This is an interesting idea, its a greetings card that has seeds impregnated into the paper. When you have read the card instead of throwing it away, you plant it. The card should then grow and you should be rewarded with some flowers. The cards start at just £1.99 each so are about the same price as a normal greetings card. I might get my Christmas cards from here next time.

A cane toad managed to survive despite being eaten by a dog. The dog ate the toad which can release a poison known to kill a dog within minutes. The dogs owner immediately called a vet who gave the dog an injection to induce vomiting. After 40 minutes the dog then vomited a live cane toad. Dog and toad are both doing well.

Researchers have found that a chemical derived from red wine can help keep the heart "genetically young". The chemical called resveratrol appears to stop age related changes in the function of heart genes producing an effect similar to eating a very calorie diet. Unfortunately the chemical does not stay in the blood for very long and a researcher said "In order to have any effect, you would have to drink literally gallons of wine, and that is not recommended."

I am slightly happier today after my bad day yesterday. My laptop is alive once more, for how long I'm not sure, but for now it works. I might still look into purchasing a new one soon, as the problems appear to be caused by it simply overheating.

I have had a really bad day. It started when I turned my laptop on this morning, only to get a blue screen of death moments later. The laptop appears to have died completely and I'm not sure whether it will live another day, it depends on whether my husband can do anything to fix it. In the meantime I have been using a really old really slow computer. It doesn't have most of the software on it that I need to complete my day to day work and I am also unable to access most of my email. It has been a very frustrating day. My only consolation is that I don't store any work locally so whilst I am inconvenienced I have not lost any data. If my laptop is dead though, I might have several more frustrating days ahead whilst I wait for a new one to be delivered. Watch this space, will the laptop live again? Who knows?

I have just found another reason (excuse) to drink wine. According to this article drinking five or more glasses of wine or beer a week can halve your chance of developing rheumatoid arthritis. It is thought that alcohol helps to suppresses the inflammatory process behind the condition.

When a kitten became stuck in a drain it was rescued by firefighters using just a vacuum cleaner. They put a sock on the end of the nozzle and this little guy was soon freed from his hiding place.

A slightly odd topic for my blog but I came across this article about a porn star called Maxi Mounds ( obviously not her real name). She holds the world record for having the largest breast implants in the world and has a 36MMM bust. My first thought was where does she finds clothes that fit?

I have a grow your own venus fly trap kit. It all looks very easy from the instructions. You simply soak the compost in a little warm water, put it in the pot and plant the seeds. Then cover it with a plastic bag and wait for your little fly traps to grow. I have done all that and three days later, no little fly traps. Perhaps I am being impatient or perhaps I have done something wrong. Anyway, I will keep checking every few days to see if anything happens.

I don't suffer from hay fever as much as I used to, probably because I no longer wear contact lenses since having laser eye surgery. I do, however, find that I get a constant sore throat and runny nose during the summer months. I was interested to find out that a hay fever vaccine is currently being tested. It is meant to the reduce the symptoms of hay fever by training the immune system to tolerate pollen. During a four week trial volunteers who received the vaccine reported a significant  improvement in their symptoms. The only problem I can see is that it involves having an injection every week. Being scared of needles I think I will just live with the hay fever symptoms until it comes in a pill format.

I tried a new shampoo from Lush yesterday. It is called Curly Wurly and according to the lush website it is meant to "calm curls and tame tangles. It has quite favourable reviews on their site but I hated pretty much everything about it. Firstly the smell and texture of the shampoo is fairly awful. It contains lots of pieces of coconut and after applying the shampoo it took me over an hour and half to try and remove these from my hair. I can only think that it is meant for people with thin hair, but if you have thick hair, be warned that coconut will take a long time to wash out. Secondly rather than removing tangles it seemed to add them to my hair, it also dried it out leaving it more fluffy and if possible thicker than usual. The only thing I liked about the shampoo was that the next day my hair smelt really nice but I will not be using this again.