It's natural to crave a drink to cool you down on a hot day. Your body is screaming for fluid. But medical experts have warned that sugary drinks are killing 184,000 adults around the world every year.

A new publication in the American Heart Association’s Circulation journal reveals that sugar-laden drinks, ranging from soft drinks to fruit smoothies should be eliminated from people’s diets.

The human global death toll arises from the diseases of diabetes, (133,000 a year), heart disease, (45,000 a year), and cancer, (6,450 a year). The study is the first comprehensive assessment of the world-wide deaths attributable to sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs).

Researchers defined SSBs as any sugar-sweetened fizzy drinks, fruit drinks, sweetened iced teas, sports/energy drinks, or homemade sugary drinks. Pure fruit juice was excluded.

An international team of researchers from Harvard, Tufts and Washington universities in the US, and Imperial College London in the UK conducted the extensive study of 62 dietary surveys taken from more than 611,000 people between 1980 and 2010 across 51 countries—almost two thirds of the world’s adult population.

The dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science & Policy at Tufts University in Boston said it should be a global priority to substantially reduce or eliminate sugar-sweetened beverages from the diet. 
Source: The Independent. 

Of course, the director general of the British Soft Drinks Association said the evidence was inconclusive.

Back in 2013, Coke launched an “anti-obesity” advertisement accepting that sweetened soda and many other foods and drinks have added to the obesity epidemic. Coke offered its wide array of calorie-free beverages and encouraged individuals to take responsibility for their own drink choices and weight. Responses were mixed, with many experts calling it misleading and inaccurate in stating the health dangers of soda.

The calorie facts: The average can of sugar-sweetened soda or fruit punch provides about 150 calories, almost all of them from sugar, usually high-fructose corn syrup. That’s the equivalent of 10 teaspoons of table sugar. If you were to drink just one can of a sugar-sweetened soft drink every day, and not cut back on calories elsewhere, you could gain up to 5 pounds in a year.

A recent study found that consumption of calorie-sweetened beverages has continued to increase and may play a role in the obesity epidemic, metabolic syndrome and fatty liver disease.

Reducing your intake of soft drinks is associated with less weight gain and metabolic improvement. Why not drink water or pure fruit juices instead?

As a teenager, I drank Coca Cola with ice as a substitute for cocktails in the evening with my parents. The drink was a luxury. Back in the 50s, Coke contained much more harmful substances. Of course, I didn't know about the original ingredients.

I've never liked sweet or bubbly drinks and have not indulged myself since. As well as water, I drink a variety of unsweetened teas, and one glass of pure apple juice a day.

However, I feel very sorry for the children who have been raised on sweet drinks. It will be very hard for them to adapt to a different way of getting through the day if they have to give it up. I think sugar is one of the most addictive foods.

My husband adds raw cane sugar to his coffee. It's a habit. At the age of 76, I don't think he'd consider drinking his coffee without sugar. I'm not going to bother him with the facts. I preach to him too much as it is.

How about you? Now you've seen the shocking evidence, will you drink sugary drinks?

Here in England, we're preparing for some of the hottest days ever. In many parts of the world, the heat is rising. Young or old, everybody wants to keep themselves cool during a heatwave. The main risks from the heat are dehydration, overheating, heat exhaustion and heatstroke. Here is a list of twelve easy ways to protect yourself and those who are vulnerable—seriously ill, young children or elderly people around you.



1. Stay out of the sun and remain indoors during the hottest part of the day (11am and 3pm).

2. Drink plenty of fluid such as water and fruit juice, these will help you stay hydrated. Avoid tea, coffee and alcohol which can leave you more dehydrated than before.

3. When the sun is blazing, keep your windows closed and pull down the shades, using reflective material outside the windows to keep rays at bay. This action can reduce the amount of heat that passes into your home by as much as 45 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Open windows at night when the air is cooler.

4. Try a desert trick. When the air outside is dry and cooler than the air inside, hang a damp sheet in an open window. That's what they do in in US's Death Valley. Incoming breezes are cooled by the evaporating water.

5. Have cool baths or showers regularly to help regulate your body temperature and reduce the risk of overheating.


6. Plan ahead for supplies in your home, including as food, water and any medication you need, ensuring you don't have to leave your home for necessities

7. Retreat to the coolest room in the house when things get too hot.

8. Wear lightweight, loose lifting and light-colored clothing to reflect heat and sunlight and a hat if you go outside.

9. Check up on friends, relatives and neighbors who may be less able to look after themselves. A vulnerable person could collapse from heatstroke. It only takes a minute to knock on someone's door or give them a quick call. You could save someone's life.

10. Assemble a makeshift air conditioner. If it's hot but not humid, place a shallow bowl of ice in front of a fan and enjoy the breeze. As the ice melts, then evaporates, it will cool you off.

11. Do as little as possible. The National Weather Service suggests we schedule strenuous activities for the cooler mornings or just skip it.

12. While you take a cool bath or shower, put your undergarments in the freezer as Marilyn Monroe did in "The Seven Year Itch."

I open all the windows first thing in the morning to let in the cool air, only closing them when the temperature rises. But, where I live in Hertfordshire, England, cool air wafts over the fields with the morning dew.

Living in Australia as a teenager, I suffered heatstroke. I felt dizzy, head-achy and lethargic. Unable to rise from my bed, I slept for days. Back in 1958, we didn't go to the doctor for such things. I eventually recovered, but remained wary of overdoing the sunbathing at the local beach. But, at 16 years, I was at peak fitness. My elderly body wouldn't cope so well now. I'll be taking all of the advice above—well, maybe not the underwear in the freezer. Chuckle.

After falling more than 20ft down an unmarked lift shaft and breaking both his legs, a UK male model and fashion and designer feared he would never walk again.

The twenty-five year old had made dresses for British label Beulah, worn by the Duchess of Cambridge amongst others.

In March last year at one of RADA’s buildings (The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art), he leaned against a set of unsecured metal double doors for a disused lift shaft. It gave way and he plunged to the concrete base below, breaking both his legs femurs and smashing the right into five pieces, prompting fears he would lose the leg. He has undergone three operations to insert titanium supports into each leg.

The drama school has been fined £12,000 for breaching health and safety regulations as a result.

But, after months of physiotherapy, on Friday night he strutted again at British Fashion Volume One in London’s Shepherd’s Bush.

He said, “It has been an incredibly hard, slow process to get to the point where I can walk without a limp. I still experience pain if I walk too far or try to run, but being on a catwalk makes me feel alive, so I’ve been desperate to try to get back to it.” Source: The Telegraph. 

Although his injuries were much worse than mine, I sympathize. My femur shattered during a hip operation about twelve years ago.

Not everyone knows about this main weight-bearing bone. The femur or thighbone is the longest bone in your body. The shaft, the main part of the femur runs below the hip joint and above the knee joint.

Here's what I experienced:

After an operation to replace my left hip, I drifted in and out of consciousness in the theater recovery area. Nurses spoke to me every now and again and checked the equipment attached to my body. Someone asked me if I knew where I was or what had happened. I listened while they told me there had been an accident and I was in recovery. I accepted it and went to sleep again. Once fully roused, nurses told me I'd been with them for twenty four hours and had lost most of the blood in my body.

When I returned to the ward, a member of the hospital staff appeared with a clipboard. He sat beside me and explained what had happened, then asked me if I was happy with the way I was treated. Dazed, I nodded. Of course, the nursing staff had given me every care. He handed me a form to sign and then left.

I had a ‘drip’ in my arm to give me fluids, and blood to replace that I had lost during your operation and to prevent me becoming anemic. Oh, and a catheter as well as a drainage tube in the wound to prevent any blood collecting in the area to stop swelling.

A pressure dressing covered the whole area from my hip to my knee so I didn't know how it looked. When the pain got too bad, I could press a button to deliver pain relief.

At the change of dressing, I discovered clips in the wound all the way down my outer thigh to the top of my knee, which was swollen and painful. I remained immobile in hospital for two weeks until a special hip socket and shaft arrived. Then, I underwent another operation to connect the new device. My x-rays revealed three 'pins' inserted into the bone, and two swirls of twisted wire all around a metal shaft that had been inserted inside the femur. For two further weeks, I remained in hospital. The nurse removed half the clips a few days before the others—over fifty in all—before I was discharged.

I'm happy to report that after six months, I went back to work and remained active until my retirement. Now at the age of seventy-three, I walk with an exaggerated limp, use a stick indoors and rely on a walker outside. However, any effort I make causes pain.

Can you believe some people arrange to have their legs broken on purpose?

First designed to rectify dwarfism, some people have their legs surgically broken to make themselves taller—models, athletes etc—to give height or for personal vanity. Crazy! They couldn't know the pain they will experience in older age.

My determination to return to a normal life ensured quick recovery, as did the male model's grit in the news story above. As humans, we are capable of great things.

Never give up on your dreams. I'll bet you know of a good example.

A UK postman has been hailed a hero after rescuing a woman who was trapped under her car for hours earlier this month. While on his delivery round, he found the injured woman lying outside her home near West Linton in the rural part of the Scottish Borders.

A handbrake malfunction caused the car to roll backwards on top of her.

The postman, who has 18 years experience, released the woman before raising the alarm, waiting with her until the ambulance arrived. Source: BBC.

It must have been a shocking ordeal for her, all alone with nobody to call to.

My mother told me about a similar thing that happened to her. Late in the night, she locked up her business in South Australia, and approached her car in an ill-lit car park. Somehow, she slammed the car door on her finger and stood for hours helpless and in pain while she called for help. At last, somebody came to her rescue. The hospital bound up her finger and she 'dined out on the story' until it healed. I don't know if you're familiar with the expression. It means she had plenty to talk about when she met other people. However, a postman didn't come to her aid at that time of night. But they are heroes, all the same.

I used a postman in a vision (mostly taken from news stories) in one of my fantasy novels where an ordinary woman helps people during mind-shifts. This comes from Shattered Shells:

Fact or fantasy, a good old postman saved the day. I dread to think what would happen if people stopped posting letters. Could we do without postmen?

Working mothers' adult daughters tend to get better jobs, while their grown-up sons are happy to do more in the home, particularly in Britain and the US. Wow! That's staggering. What we need in this world is balance between the sexes in every phase of their life.

A Harvard University study of 24 countries, carried out between the years 2002 and 2012, found daughters of mothers in work have better careers, higher pay and more equal relationships than those of stay-at-home mothers.

Although it's difficult to get rid of the guilt, mothers should not feel work means they are abandoning their children.

The lead researcher said: "Employed mothers often internalize social messages of impending doom for their children, and fathers who choose to emphasize care-giving run up against countervailing social messages signaling their inadequacy as breadwinners."

But data showed that daughters of working mothers were paid 4% more than their peers. They also found one in three daughters of working mothers occupied managerial posts, compared with one in four of those of stay-at-home mothers.

These findings suggest that in addition to transmitting gender attitudes across the generations, daughters learn, from their mothers' employment, a set of skills that enable greater participation in the workforce and in leadership positions.

Sons of working mothers tended to spend more time caring for family members than adult sons of stay-at-home mothers.

The study concluded: "Women across the world have increasingly entered the paid workforce, but the parallel increase in men's contributions to unpaid work within households lags behind. Women's entrenched responsibilities for household work constrain their choices in the public sphere.

"Men also bear costs from the unequal distribution of household responsibilities; gendered practices and norms in public and private spheres act as barriers to men who want to take on bigger roles at home." Source: BBC. 

So, having a mother in employment gives long-lasting, positive effects on children. “When you go to work, you are helping your children understand that there are lots of opportunities for them.”

Some of the language is hard to comprehend. It's basically saying that the children take their lead from the roles their parents play. If the mother works, and the father is happy with her role, the rest of the family pitch in to help with household chores like cleaning and cooking. The sons learn how to care for the family unit and the daughters are free to make their own decisions about what to do with their life.

At last: humanity is working toward a balance between the sexes.

I never worked when my children were young in the 60s and 70s. However, I taught my children to look after their own rooms, keep the living areas tidy, and each of them helped prepare the meal and clean up afterward. You think I'm going to say they turned out perfect? Nope. But my son loved to cook as an adult. And my youngest daughter worked as a top model in the 80s.

What are your experiences?

The Queen of England's life might seem like a fairy tale, but much more goes on behind the scenes than we could ever dream of.

News that the Crown Estate returned record profits of £285m last year means the Queen is expected to receive a further £2m in public funding next year. Have you ever wondered how rich the Queen is, and where her wealth comes from?

Despite the fact that many details of the Queen's income are released for the public to peruse, Her Majesty's exact wealth is not known because she is not required to reveal her private finances.

According to the Sunday Times Rich List 2015, her estimated fortune is £340m, up £10m from last year.

Last year the Sovreign Grant was £37.9m, of which the Queen spent £35.7m which pays for staffing costs, property maintenance, travel, utilities and housekeeping, among other things.

Technically the Crown Estate belongs to the reigning monarch for the duration of their reign, but in practice it cannot be sold by them.

The privy purse is a private income for the Queen, which is primarily used to pay for expenses incurred by other members of the Royal Family. Investment portfolios, personal property, the royal stamp collection, art, jewels, cars, horses and the Queen Mother's legacy, all add to her personal fortune along with the Royal Collection, which includes the Crown Jewels and works of art. It contains more than a million objects and is worth £10bn, but it is not included in the Queen's wealth because it is held in trust for her successors and country.

Her private income includes old master prints, historical photographs, furniture, books, and other works of art. It is kept between a number of locations, such as Hampton Court Palace and Windsor Castle.
 Source BBC.

The most powerful woman on the planet met the most famous woman in the world when Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomed the Queen to Germany at the Chancellery near the Reichstag in Berlin at the start of her four day tour.

There is also news that the Queen might have to move out of Buckingham Palace amid £151million of repairs. I think she has enough properties at her disposal to find comfort elsewhere. 
But, would she want to?

However, at the age of 89 years (April 21, 1926), the Queen is a wonderful ambassador for England, accompanied by her husband, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburg, 94 years (June 10, 1921), who was born in Mon Repos, Corfu, Greece. He is the longest-serving consort of a reigning British monarch and the oldest-ever male member of the British royal family. They have been married since 1947.

Working tirelessly for her country since she made the vow at her coronation in June 1953, the Queen has indeed fulfilled her role.

But, who knows about the cost to her?



“Happily ever after is not a fairy tale. It’s a choice.” -Fawn Weaver



With countless wealth at her disposal, Elizabeth 11 might seem to live a fairy tale life of happily ever after. But, could you go on for 52 years doing your duty to your country and your spouse?

A female from the first wild beaver colony in England for centuries has given birth to at least two young. New footage shows the kits swimming, assisted by their mother.

The poor creatures were hunted to extinction in England and Wales for their valuable fur and glandular oil during the 12th Century and disappeared from the rest of the UK 400 years later.

The Devon Wildlife Trust said the slowly expanding population would help to provide an insight into their effect on the surrounding River Otter system in east Devon.

In January 2015, Natural England granted a licence to the Devon Wildlife Trust that allowed the beavers to remain on the river, as part of a pilot experiment. But the Angling Trust warned a population increase could have detrimental effects on other wildlife.

Beavers have a dramatic impact on their environment by felling large and small trees, and creating sophisticated dams that hold vast amounts of water used to reach foraging areas.

Although some say the program is irresponsible, a Friends of the Earth campaigner said they will bring huge benefits to the countryside by boosting biodiversity and keeping the rivers clean.

The trust is urging people not to search for the kits as they would be disturbed by noise and dogs. Source: BBC. 

Earlier in May, 2015, UK's first formal mammal reintroduction settled beaver families living wild in the Heart of Argyll, Scotland.

One of my favorite films in the late sixties was Ring of Bright Water, starring Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna about returning a pet otter to the wild. Both also starred together in Born Free. Okay, it's a different animal, but the sentiment is the same. See the full movie on YouTube. 

I've never seen a beaver. I lived in Australia for the first forty-five years of my life before settling in England. But I've been close up to kangaroos, wallabies and koala bears in the wild. Does that count? Here in England, the only wildlife I've spotted consists of birds, ducks, geese, pheasants, field mice, and rats. Oh, and I've heard foxes call at night in the swathe of trees growing opposite.

I like the idea of reinstating animals in areas where they used to roam free before human intervention. In our dystopian Higher Ground series of co-written novels, the characters often come across strange animals in the forest covering Britland after the Great Flood. It makes a fascinating subject. 

What do you think about restoring the natural order in nature?

Some garments are just plain ridiculous, and some are positively harmful. Now, doctors have warned that skinny jeans can seriously damage muscles and nerves.

When her calves ballooned in size, 35-year-old Australian woman had to be cut out of a pair of the tight jeans as described in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry.

After hours of squatting to empty cupboards while preparing to move house, her feet went numb and she found it hard to walk, then tripped and fell. Unable to get up, she then spent several hours lying on the ground.

On examination at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, her lower legs were severely swollen. Although her feet were warm and had enough blood supplying them, her muscles were weak and she had lost some feeling; her muscles and nerves had become damaged.

Doctors believe the woman developed a condition called compartment syndrome, made worse by her skinny jeans. Compartment syndrome is a painful and potentially serious condition caused by bleeding or swelling within an enclosed bundle of muscles.

She was put on an intravenous drip, and, after four days, was able to walk unaided.

Other medics have reported a number of cases where patients have developed tingly, numb thighs from wearing the figure-hugging low-cut denim trousers. Source: BBC.

Previously skinny jeans have been linked to another condition called meralgia parasthetica: numbness caused by pressure on a nerve running from the pelvis to the thigh.

Young people wear a variety of jean styles, including carpenter jeans, bootcut jeans, drainpipe jeans and lowrise jeans. But be wary of donning skinny jeans too often. While it may not be dangerous on a one-off basis, repeated episodes can cause permanent damage to the nerves.

Okay; I was young once. In the 50s, I wore all sorts of clothes that might seem ridiculous to us now including a 'shepherdess dress'. The pale gray fabric fitted my bodice, and then flared out to a full skirt which was nipped in at the hemline. Sort of like a monochrome pumpkin. But that's what shepherdesses wore while tending their flock, so the fashion should have been acceptable. I can't remember how I walked in the thing—with tiny steps I guess.

Have you ever worn a weird garment for the sake of fashion?

The National Trust is asking the public to record the sounds of the UK seaside to create an audio archive. They are hoping for thousands of recordings to be uploaded onto a digital map.

The "Sounds of our shores" project is a joint scheme between the National Trust, which protects historic places and spaces in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the National Trust for Scotland, and the British Library.

Sounds heard around the coastline are constantly changing so the project will create an audio snapshot for future generations.

The British Library will curate the recordings, which could include man-made sounds like those of a busy port.

All the sounds recorded around the UK's 10,800 miles of coastline will be added to the British Library's Sound Archive, joining 6.5 million recordings dating back to the 19th Century. Source BBC.

What a fantastic project. This set me thinking about what sounds I can remember, and the background associated with the sound.

My most potent memories come from the seventies—probably because that's the time-frame I've reached with my memoirs.

Seagulls squabbling over a scrap of bread.

Waves crashing on the sand at the little bay in close by our house Robe, South Australia.

Yachtsmen calling to each other; ropes slapping the hull.

Released from their pen, hens clucking while they scratch the earth.

“Mum, why do you always yell?” My son said this when I chastised him for balancing his surfboard on his thigh while trimming it. Of course, the knife slipped and sliced his thigh instead.

“Give me all your money.” When a robber held a gun pointed at me inside a London shop.

“I love you.” My husband's urgent statement before he left for a procedure at the hospital recently.

Which sound brings back memories for you?

Advice published by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization in March warned about meningitis in the UK. The publication contained the words, “levels of disease were consistent with an outbreak situation with cases and deaths occurring in all age ranges, constituting a public health emergency”.

This sound serious.

From August, all 17 and 18-year-olds will be offered a new, combined vaccine that protects against the disease. The vaccine is particularly important for those preparing to leave home for university, who are at greater risk of contracting the disease.

Older students aged 19 to 25 starting university this year will also be offered the vaccine. 
From spring next year the new vaccination program will target 12 to 14-year-olds at school.
There will be a catch-up program for those aged 15 and 16.

In total, three million teenagers will be offered the immunization in a bid to prevent transmission of a “highly aggressive” sub-type of the disease, following a five-fold rise in the number of cases of meningitis W.

Until recently, the strain had mainly affected the elderly, but the new bacterium is severely affecting teenagers and young people. Last year there were 117 cases, compared to 22 in 2009. In the last two years there have been 24 deaths, compared with about four a year up until 2012.

The announcement comes just months after the Government announced that all babies aged two months will be offered the lifesaving meningitis B vaccine from September.

Do you know the facts?

Meningitis and septicaemia can kill in hours.

Meningitis is the inflammation of the lining around the brain and spinal cord.

Septicaemia is the blood poisoning form of the disease.

The two forms of the disease have different symptoms. People who recover from meningitis and septicaemia may be left with a range of after effects that dramatically alter their lives.

Meningitis is usually bacterial or viral, and occasionally is due to fungal infections, although almost any microbe can cause it.

Do you know the symptoms?

The first indications are usually fever, vomiting, headache and feeling unwell. Limb pain, pale skin, and cold hands and feet often appear earlier than the rash, neck stiffness, dislike of bright lights and confusion.

Trust your instincts. Someone who has meningitis or septicaemia could become seriously ill very quickly. Get medical help immediately if you suspect meningitis or septicaemia - it's a race against time. 
Source: Meningitis

In 1964, I suspected my baby had caught the disease during the seven hour drive from Victoria to South Australia. We rushed her into the Adelaide hospital when we arrived during the night, but, luckily, it turned out to be flu and not life-threatening. The nurse gave me a good talking-to about the false alarm when they were busy, but said it was probably best to be safe.

Have you ever danced with death to the tune of meningitis?