World Toilet Day

Today is World Toilet Day - more than 2 billion people still don’t have a dignified or private place to go to the loo.

 Text  WASH12£1
to
70070

to donate one pound to Village Water working to reduce this dreadful statistic (I'm a trustee so I can vouch for this charity and all the good work it does).

Toys For Boys And Toys For Girls?

My grandson is 7 years old and I’m beginning to think about what to buy him for Christmas. I’d received a copy of the Boots catalogue and decided to have a look through it.

I was shocked to see that the toys for older children were divided into “Girls’ Toys” and “Boys’ Toys”. And, you guessed it, in the boys’ section there were  exciting things like Meccano Assorted Build and Play Vehicles or a Weird Science Slime Laboratory. Girls? Oh they have Glitter Babes Giant Pamper Set or, but no, I can’t bring myself to write about the rest.

I’m throwing the catalogue away. I will not be buying from Boots.

Healthy Protein Powders

I am a keen gym person and find that I do well if I take a protein powder after my workout, ut lots of protein powders are full of all sorts of other stuff as well. I like Good Hemp Protein Powder. The taste isn’t that great, but I mix it with orange juice and glug it down. Since I've been doing that I've found I recover better, am generally less tired (particularly in the morning) and my skin looks and feels a lot better.

I like the fact that it’s made in the UK on a farm in Devon. I was pleased to receive their latest newsletter and to read this:

“This year we have been growing on farms where we plant additional areas with plants to increase birdlife and wildlife. In fact for every acre of hemp we planted, we planted an additional 10% of land with wildflowers, special grass mixes and food for the birds through the winter.

"The combination of this work and the benefits of hemp have increased the birdlife dramatically – in fact the RSPCA (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) recently counted the birds seen in a section of the farm and found almost 70% increase from 5 years ago.”

The Secret Of A Healthy Old Age?

I really enjoyed this long article from the New York Times magazine. They title it The Island Where People Forget To Die. If you're interested in having a long and active old age, this article will certainly offer lots of food for thought. It also makes you realise (yet again) that there is a lot in modern society that is not conducive to health and well being.