protect our ancient trees. Help the trust by setting out to explore Britain’s oldest forests. Give a tree a hug to see how far your arms stretch round – they become important when the girth of the trunk is one to four arm spans.
Real Ale Trail – Create your own real ale trail by train for just a few bob. A hop-on, hop-off day return on the St Ives Bay Line in Cornwall will take you past real ale pubs in Lelant Saltings, St Erth, Penzance and St Ives. That’ll certainly put the hop in your journey!
Visit Flat Holm Island – Sail across the water to Flat Holm Island in the Bristol Channel and spend the day wildlife spotting. There are boat trips that can be arranged to the island to visit for the day or for longer stays.
Rooftop Films – Watch a movie al fresco during the Rooftop Film Club season, which runs until September 30, with screenings in Camden, Peckham, and Shoreditch. They’ll also take place at Somerset House and in Trafalgar Square.
Banksy art – Go in search of works by elusive graffiti artist Banksy – such as Grim Reaper, The Girl with the Pierced Eardrum and Well Hung Lover – in his home town of Bristol. Try a self-guided walking tour and visit some of the city’s bars and restaurants on the way.
Further north, how about some wonderful behemoth watching (no, I don’t mean ‘Nessie’):
Whale watching, Scottish Highlands – The waters around the Hebrides are home to a variety of whales in the summer months; more than 250 minke and pilot whales were spotted last year, along with rarer sightings of killer, fin and even humpback whales. Alongside the whales, there’s a good chance of seeing dolphins, porpoises and sharks, with white-tailed eagles and puffins in the skies above the boat.
There are oodles more of things to do, see and visit throughout the U.K. this summer; I’ve had to whittle these suggestions down from hundreds. Whatever you decide to do and wherever you go, remember the No. 1 rule of summer – rain or shine – keep your precious little self hydrated and make sure you take your drinking water with you.
by Fern Shaw | Jun 13, 2016 | Uncategorized
The Glastonbury Festival has a long and illustrious history stemming back to the first ever festival which began the day after Jimi Hendrix died, in 1970. This year the Festival is running from the 22nd to the 26th of June.
Attendance has gone from a modest 500 people in 1978 to a whopping 175 000 last year. Rain or shine, that translates into a lot of very thirsty revellers, organisers, staff, and performers – so, pretty much everyone will have a thirst on them.
The good news on the thirst front is that AquAid South Coast has the festival covered. As Glastonbury get into the swing of things setting up, so does AquAid – starting off with the delivery of 120 Bottle Fed coolers accompanied by 600 bottles plus another 20 Mains Fed (POU).
Darren Brooks, of AquAid South Coast, who has experience with filling the Glastonbury Festival order, is managing the day to day orders and deliveries, but AquAid SC has had to take on extra staff to cover the work load.
The bulk of the deliveries have now started to go in and ramping up the orders for the Festival starting 22nd June.
“This will be the fifth year now supplying to the Festival itself, although we supply the farm and organisation all year round,” explained Kevin James, Sales Manager at AquAid South Coast.
So, if you’re heading off to the festival, here’s wishing you an incredible time, and remember to keep your special self hydrated as you party on for the duration. We’re hoping that the only wet you encounter is your drinking water and that the rest of the festival stays sunny and dry. (We’re also hoping for dry weather, so that when we collect our machines post festival, it won’t be in metres of mud – fun!)
Should you have any water or water cooler requirements in the South Coast region, please do contact us, we’ll be delighted to assist.
by Fern Shaw | May 10, 2016 | Uncategorized
Jellyfish and me – we don’t have the happiest co-existence historically – jelly, totally different story. Mulberry and orange flavoured jelly remain my favourites, but before I get sidetracked …
The unfortunate history began with summer hols at the ocean, wonderful soft sand beaches, monster waves, and oftentimes, a beach littered with jellyfish called blue bottles or are they are otherwise known – the Portuguese Man o’ War. Fierce creatures these, with an absolutely awful sting and to make matters worse, if you encountered the ‘stinger’- they’d continue to sting you repeatedly. I think we called them blue bottles because, well, they were blue – and a very pretty blue too. According to the wonderful Wiki though, it turns out that blue bottles are not really jelly fish – although they closely resemble them, but are in fact a species called a siphonophore, which is distinguished from jellyfish in that it is not a single multicellular organism, but a colonial organism made up of specialized minute individual organisms called zooids. Anyhow, suffice it to say, I really did gasp and cringe in the scene in ‘Finding Nemo’ when Nemo and Dory are trapped in the flotilla of pretty pink jellyfish – I felt their (nonsensical imaginary animated creatures) pain!
That’s your biology update for the day sorted then.
The amazing glow in the dark jellyfish was recently spotted during a deep water exploration mission of the area being conducted in the Mariana Trench. The Trench is the deepest part of the world’s oceans. It is located in the western Pacific Ocean, to the east of the Mariana Islands. The trench is about 1,580 miles long but has an average width of only 43 miles. It reaches a maximum-known depth of 6.831 miles.
While experts were able to identify the jellyfish as belonging to the genus Crossota, they are unable to assign a precise name to the pretty hydromedusa.
They filmed the jellyfish ‘floating’ through the depths with its long tentacles extended outwards and its bell motionless, suggesting ‘an ambush predation mode’.
It is thought the red colour in the bell is the creature’s radial canals, while the bright yellow may be its testes. So the photographed jellyfish may (or may not) be male.
Other deep sea life was also captured on film but so far, in this exploration, it seems as if the jellyfish is a hereto previously undiscovered species.
Although I can’t wait to share the news with my colleagues on my next water run, I must say, there’s a part of me that wishes that perhaps it would be better if such wondrous creatures were better left undiscovered, to continue their unknown existence in all their dark, watery wonder.
by Fern Shaw | Mar 21, 2016 | Uncategorized
I’m always amazed at the amount of information available online. It boggles my brain. Take f’r instance, Oxytocin. I came across the name as I was researching the benefits of taking a hot vs. a cold shower. According to the article, if you shower using hot water, this can stimulate the release of oxytocin, which is one of the ‘feel good’ hormones.
Oxytocin is a hormone secreted by the posterior lobe of the pituitary gland, a pea-sized structure at the base of the brain.
It’s sometimes known as the ‘cuddle hormone’ or the ‘love hormone’, because it is released when people snuggle up or bond socially. Even playing with your pet can cause an oxytocin surge, according to a 2009 study. But there’s more to the hormone than it promoting bonding apparently – its effects are myriad and right across the spectrum from feeling good and wanting to bond with an oxytocin secretor to feeling not so great and apprehensive about bonding with that same person based on how you were initially treated when there was a surge of oxytocin released.
Oh, and Oxytocin is not to be confused with OxyContin, which is a sedative in the exact same family as morphine, codeine, and heroin.
You may wonder what’s of interest here, but think about it – if it isn’t incredible enough the way our bodies function as they do, how gob smackingly amazing is it that there are also a huge array of hormones that, when released, can encourage us to sleep; to drink more water; can make us feel happy or sad; protected; territorial; more aware; afraid; euphoric?
I certainly think so! More cuddle, more snuggle I say!
by Fern Shaw | Mar 8, 2016 | Uncategorized
You may have gathered by now that I rather enjoy writing (or typing I suppose is more correct). In fact, I generally find it the best way to express my thoughts. I think a LOT and am a visual person; however the path between my brain and my mouth isn’t always a clear and direct route. When I write down my thoughts though, this seems to flow a lot more clearly (except when one has writer’s block – an awful affliction!) and I am more mistress of the words than when I speak them.
Or so I thought. A while ago I came across a selection of quotes from various authors, poets, inventors, statesmen and philosophers, all to do with water, or the ocean, or the sea. It was a humbling experience (not that I ever thought that I was author material by a long chalk!) to read the amazing word manipulation and the results it brought. So, on this rather whimsical day, I’d like to share a few with you – hopefully, they may inspire you all to greater things or perhaps, you can simply just enjoy them.
*“Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell: Ding-dong
Hark! now I hear them, – Ding-dong, bell.”
~ William Shakespeare, The Tempest
“Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can’t go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.”
~ Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad
“Water is the driving force in nature.”
~ Leonardo da Vinci
“Ah, well, then you’ve never stood on a beach as the waves came crashing in, the water stretching out from you until it’s beyond sight, moving and blue and alive and so much bigger than even the black beyond seems because the ocean hides what it contains.”
~ Patrick Ness, The Ask and the Answer
“You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him participate in synchronized diving.”
~ Cuthbert Soup, Another Whole Nother Story
and I think it fitting to end this little watery tête-à-tête between you and me, dear reader, with this from one of my favourite poets:
“Dip him in the river who loves water.”
~ William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
*quotes from a marvellous collection at Good Reads
by Fern Shaw | Feb 29, 2016 | Uncategorized
*Figures charting the UK’s changing food-buying patterns since 1974 have been released. So what’s changed since then?
Data from 150,000 households who took part in the survey of their food and drink habits from 1974-2000 has been published by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).
It comes from the National Food Survey, which in 1940 began asking households to fill out diaries of their weekly food and drink purchases.
Less white bread, less full-fat milk
Purchases of white bread have dropped 75% since 1974, according to the survey, while those of brown and wholemeal bread have risen by 85%. Skimmed milk overtook whole-fat milk in the 1990s and British households now drink four times as much.
The fall of liver
People used to really like eating liver. In 1974 a typical household bought 36g of it per week. But not by 2014. Then the figure had fallen to just 3g – a 92% drop. Offal – familiar to a wartime generation that eschewed waste – had fallen out of favour among younger, more squeamish Britons. Can we hear a hey-eyyy? (Dry liver for tea / dinner growing up – ugh!)
The Italianisation of British meals
Italian-style cooking is widespread today. But dried and fresh pasta was not even recorded on the National Food Survey until 1998. Between then and 2014, weekly household purchases in this category more than doubled.
Pizza (frozen and not frozen) rose even more dramatically, with average purchase from 2g per week in 1975 to 53g in 2014. The amount of takeaway pizzas bought per household shot up 1,000% over the same period.
Different fish
The traditional accompaniment to chips has fared differently. A typical household bought 44g of white fish (fresh, chilled or frozen) per week in 1974. While it still remained the most popular fish choice, 40 years later that figure was just 19g.
But other types of seafood did better. Shellfish purchases rose fivefold, and those of salmon by 550%.
Decline of tea
Surprising though it may appear to inhabitants of any workplace where tea runs remain an integral part of the daily routine, consumption of the UK’s preferred hot drink has declined steadily since 1974.
Back then, the average household bought 68g per week. By 2014 that had fallen to 25g. While tea remained more popular than instant coffee, cocoa and malted drinks, its reported weekly purchases had experienced almost a two-thirds fall.
More chips
The preferred form of potato remains the chip. Reported purchases in the category ‘chips (frozen and not frozen)’ were three times higher in 2014 than in 1974. In a blow to the chip shop industry, however, households reported buying a third less takeaway chips over the same period.
So there you have it. It’s in with chips, fresh fruit and dried pasta. Out is white bread, tinned peas (thank heavens!) and meat paste. Personally, I’ll be sticking to my piping hot cuppa tea (at least 4 of every day) and my bikkies to dunk.
*excerpts from an article at BBC Magazine
