I went to Tesco this morning, to buy some burger rolls and despite the fact that I arrived ten minutes after they opened I was surprised to see the shelves were bare. It seems that all it takes is a little bit of sun and people go nuts, buying all the BBQ food. It wasn't just rolls there was a shortage of; there was no salad, no hot dog rolls and no feta cheese. If you were trying to buy burgers, then you had no chance at all. Next time I will have to make sure I keep some rolls in the freezer, just in case we see the sun.

I was reading this article about reasons why people call 999. I generally credit people with enough intelligence to realise that the number is for emergency calls. It seems, however, that people do call for the most ridiculous of reasons. The article mentions people who have called the number because they had a spider in their house. Other examples include a lady who wanted police to turn her water back on and people trying to order a taxi. Whilst, each of these people might have thought their problem was a real emergency, it makes me wonder whether these calls affected people in real need of help.

Trutex one of the leading makers of school uniforms has considered adding tracking devices to its clothing. They conducted a survey, the results of which showed that parents would be interested in knowing where their children were. They are now considering putting the tracking devices in blazers or the waistbands of trousers. The company currently sells around 200,000 blazers and 250,000 pairs of trousers every year. The only flaw in the plan, children will soon discover all they need to do is hide their uniform in the place they are meant to be and go off in plain clothes to enjoy themselves.

I was on the Virgin Wine website the other day, checking to see when my discovery club case was going to arrive and I discovered wine auctions. Basically they have about ten cases of wine in an auction which usually lasts a couple of hours. The cases start at 99p and have no reserve. However, I haven't seen any cases actually sell for under £30. Anyway I placed a bid, not really thinking I would win and ended up with a case of Merlot, which I will review here shortly. I got the case for just over £30, so it works out to less than £3 a bottle. It looks like I have just found a new way to spend my hard earned cash.

I can’t be the only person to notice that all the wet weather in the UK has had a massive impact on the slug population. Usually I see a few slugs but this year they are everywhere, crawling around and devouring all my plants. I was interested to read this article that suggests the slug population has in fact doubled this year. Experts estimate that there are 15 billion in Britain, that’s an awful lot of slugs, and I think a couple of hundred are in my garden. I think its time to get the beer traps out.

I read this article about a virtual farmers market called localfoodshop.com and thought it was a really good idea. The virtual market is not live yet but is due to launch next month. The site will allow farmers to sell their produce online for a £10 a month subscription fee. The farmers will keep 93% of whatever they make on the website, which is currently much more than they make selling their produce through the supermarket.

The reason I liked the idea, was because I like to try and buy all my produce through local farmers if at all possible, mainly because the quality is better and the food is fresher. However, it isn’t always possible. We do have farmers markets in the area but generally if I need something quickly I find myself having to buy it in Tesco. Customers will be able to search the website by postcode to find suppliers near them. The website will also encourage producers in the same area to combine deliveries, making the service more environmentally friendly. I am waiting for the launch of the site with interest and will certainly be giving it a go, so watch this space for the review.

I just opened a bottle of Spier Shiraz 2005. The wine is from the Cape of Good Hope. It has a fruity smell and a full bodied colour. It doesn’t taste as fruity as it smells but has a plum like flavour with oak undertones and a hint of spice. At only £4.99 it’s a good wine for the price.

Rory has been busy with work this week, so has been working from home most evenings. This means his cat Willow has not been getting as much attention as usual. Generally when this happens she drives us mad by running around the house howling at the top of her voice. As you can see Rory has come up a solution to keep Willow happy. A well placed cushion and she settles down for the evening, whilst Rory can still get his work done.

Pygmy elephants in Borneo are under threat because of the loss of their natural habitat. There are currently only around 1,000 of the elephants left in Sabah which is much less than previously thought. The elephants depend of the forest for their survival but over the past forty years 40% of the forest cover has been lost due to logging and human settlements. Environmentalists are calling for measures to save the elephants remaining habitat.

Its good news for the black footed ferret, North Americas most endangered mammal. A key population that had only five individuals in 1997 has now grown to more than 220. This massive rise is attributed to the large prairie dog population in Wyoming which is the ferret’s main source of food.

A homeowner who awoke to find a burglar in his house could be arrested after the burglar fell from a window. Patrick Walsh startled the burglar who fell out a top floor window and later died. It is not yet clear whether the home owner will face any charges. Stories like this make me rather angry, yes its unfortunate the burglar fell and died but he really should not have been in the house in the first place. It seems we should welcome burglars into our house and make sure they are safe whilst they are stealing our hard earned possessions. After all burglars have rights too. In my opinion A burglar gives up all his rights when he enters a property illegally and the home owner should have every right to defend themselves from this kind of intrusion.

There seem to be a lot of stories at the moment where animals have been hurt and in some cases killed by airguns. The latest story is about Fergus the cat (pictured) who was targeted with an air gun. The pellet narrowly missed his spine. Fergus is lucky not be hurt more seriously. He is currently recovering from his injury.

I read this article where a leading environmentalist suggests walking to the shops can actually damage the environment more than if you were to use your car. His calculations are based on the fact that with food production being so energy intensive more carbon is emitted providing a person with enough calories to walk to the shop than if you were to take a car over the same distance. I find this article a little silly. People need to eat whether they walk to the shop or not. I eat the same amount every day regardless of whether I walk or do other exercise. If I were to require more food for my walk to the shop, perhaps he might have a case. Either way, I will continue to walk and leave the car at home.

It never fails to amaze me how stupid some people can be. This latest story shows that some people just don’t think about the consequences of their actions. It involves a teenager who threw methylated spirits onto a barbecue. The liquid then exploded setting fire to himself and to a nearby washing line. The teenager then ran into the house setting the hallway and stair alight as well. He and another man who tries to help him put out the fire are now in hospital with serious injuries. The teenager's condition is currently critical.

Scientists looking for a rare Chinese river have concluded after a six week search that it is likely to be extinct. The last time the dolphins were counted was in 2006 when only 17 individuals were found. This time when scientists looked for the dolphins they found none at all. If the dolphin is now extinct it will be the first large vertebrate to become extinct for 50 years. Scientists had hoped to find some Yangtze river dolphin’s to transfer them to a protected breeding program but it appears they are too late.

A tiger census to see how many wild tigers there are in India has suggested that there are now only between 1,300 and 1,500 left, that’s half the amount there was in 2002. Among the problems facing tigers is that whilst they do well in protected reserves, they do not appear to do so well in other forest areas. This survey suggests that efforts should now be concentrated on the tigers that currently live within unprotected areas.

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.

A man who found a Christ-like image in a piece of concrete has sold it on Ebay for £500. The image was caused by a smudge of sealant and to me just looks like a smudge of sealant. It’s interesting the places these “divine” images pop up.

Is it Christ? You Decide.

The recent wet weather in the UK has managed to fool a zoo’s population of tawny frogmouths that it is monsoon season. As a result both of the zoos female birds laid eggs. The birds are from Australia and lay their eggs directly after the rainy season to ensure there is enough food for their chicks. Both eggs have now hatched to produce some cute fluffy chicks named Thunder and Storm.

I read this article about a class of junior school children that were told to copy out The Call to Prayer for handwriting practice. The Muslim text was chosen despite the fact that none of the class was Muslim. It makes me wonder how Muslims would feel about their children copying out a page from the bible. I think in today’s environment there would be outcry if the situation were reversed.

Environmentalists are concerned about a vulnerable colony of porbeagle sharks after a fisherman caught 60 in a day. The sharks, although rare are currently not a protected species. A catch of this size could be enough to wipe out a whole colony due to the fact it would be likely to contain most of the colonies breeding females. The decline of this species is likely to continue until they are listed as a protected species. If this doesn’t happen soon it may be too late.

Jersey’s population of Agile Frogs has just been given a large boost due a captive breeding programme. The programme was started to try and stop the decline of the frog which was facing extinction in Jersey. 800 frogs have now been released into the wild with a further batch due for release as soon as a suitable site can be found.

When I get an insect bite, I always seem to get a bad reaction. In the past I have been known to have weird growths the size of tennis balls appear a couple of days after being bitten. They do eventually go down but it is always very painful for a few weeks. I woke up today to find that an insect had bitten me on finger and that it was in the early stages of swelling up, so thought I would take a picture of it. Here it is below. Currently I am unable to bend the finger and it is very inflamed and itchy.

The mixture of the wet weather we have had here in the UK recently, followed by a period of warm weather has created the perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes. Experts have warned that we could see the insects arriving in large numbers within the next few weeks. As someone who has gets an allergic reaction to insect bites, I am not looking forward to a summer of swollen and itchy arms and legs.

Futher to my post yesterday about putting kitty on a diet, here is a picture of my fat cat Oscar. Oscar unlike most fat cats is a very active cat, he is always jumping around and playing with his friends but he has always been a rather large cat.

Most UK residents know that swans are protected. It appears that new arrivals to country, however, are unaware there is a law protecting them and are catching them for food. Polish and Lithuanian immigrants have been seen dragging the birds away. The remains of swans have also been found along the towpath in Leighton Buzzard.  Luton Angling Club has now come up with a sign which they hope will make it clear that swans are not for eating. Killing a swan is currently subject to a £5,000 fine and six months in jail.

I usually like to do my research before trying out a new restaurant particularly if we are going into London because the extra expense of the train fare makes for a costly evening, so you don’t want to be disappointed by as bad restaurant. That’s why I look for reviews from people that have already been there. At www.trustedplaces.com you can look up a London restaurant and see opinions of people that have visited it recently. You can also leave your own opinions once you have been there. This site, helps take a lot of the guesswork out of finding a good restaurant and I will definitely be adding it to my favourites to use in the future.

If you are owner of a fat cat you might want to put it on a diet. A study carried out by Edinburgh University has shown that one in every 230 cats is now diabetic. Overweight cats are three time more likely to develop the condition that their thinner friends. I think its time to cut down on the kitty treats and invest in a cat treadmill.

I found this interesting article on the BBC’s website that suggests more than a third of motorists are unable to read a basic road map. I gave it a try and managed a rather poor six out of ten. Unfortunately I have no excuse not to know the answers; I used to work for A to Z maps. Doh.

Pest controllers have warned that this summer is likely to bring a plague of mice. Several factors have contributed to the growth of the mouse population including warmer winter and more rubbish being present on the street. Calls about mouse problems rose by 23 per cent last year in London and the South East. I don’t think we need to worry too much, having four cats seems to control the mouse population near our house nicely.

Two cygnets have been shot dead in Telford, by what is believed to have been an airgun. The cygnets were shot in the head and were thought to have been used as target practice. The RSPCA have said that these types of incident are more common during the school summer holiday.

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.

A team of scientists have found that office printers can cause a health risk. Some printer models emit dangerous levels of toners that can damage lungs in much the same way that cigarette smoke does. They advise people to make sure printers are used in well ventilated areas.

A man in Cornwall managed to win the lottery twice after buying two tickets with the same numbers. He had purchased a ticket but then later brought a second one, forgetting about the first. After cashing in his first ticket for $479,142 he later realised he has another ticket with the same numbers and so had won twice the amount.

Jack Kirby has made a 1965 Ford Mustang out of 5,000 Budweiser cans. How cool is that?

An American man has been unlucky enough to have been struck by lightening twice. He was first struck by lightening 27 years ago when he was driving a tractor trailer. The second strike came exactly 27 years to the day he was first struck. This time he was sheltering from a storm in a shed. The odds of the average American being struck by lightening are 80 to one.

A lady in Devon tried to keep the swallows out of here barn by putting up a bird scaring owl. After two days the swallows had made their nest in the bird scarer. She is now resigned to the fact that the swallows are there to stay.

Two moorhen chicks have been shot at a nature reserve in County Durham. The chicks were shot dead with an air gun at the Wingate Quarry Reserve. It’s thought that the incident might be related to youths drinking in the area.

I am always looking for new recipes to try and found BigOven.com Recipe Community which is an interesting recipe swapping website. You can search over 160,000 recipes by ingredient, occasion or cuisine. One thing I particularly liked about the website is that the recipes include a photo of how the finished recipe should look which is always useful. The website also has software to help you to create grocery lists and meal plans, so if you have special diet then it could be really helpful. You can also upload your own recipes, complete with photograph. As an incentive they have a monthly prize of $100 for the best recipe photo submitted. As someone who regularly posts photos of my cooking on my blog I might give this go to see if I can earn a bit of extra cash.

Researchers studying pandas in China have found that they have expanded their habitat in the bamboo forests of two western provinces. This indicates that the population of pandas could also be expanding which is good news for the species. The last panda census recorded 103 pandas in Baishuijiang, the largest panda reserve in China. There are currently only around 1,590 pandas left in the wild with about another 180 having been bred in captive breeding programs.

This creature was pictured near Hound Tor on Dartmoor. It is not known what the creature is but this picture helps back up the local legend that a hell hound haunts the spot. The story that a pair of spectral dogs known as the Hounds of Hell inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to write The Hound of the Baskervilles. It is most likely that this latest picture is of a wild boar.

I read this interesting article about a project to re-introduce wolves to Yellowstone National Park and the impact the project has had on the parks eco system. The wolves were introduced in 1995 after having been absent from the environment for 70 years. Since their return there has been a regeneration of the parks population of aspen trees which were previously declining. Whilst the wolves do not have a direct impact on the growth of the aspen tree they do affect it indirectly.

The decline in the trees was attributed to the growth of the parks elf population which having no natural predators was getting out of control. The elk were able to wander around the park freely and eat all the young aspen trees. The re-introduction of the wolves has meant that the elk are no longer able to wander so safely for fear of being eaten. The knock on effect is that there are less elk and the young aspen trees are able to grow to maturity. I find it interesting how restoring the natural balance of predator and prey affects the whole eco system of the park.

We went for a walk along the Thames at the weekend to see how high the river was. Whilst we were there we came across this family of swans. They seem to be doing particularly well this year; usually they only have two or three cygnets, but as you can see this year there are four. As you can see from the photo the river has not yet burst its banks but is quite high for this time of year. The picture was taken at Staines.