What worked for me today 29th April 2010

As anyone who knows me knows, my dogs are very important to me. I love them totally. They are also costing me a FORTUNE. So I have started buying lots of my doggy stuff online including basic medication.

One of the places where I shop is Petmeds. They are great for items like worming tablets and Frontline.

They also sell prescription items which is particularly helpful for those with insurance. You can reach your insurance levels much faster if buying meds from vets directly.

I have just been sent a voucher code which might work for you. To receive 10% off  add the code return10 during checkout.

Another site that I have been browsing which sells a similar product range is Medic Animal.  All products are UK sourced and all medicines are dispensed by qualified veterinary surgeons.

A picture of one very relaxed Westie

There are a number of other pet related sites. I buy food at Petplanet. Their delivery times and service are very good.

I have also bought bedding from My Pet Universe

What a difference a few weeks make!

Finally, had to give the big dog Norah a brush today. What worked for me today is the Furminator. A great piece of kit. You can buy it from Amazon. It gently removes fur and is addictive. You only need to use it every two weeks because it is so efficient. Use only on dogs that shed - so I don't need to use it on my Westie.

Don't forget to buy your pooh bags! I think men love owning a large dog - they just hate picking up their large poohs!

What worked for me today 28th April 2010

My inbox is being deluged at the moment with offers from travel companies, department stores and garden centres. It is my own fault. I sign up for everything and the result is that they all have my address and just keep sending out the offers. And I, of course, keep reading them.

So what came through today which might actually work for me? Here are the best of the garden offers.

Valueflora has a May Day celebration offer with 15 mixed oriental lily bulbs for just £9.99 and free delivery. You can find out more here -
Valueflora.com. Just type SUMBULB at the checkout for the offer.

Digyourhome is offering 10% off all garden and home items with the following voucher code: DYHGARDEN2010

They offer free delivery on everything and an ever-expanding range of products. Look out for the Hozelock and Radius tool products.

You can find out more here - Digyourhome

Blooming Direct has a number of plants offers this week including 66 snapdragon mixed plants for £9.95, five young clematis Gypsy Queen plants for £9.95 and five patio climbing roses also for £9.95. With the following voucher code, you can get another 5% off: BLOOMING5. You can find out more here - Blooming Direct

I have been looking at pots and there some good ones available from Amazon in the US but Amazon in the UK also have a wide range of pots available:


















Pictures of snapdragons and rose courtesty of Blooming Direct.

What worked for me today 27th April 2010

Well the ash has caused us lots of problems over the past few days. After a week, my partner finally got back from Spain but decided that it was just too risky to fly on to New Orleans.

So this left me time to do a little browsing for myself and I have found a few things that I know are really going to work for me.

With the improvement in the weather I have been out in the garden and planning what I am going to need for the summer season. The good news is that the moss seems to be dying off after the treatments I wrote about in my article on Squidoo. You can read it here:

http://www.squidoo.com/lawnmossremoval

But now on to the best bits - the new plants, tools, furniture and water features.

I have spent a lot of time looking for the best value plants and I have listed my favourites below.

Bedding plants particularly impatiens, sunpatiens and begonias again come from Thompson & Morgan. Not only do they have a sale at the moment but I had a £5 voucher to spend.

I also bought some petunias from Gardening Direct. They also had some hanging basket kits which looked quite good value as well.

I looked at Gardening Express for different plants especially perennials which are always good to have in the garden. You can find out more about their offers here. They have a plant of the week offer and a deal of the day offer which is always good to check out.

I am looking for a birdbath and found this on Amazon in the US. You don't need to keep replenishing the bath/waterer which I always forget to do. I am going to try to find an alternative here in the UK.

My trusty gardening gloves have not survived the winter (even though I washed them several times) so I have purchased a new pair from Robert Dyas. A pack of three cost just £4.99. They also had a pair of extra grip gloves for just £2.49.

I also liked the look of these gloves from Amazon in the US because the textured rubber coating protects your entire finger, there are knit cuffs which keep the dirt out and they are great for planting and working in wet soil.


If your mower is looking a bit worse for wear, the best place to find a replacement is Garden Cut. This site has a wide range of garden tools from mowers to shredders and I think the prices are really good. You can find out more here

Or try Mow Direct who also have some good offers.

So there is a lot out there available - and I haven't even started looking at furniture yet for the new patio!

What worked for me today 12th April 2010

I know - it has been ages since I was last here and there is lots to tell. However, I thought I would just do a couple of quickies and then do a proper update tomorrow.

So what worked for me today? Well I have discovered a new website which brings together all the low cost carriers here in the UK and gives you not only the fare but also the final ticket price of the flight. My partner was looking for last minute flights to Malaga and had a great choice so we booked through them.

The site is wegolo.com and you can find out more HERE

We are now looking for car hire and airport parking so I will add what I find - and if it worked for me - later.

LATER ON

OK we have now booked the car parking through airparks. They gave us a great deal for the two nights. You can find out more HERE

Now onto the car hire.....

When it comes to car hire we can never find anyone cheaper in Spain than doyouspain.com.

We tried but yet again they were over £20 cheaper than anyone else. And their queues are quick when you get to the airport as well.

What worked for me today 9th March 2010

I found a great site today which I passed on to my marketing colleagues. This is the blurb from their website which explains what they do:

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.

You can check it out yourself at: http://www.wordle.net/ but we wary. Before you know it, an hour has passed!

Above is an example of what you can produce.

The copy comes from an advert I placed on US Free Ads promoting two timeshare exchange bibles which I think are great value for owners who are tired of not getting what they want from their exchanges.

You can read the ad here: http://www.usfreeads.com/2306895-cls.html

Or go directly to them if you Click Here! for the II Exchange Bible or Click Here! for the RCI Exchange Bible.

If you are interested in US Free Ads, then click here to place classifieds to buy, sell or advertise anything!

What worked for me today 8th March 2010

The good news is that after just seven days my first batch of seeds have germinated and I now have mini tomato and mimulus seedlings. Still waiting for the chilli plants but I am expecting them later this week. I have also just planted some gazanias. So seeds are definitely working for me today!

Obviously I want them to grow quickly so I have looked into a number of products that might help such as this seed starting system from Burpee and also the germination station but I am not sure if they will be any better than my warm kitchen. It might be time to do some testing.

Up until now, I have used normal compost but I think it might be time to look into proper seed compost. Any views on this would be gratefully received. And I am not too sure when I should start feeding. Again any views on this would be appreciated.

I am hopeful that the weather will start to improve and I can start to spend some time in the garden. Unfortunately, I have a business trip coming up in the next few days and I will be away for over a week, so I hope my seeds survive.

By the way, something that definitely didn't work for me yesterday were my dog walking boots. After a few years of use they split! This meant walking with my left foot wrapped in a plastic bag to stop the mud getting through. As I worked, my left foot sounded like it was farting. Not a good sound - and it spooked the dogs!

I am now looking for replacements - so will keep you updated with my progress.

What worked for me today 4th March 2010

I love to have cut flowers in my house - the colours, the scent and the shapes are just great and really cheer me up. So yesterday I spent some time writing a piece on creating my own cut flower garden so that I can have a regular supply of blooms throughout the year and at a fraction of the cost of even a supermarket bought bouquet. You can read it here.

It also means that I won't have to wait for someone to buy them for me! Because by my reckoning I am probably due a bouquet in about 3 1/2 years!

Now my displaying abilities are no where as good as the WI - in fact I am sure they would shudder at my mistakes so I am keen to find some simple books on flower display techniques. A quick look on Amazon has found two interesting titles so this might be something to consider.

And it is on the topic of flowers that I have found what worked for me today. As there isn't even a tulip or daffodil in my garden I have had to order a bouquet for delivery to my mother for Mother's Day. Now I know what you are thinking. Mother's Day is not until 14th March, but I am going to be away and I want to be organised.

My mother does not like us spending a fortune on presents so I chose a company that I think has a great range of bouquets at  good value prices. You can find more information on Bunches.co.uk here.

I have ordered the Hugs and Kisses bouquet above for my mother for £25.99 but there are much cheaper bouquets if your budget doesn't stretch that far - and I am sure she is going to love it. They are also giving away a box of chocolates with all online orders. I might just keep that for myself......