A COLLABORATION TEASER: WHY IT’S OK TO REWARD YOURSELF | COME ONLINE SHOPPING WITH ME ON WARDOW

“Shopping is a way of life. It’s the way I treat myself.”

Sarah Jessica Parker

As you might know from a two-part series (part one is here and part two is here) I published recently with St Oswald’s Hospice, I’ll be working on a huge collaboration with the charity that will be published on July 15^th 2024 and you’ll – hopefully! – be excited to know that across these three weeks prior to that, I’ll be publishing a couple of ‘Collaboration Teasers!’ With a huge part of the St Oswald’s Hospice collaboration being centred around the opening of the charity’s new retail store in Blyth (you can find all the details of that store here), I thought I’d make these Collaboration Teasers themed on retail and, more specifically, online shopping! So, for this Collaboration Teaser, I’ll be chatting through why it’s absolutely fine to reward yourself and then there’ll be some bits of my shopping on Wardow scattered throughout…

WHY GAINING RESPONSIBILITY IS ONE OF THE GREATEST REASONS TO HAVE A FURRY FRIEND | FOUR YEARS SINCE LOSING DOLLY

“When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too”

Paulo Coelho

Four years ago on October 16th, my big, fluffy, four-year-old Maine Coon; Dolly, was put to sleep after battling kidney failure for just over a week (you can read more about her death here). Every year since losing Dolly, I’ve felt the need to concentrate on all my good memories from my four years with her, because I recognised that if I didn’t – if I allowed my head to be consumed by all of the sadness and grief – there was every chance that I would fall apart. And this is a coping mechanism I found so helpful that I actually used it in the death of my Lionhead bunny; Pixie in 2021. From doing this, and from the fact that I now have a rescue, calico cat; Emmy, and a mini-Lionhead bunny; Luna, I found the inspiration for this blog post where I’m going to talk about my top four reasons for having pets…

“YOU SHOULDN’T BECOME COMPLACENT WITH YOUR MEDICATION” | WHEN THE PHARMACY MAKE A MISTAKE

“When you make a mistake, there are only three things you should ever do about it: admit it, learn from it, and don’t repeat it.”

Paul Bear Bryant

I’ve had a rough few days and unfortunately, to explain why, I need to tell you a bit of a long-winded story…


So, last weekend, I began feeling physically poorly and called 111 (the NHS non-emergency helpline in the UK) to then be asked by a Doctor what medication I take. I went to my dosette box and realized that my Aripiprazole (an antipsychotic medication) was missing and it was really frustrating to find out on a Saturday night because obviously my GP and Pharmacy were both closed so I had to wait until Sunday morning to ring the Pharmacy. When I spoke to the Pharmacist, I really wasn’t expecting for him to say, ‘we haven’t given you it since May!’ Whilst I wasn’t expecting it as a response, it did make sense because I’d been planning to request a medication increase as I’d started struggling again. So, on the one hand, I was reassured that we were able to pinpoint a cause for my deterioration, but it was also frustrating because it was out of my control.