A German man has been jailed for 14 weeks after being stopped at an airport with geckos in his underwear. The man attempted to board a plane in New Zealand with more than 40 geckos and skinks concealed in his underwear. He was convicted of two charges under the Wildlife Act and five under the Trade in Endangered Species Act for taking the creatures from the wild gecko and skink populations.

According to this article a whisky company is preparing an expedition to try and locate two crates of 100 years whisky. The whisky was shipped to the Antarctic by British polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton during his 1909 expedition. It is now thought to be frozen inside in the icecap. The company that now owns McKinlay and Co who made the whisky are hoping that they will be able to conduct tests on the bottles with a view to re-launching the Scotch. One thing is for sure it will certainly be nicely chilled.

A man has been arrested by Brazilian police after he was caught trying to smuggle 1,000 live spiders out of Brazil. The man who is a pet shop owner in London was stopped at the airport when police became suspicious about his luggage. He was found with boxes of live spiders in his suitcases. It could have been entertaining if one or two got loose on the plane.

If you face a long stressful commute to work every day then I expect you have tried any number of things to make the daily grind more bearable. If the strong black coffee and bacon sandwich just isn't hitting the spot then you might want to try this new book released by a retired Hertfordshire bishop. The book has been designed specifically with the commuter in mind and is designed to combat “the turbulence of the working day”. It includes prayers and reflections which are supposed to help the stressed commuter. Extracts of the book are also available as a podcast.

If you are unemployed and are able to leave the country for a while then this job might be for you. Described as a Globe Trotter it is the opportunity to travel around the world for a year and have it all paid for. The job is being offered by lastminute.com and all of the £20,000 travel expenses will be covered. The successful applicant needs no specific qualifications but they will need to write reviews on the hotels, restaurants and attractions that they visit. They will not receive a salary but the entire cost of the trip will be covered. If you want to apply you have until the 15th of July and need to send a photo of yourself having a good time on holiday and a 200 word review describing your experience.

A fisherman had a surprise when he caught a live missile in the Gulf of Mexico. The missile was caught 50 miles off the coast of Panama City in an area that the US Air Force and Navy use for weapons training. Bearing this is mind, it might not be as surprising as it first seemed. What is surprising, however, is that the fisherman kept the missile aboard his boat for ten days before returning to port. Once this boat docked the bomb squad was called in to dismantle it. They described it as being in a live and unstable state.

Weather forecasters are predicting that the UK will have a hot summer this year. Whilst this is good news cancer experts are predicting that this could lead to a rise in people suffering from skin conditions. They have issued a warning to sunbathers which they hope will make them act more sensibly when it comes to enjoying the sun. It never fails to amaze me the amount of people that don’t take the simple precaution of wearing sun block and staying out of the sun at the hottest times. It seems that people in the UK think that the sun in Britain is not strong enough to do any damage. Already I have seen several people who have the lobster effect and I’m guessing I will see many more, it seems the message from the cancer experts just doesn’t get through.

Most people would be more than a little wary about buying a see through swim suit. It isn’t, however, quite as daunting as you would think. The swimsuit is made up of a chicken wire type fabric which when held up to the light is completely transparent. However, abstract patterns confuse the naked eye so that it appears to be a solid fabric. The microscopic holes in the suit allow 80 per of sunlight to penetrate through to the skin so if you are wanting to get an all over tan this summer then it might be the thing to buy. Personally the concept of holes in a swimsuit doesn’t quite grab me, I think I will stick to solid fabrics.

Personally I’m not quite sure why you would want to visit Starbucks but that’s my opinion. Some people obviously do like the brand but other people like this man might be bordering on the obsessive. He has made it his mission to visit every Starbucks around the world. He has managed an impressive 9,100 and is now in England to visit the 400 outlets over here. After the UK he will move onto a tour of Europe, visiting Spain, Portugal, Germany and Romania. At every outlet he orders a regular cup of coffee and takes a picture and puts it on his website. So far he has spent around $100,000 on his project over a course of 12 years. He estimates that he still has 3,000 outlets worldwide still to visit.

According to this article a £3 sun lotion from Asda was among the best is a test carried out by Which? The low priced lotion offered a better defence than some other brands which cost three times as much. In the survey 14 products were tested, all of which claimed to offer a protection factor of 15. However, only five of the products actually met this standard. In fact the sun cream from Asda was found to offer a protection level of 24, more than was stated on the bottle. Some the creams which failed to make the standard were sold by Tesco, Marks and Spencer and Wilkinsons. It just goes to show you don’t always have to spend a lot of money to get a good product.

This is interesting, its an new airline due to launch in the US which will cater exclusively for pets. The airline named Pet Airways claims to be the first designed specifically for the transportation of pets. All the animals will travel in the main cabin and owners are not allowed on board. The airline aims to make air travel much less stressful for pets and offers an alternative to conventional airlines where pets are treated as baggage and have to travel in the cargo area. The seats inside the plane have been removed to make way for pet carriers. Pets or pawsengers as they have been dubbed can be booked in online and then checked in at the Pet lounge at the airport. Pet attendants give the animals a toilet break before take off and monitor them throughout the flight promising that they will never be left alone. The airline has scheduled its first flight for cats and dogs for 14 July and will serve five US cities - New York, Washington DC, Chicago, Denver and Los Angeles.

This is probably one of the most unusual hotel rooms I have come across. It is made to look like a crashed airliner and is situated in the jungle in Costa Rica (pictured left). Whilst it looks like a plane in fact the inside is every bit as nice as a luxury hotel room and it is being marketed as the most exclusive hotel suite in Costa Rica.

The two bedroom suite is inside the fuselage of a 1965 Boeing 727. It includes two  wood panelled bedrooms (pictured right), a kitchenette, dining room (pictured below), living area and two bathrooms. It also has the advantage of offering spectacular views of the jungle from the balcony on the planes right wing. Apparently it is the perfect height to observe wildlife such as sloths, toucans and monkeys.

It certainly an interesting idea. If you fancy staying there it costs between £200 and £250 per night.

According to this article Ryanair are considering charging a fat tax for overweight passengers. The idea comes as a result of a competition on the companies website that gave customers the chance to win free flights by coming up with ideas to save the company money. Around 100,000 passengers took part in the competition and around 30,000 of those voted for a fee for overweight passengers. As a result Ryanair is now seriously considering implemented the idea. Other ideas included a charge for toilet paper with Mr O’Leary’s face on it and the option to pay to use a smoking cubicle. It is not clear whether either of these ideas will be implemented.

A British man has sailed from Cornwall to Australia in a boat that he made himself. The journey was an attempt to recreate the voyage made by 7 men in a wooden boat more than 150 years ago. Pete Goss set sail in November and finally completed the voyage last week. In total the boat took 116 days to reach its destination with a weeks break in Cape Town for repairs. Not bad for a boat with no engine or modern navigational system. 

I read this article with some disbelief, its about a women who had booked a holiday to Costa Rica. Unfortunately for her, the travel agent had made a mistake on the ticket entering the wrong airport code on the ticket and she ended up in Puerto Rico. Instead of entering SJO the code for Juan Santa Maria in San Jose the travel agent had used SJU, the code for San Juan in Puerto Rico. Not realising the mistake she boarded the plane and it was only when she got into a taxi to go to her hotel that she was told "This is not Costa Rica. It's Puerto Rico". What I can't believe is that she managed to get all the way there without noticing she was flying to the wrong destination. The departure boards do show the destination of the flight, so I'm assuming she missed this small but all important detail. Failing that, did she not get a little suspicious when the captain said "welcome aboard this flight to Puerto Rico". Whilst the travel agent has obviously made a mistake here, I think you would expect some degree of common sense on the part of the customer.

I came across this picture of a heart shaped island in Croatia today. The unusual shape was of the island called Galesnjak was highlighted on Google Earth and it has since become known as Lovers Island. The owner has now started receiving lots of requests from people who want to spend a romantic break there.

Whenever I get sick I always put it down to having travelled on public transport and picked up other peoples germs. This article came as no surprise to me. It claims that a single sneeze can infect as many as 150 fellow passengers with a cold in just five minutes. Researchers looked at 1,300 workers and found that almost all of them had suffered from at least one cold last winter. The results were analysed by a cold and flu experts who also looked at how the sneeze travels. He found that a single sneeze expels 100,000 droplets into the air and that these droplets transfer themselves to handles, rails and other areas. Around 10 per cent of commuters then come into contact with this infected area which at rush hour amounts to 150 people. 99 per cent of people who travel by tube, 96 per cent of rail passengers and 98 per cent of bus passengers were found to have caught a cold last winter. In contrast only 58 per cent of those of worked from home caught a cold. The advice is to 'think of others before you sneeze without a tissue, otherwise in just five minutes you may have infected other commuters and won't be the only one feeling poorly.'

It appears people really will steal anything these days. This story comes from Jamaica where police are investigating the theft of hundreds of tons of sand from a popular beach. In July around 500 truck loads of sand were removed from outside a planned resort at Coral Spring beach. There are suspects, particularly people within the tourism sector, as a good beach is seen as a valuable asset to hotels on the island but no arrests have made since July leading to criticism of the police. The theft of the sand has meant that the plans for the resort have now been put on hold because the most important feature, the white sand beach has now disappeared. It must be fairly hard to hide thousands of tons of sand, I'm guessing it won't long before it shows up on a new beach somewhere.

I get sick a lot less now that I don't have to commute on the tube everyday. Before that I was ill at least every few weeks and tended to have a constant cold all winter as I got another one each time the previous cold came to an end. I also suffered from frequent sickness bugs. I had assumed that all the illnesses were caused by being packed into a train with lots of people who were coughing or sneezing. It appears, however, that there are more bugs about than I originally suspected. This article suggests that one in four commuters has bacteria from faeces on their hands. It is based on a study carried out by scientists from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. They swabbed 409 people at bus and train stations in five major cities in England and Wales and found that many people do not wash their hands properly after using the toilet.  People who used the bus had dirtier hands than those using the train and manual workers were found to have cleaner hands than other professionals. The further north they went the more dirty hands they found with men in Newcastle being the worst offenders.

Every one that flies into Britain will be offered a free cup of tea and a biscuit under a new plan. The man behind the idea is Mark Price the managing director of Waitrose. He plans to offer tea and biscuits at Terminal 5 for a trial period. He will offer 5,000 cups of tea a day to travellers in the arrival hall. The only sticking point appears to be what type of biscuit they should offer.

As of last weekend alcohol has been banned on the tube and its easy to see why when you see the scenes from the so called "tube alcohol party". The party was organised on Facebook so that people could enjoy the last night of being allowed to drink on the tube. During the party six tube stations has to be closed and services were seriously delayed. Predictably it ended with 17 people being arrested and four train drivers, three London Underground staff and two police officers being assaulted. All good reasons why the ban is a good idea.

We are now back in the UK after a week in St Lucia. I spent most of yesterday recovering from jet lag, hence no blog posts, but am feeling a bit more awake today. Further to my post about our open top jeep ride around St Lucia, I have now been able to get to the pictures. I found that the jeep ride was a particularly good way to see the island, mainly because there are only 8 people to each jeep, so if you have any questions you can ask the guide at any time. You can also ask to pull over at any time, if there is anything you want to explore further.

The tour started by driving through some of the more built up areas of island including the capital Castries. Pictured left is one of the islands many Catholic churches.

Pictured right is the tour guide Chris and our friend Dave who also came on the trip with us.

Here you can see one of the many places along the road where the local farmers offer some of their fruit for you to taste.

Pictured right is just one of the many banana plantations that we drove past.

Pictured left you can see me at the front of the jeep and next to that some pineapples growing in one of the plantations.

Here you can see the landscape as it starts to change as we reach the range forest. At this point the air becomes much cooler and the tracks through the forest are at times no more than dirt tracks.

To the left you can see a view of The Pitons, St Lucia's most famous landmark  that stands over 2,000 feet tall. To the right is a picture of Rory enjoying a dip under a waterfall which is meant to have healing properties.

On the left is a picture of the Sulphur Springs at the dormant volcano and on the right myself, Rory and Dave at the springs.

This shows our visit to a cocoa plantation. The picture to the far left shows the cocoa beans drying in the sun and the other picture shows a lady pealing the roasted beans before they are made into cocoa sticks. According to the guide over 90% of the cocoa from this plantation ends up in the US.

In the afternoon we made our way  back by boat. Here you can see me enjoying the boat trip and Rory swimming in the sea.

We had a busy day yesterday as we went on an open top jeep ride through the rain forest. We set off just after 8 in the morning. Seeing St Lucia by jeep is definitely the way to do it and although it gets a little hairy on some of the steep tracks in the forest, you see a lot more than if you were confined to the coach. You also have the advantage of being able to stand up and take photos whenever you want. We also stopped at a cocoa plantation where we were able to see how they make chocolate, one of my favourite things. Needless to say there are lots of photos but these will follow when I get back to the UK tomorrow.

We went to Dave and Anita's wedding yesterday. They had the service on a private beach called Pigeon Island and as you can see from the photo on the left it was a stunning setting. This was followed by champagne on the beach and then we moved onto the reception at Jacques restaurant. The venue is right on the waterfront and has a private area for functions with room for dancing. The whole day went really well and the happy couple are now off on their honeymoon. Congratulations Mr and Mrs Hedges.

We arrived in St Lucia yesterday evening for a five day stay during which we are attending a friends wedding on Tuesday. I must say I was dreading the eight hour flight but it was better than I expected, perhaps because I managed to watch three movies on the way. We did, however, arrive very tired and so last night we just stopped for a bite to eat before heading off for an early night.

So far I am impressed with the hotel. We are staying at the Bay Gardens Beach Resort in Rodney Bay. On arrival we were greeted with a glass bucks fizz and the staff couldn't be any more helpful. Obviously I have the promised internet access, which is essential for keeping track of my various businesses whilst we are away. I will also post some pictures of the room shortly. We ate in the resorts Hi-Tide Restaurant last night and once again my first impressions were good. Rory had red snapper and I had a baby rack of lamb that came with a sweet potato mash. We are just about to head out for breakfast now, so more on this later, hopefully with some pictures of the island.

I read this interesting article about the top 100 travel websites. It lists everything from where to stay, sites that give you inside information, holiday bargins and travel essentials. It's certainly worth checking out some of the websites it mentions.

The lifeguards are a bit hairier than usual on Italy’s beaches this summer. Newfoundland and Labrador dogs have been drafted in to help on some of the busiest beaches. The dogs are trained to jump out of helicopters and boats to rescue struggling swimmers and have already saved several lives by towing people to safety.

My blogging has got a little bit out of control and what started out as a personal blog, now appears to be more of a mini news feed. With this in mind I have started a couple of new blogs to try and split the content up a little bit. This blog will remain a personal blog, and contain all the usual stuff I blog about. However, I am going to post most of the shopping related content at ineedashop and most of the news related content at atheniaglobe which will both be live soon. In addition to these you can already read my design related blog and my travel related blog.

Nine artists have been creating sand sculptures on a beach in Somerset. The sculptures show scenes from fairy tales including Sleeping Beauty and Hansel and Gretal.

Milan airport has been forced to suspend flights because there are too many hares at the airport. The hares have been getting onto the runway and causing problems as well as confusing the ground radar. The airport was closed whilst a team of experts tried to catch and locate over 80 hares.

Apparently if you want to lose weight a greek diet could be the key. A study showed that a typical meal in Greece contained the least calories when compared to other holiday destinations. I don't know about that, but when I went to Greece the food was no nice I had second helpings of everything.

If you are planning a trip to Ireland and like me find it hard to survive with no internet access you might want to visit Carlow. A project run by the council in partnership with E-net has introduced 24 hour wireless access to all of its main streets making it one of the first towns in the EU to offer open air web access.

Fees can really mount up when using your debit card abroad. It doesn't help when you think your card is free to use and then find out that you have been charged a fee after all. HSBC advertise the fact that their debit cards are free from transaction fees when used abroad. They do however, charge 2.75% on top of the exchange rate for overseas withdrawals which they say is not a fee, its simply how they calculate their exchange rate. It sounds like a fee to me.

Still on a holiday theme I came across this article on thisismoney about the cheapest destinations for UK travellers taking into account the current exchange rates. Apparently you can currently get the most for your pounds by heading to countries such as South Africa, Namibia and Botswana. This is because the pound has strengthened greatly against those local currencies within the past year. For example a pound will now get you 12.8 rand, 10% more than this time last year. It’s a different story though if you are thinking of heading off to Eastern Europe you are 13.6% worse off than last year.

The same article has an interesting section about using credit and debit cards abroad. Last time I went abroad I was aware that there would be a charge for overseas transactions but didn’t really pay much attention to what the charges were. It was a bit of a surprise to see how the charges had mounted up just in one week. The article contains a handy table comparing what providers charge for overseas transactions. Interestingly enough if you have a credit card from the Nationwide or the Post Office they do not charge you at all. Most other credit card providers have a 2.75% charge when used overseas. Likewise with debit cards most companies charge not only for making card purchases but also to withdraw cash. This is where I got out with my Bank who charges 1.5% on every foreign withdrawal. Once again Nationwide does not charge its customers for overseas transactions. It might be time to open another account to use when going on vacation. I’m sure in the long run it will help save a lot in unnecessary fees.

This was my first trip to Ireland and although most of our time was spent at a friends wedding, I left with the intention of going back again for a longer stay. It definitely wasn’t the weather that made my stay enjoyable, it basically rained on and off all weekend. I did however find it refreshing to be surrounded by beautiful countryside instead of feeling rather crammed in as we tend to be back in London. One thing that immediately struck me was that every person we came across whilst in Ireland greeted you with a cheery good morning or a friendly wave. Back in London, things are slightly different, if you even so much as glance at another person on the bus or train, you are met with a blank, unfriendly look.

During this visit we hired a self catering cottage from Dream Ireland. The cottage is located in the grounds of the Mount Wolseley Hilton Hotel. It included a double room with en-suite bathroom, two rooms with twin beds and a third room with a single bed. It also had another bathroom and toilet as well as kitchen and large living/dining area. In fact it was much bigger than our house and cost 420 Euros, that’s about £287. I was very impressed with the accommodation offered for the price and you also had the option to use the hotels pool, spa and gym. The cottage also had the advantage of being located within an easy five minutes from the main hotel which has several restaurants serving food for most of the day and several bars which were open until very late.

The atmosphere in the hotels bar was a welcome change from a smoky pub; smoking having already been banned in public places in Ireland. On the night we arrived, at nearly midnight, we were surprised to find the hotel’s main bar still open and the locals enjoying a good singsong well into the early hours of the morning. In fact they were still singing when we left at three in the morning. In all it was an enjoyable few days and I will definitely be going back.

Views of the living area in the cottage.

I just got back from my trip to Ireland during which we stayed in a shared cottage. It's always so nice to be home. All the cats were pleased to see us and Rory's father was kind enough to trim our hedge, whilst he looked after the house for us. I really missed home, but most of all I missed my nice new TV.

I and my husband are heading off to Ireland this weekend for a friends wedding. It always occurs to me when going away how much easier it is for men to pack. They simply pack a pair of jeans and a pair of trousers and a couple of tops. My packing dilemma goes something like this. We are going away for 4 days. The first day we are at the wedding, so I have my dress and shoes, but what if it is cold, I might need a jacket. The next day I will need something casual to wear during the day, so I pack jeans and trainers, but wait I am going out in the evening, will I need something smart? So I pack a skirt and top, but what if it’s too cold for a skirt… I pack trousers. The thing is trousers require different shoes to a skirt so I pack my smart boots as well as my strappy shoes. Ok, the bag is starting to get heavier at this point and thats before I think about day three. Men have it easy. 

This underwater restaurant is in the Maldives. I'm not sure why it makes me think of Jaws, something to do with all that glass maybe.