I just opened a bottle of Porcupine Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon 2006 which I purchased from Sainsbury for £6.99. The wine is from Boekenhoutskloof in South Africa. I was browsing the South African wine section at Sainsburys and I must admit my attention was caught initially by the bottle because it has a picture of a porcupine on it. The blurb on the back of the bottle says very little about the wine and more about porcupines, making me wonder exactly how this is relevant to the wine. Apparently the only connection is that porcupines live in the area where the wine is produced. This said, the wine itself is really good and even my husband who is not that keen on red wine loved it. It is quite full bodied and fruity, tasting a little of blackcurrants. At 14.5% it’s a rather strong wine but good value for the price and very drinkable. I give it a rather respectable 4 out of 5 stars.

A couple from Newcastle have had jumpers made out of their dog’s fur. Beth and Brian combed their carpets for dog hair and also saved the hair when they groomed their pets. The hair was then spun into yarn and knitted into two jumpers. The jumpers are apparently very warm and nearly waterproof. I wonder if this works with cat fur.

The weather report predicts a white Easter for the first time in 25 years. Whilst I feel it is unlikely that we will get any snow, as we rarely do in Egham, it did make me recall the last white Easter. At that time I must have been about 4 years old. I remember waking up on Easter morning and looking out of the window to see several inches of snow. I also remember my great excitement at seeing footprints in the snow. My mother of course used this to her advantage and told me that the Easter bunny must have visited in the night. I now know that it is more likely the footprints were left by either a cat or a fox but still remember my excitement when I saw those footprints.

This is quite cool. It is called the Tardis House and is probably Cornwall’s smallest office. It measures just 7ft by 6ft so there is barely enough room for a table and chair and not much else. In fact it is so small that you can stand inside with your arms outstretched and touch the walls. The building which was originally built as a toilet has recently gone on the market for a surprising £19,950.

Regular readers know that I have lots of cats which is why I was happy to come across this article that suggests owning a cat can actually be good for you. Apparently having a cat can cut your risk of having a heart attack or a stroke by almost half. Scientists have found that stroking a cat helps to reduce stress and anxiety and so protects against cardiovascular disease. In fact cat owners were found to have a 40 per cent lower risk of suffering a heart attack. What the article doesn’t tell you is that cats also cause stress when they are climbing your new curtains or scratching up a favourite piece of furniture.

Further to my blog post a few weeks ago we are gradually moving towards getting the house ready to sell. Moving our stuff into storage has taken a bit longer than expected and we still have things that we want to move out of the house. We did initially plan to have moved everything into storage by now, but suffered a set back at the weekend as Rory was not well. We now plan to finish this over the Easter weekend and hopefully start doing some painting.  Regarding looking for a new place, we did look at two properties a few weeks ago, one which we hated and another which we really liked. Unfortunately as our house is not yet on the market we were unable to put in an offer on the house that we liked and have now heard that this one has just sold. It’s a shame as the property was just what we were looking for, but I’m sure something else will come up.

The Sat Nav trolley could soon be coming to Britain. The device will help shoppers by guiding them around the store to the items they want to buy. It will also suggest recipe ideas based on the food that you put into them. The trolley is made by Media Cart in conjunction with Microsoft and could be in UK supermarkets by 2009. It will also be able to download your shopping list and plot the quickest route around the store, depending on what you want to purchase. The trolleys are fitted with a location device so they know where in the store, they can they work out what the best route is from the current location to the product the customer requires. It seems like an interesting idea, I wonder how well they work in practice.

I drink rather a lot of tea so was pleased to see this article that suggests it could have health benefits. The article suggests that women who drink three cups of tea a day are less likely to have build ups of fat and cholesterol in their arteries meaning there is less likelihood of strokes and heart attacks. Unfortunately it appears to have no effect for men.

These rather strange looking glasses can help you find things. You just need to tell them what you are looking for and they will play a video to show you the last time you saw the item. The built in camera takes a constant record of everything the user sees, with the display inside identifying the items scanned. It’s an interesting idea but obviously this experimental model is a little bulky for everyday use.

It appears that despite recent conservation projects aimed at protecting tigers that the world’s tiger population is still declining. The World Wildlife Fund has warned that the world’s tiger population may have halved in the last ten years. They have also said that there might only be 3,500 tigers left in the wild and have warned that one species in South China, could soon be extinct. The main threat to tigers appears to be the demand for their body parts which are used in traditional Chinese medicine with destruction of habitat also being a factor.  A survey has found that despite being on the red list of critically endangered species the body parts of Sumatran tigers are being offered on open sale in Indonesia. One in ten retail outlets surveyed in 28 cities and towns across Sumatra were found to be selling tiger body parts. The lead author of the survey Julia Ng said "Sadly, the decline in availability appears to be due only to the dwindling number of tigers left in the wild.” It seems this lack of enforcement will soon mean an end to the wild tiger population. You can read more about ending the tiger trade and what you can do to help here at the WWF website.

Questions are being asked about the safety of the lithium batteries used in iPods after a customer in Japan reported an incident where their iPod gave off sparks. The Apple iPod nano started emitting sparks whilst it was being recharged. The problem was put down to the battery used in the device. A spokesman for Apple has said that the company is aware of the incident but that no one was available to comment. Japan’s government has ordered Apple to investigate the incident which affected the older Apple iPod nano with the model number MA099J/A. Apple has previously warned that iPods might overheat while being charged in certain carrying cases. Information on its website advises: "Charging your iPod, iPod nano or iPod shuffle while in certain carrying cases may generate excess heat, which can affect battery capacity.