Competitions and prizes

This weekend I received £350 worth of holiday vouchers for Cumbria Cottages through the post. These were among the latest in a number of wins I have had since I began entering competitions again, in mid-December. The wins have ranged in size from a box of After Eight mints to two large boxes of Fisher Price toys.

Because many competitions and giveaways have more than one prize, it sometimes happens that I have won a prize that is of no use to me. It is my intention to sell those prizes because, like most of us at the moment, I need the money. In addition to the wide variety of auction sites and more traditional selling methods such as newspapers, there are also a number of comper forums that offer swaps or sales of unwanted prizes. So far, I haven't investigated too much, but plan to in the next few weeks.



Spode cups and saucers

Anyone who knows me will take just one look at the beautiful Spode cup and saucer set below, with placemats and coasters and snigger to themselves. I have an appreciation for the design, the skill and beauty of the objects, but I would say that they are very feminine objects. Although, yes, I am female, I am not sure you could call me particularly feminine. I also don't have the room to begin collecting anything else - my husband tells me I already have far too many books in the place. I don't believe that there can be such a thing as too many books, personally.





essence make-up

Car products

3 Channel helicopter

New hair anyone?

Being disabled and largely bed-bound can get boring; in fact I have to say that I would have hated to have been in this position pre-internet. Although many people do complain about the time that is spent online instead of spending time outdoors, for people like me it is a connection to the world around us. The internet allows me - and all my disabled friends - the ability to interact with the rest of the world as well as being able to keep up with what is happening in the lives of friends that we are unable to visit because of our health issues.

Once every two to three months, if I am well enough to tolerate a trip out for a couple of hours, I go the hairdressers. I am lucky enough to go to a fantastic hairdressers called The Hair Gallery, Wordsley where both Sue and Wendy are not only good stylists, but also give fantastic advice when it comes to style and colour. Admittedly, my taste in colour is possibly a little brighter than usual, but what the heck, I think I have earned the right to look however I want to. So - this is me (please excuse the dodgy make-up attempt, I am in need of new supplies and less shaky hands).

 

No matter how ill you are, you need something in life that connects you to normality. For me it is my trips to the hairdressers. I know that any trip outside is going to cost me a few days recovery time, but some things are worth it. I will happily take three days for a couple of hours of feeling like a normal person.



Big Ass Space Spiders and crazy scientists

Can anyone come up with an explanation as to why someone who has arachnophobia insists on watching movies with killer spiders in? While I laugh at the movies, which are more often than not deliberately comical, I still end up waking up in the night thinking that I can feel spiders crawling over me. I can feel their nasty little legs crawling over my body, but of course when I turn the light on and have a look - ready to have a full-blown panic attack - there is nothing there.

As I type this I am torturing myself by watching the delightfully amusing Big Ass Spider! (Mendez, 2013). The movie follows the day of pest exterminator Alex Mathis (Greg Grunberg, Heroes) who, because he is far to nice, often gets paid in fruit cake rather than cash. His first customer panics when she sees a Brown Recluse spider on his shirt, tries to hit with a shoe causing it to bite him. His day goes south from that point after a corpse containing a nasty surprise is mistakenly sent to the hospital where he is being treated.

The big ass spider created by the military scientists grows at a phenomenal, rate as it is pursued through New York by both the military and Alex. The film is, alternately, amusing and gross. I don't care whether a melting face is done with stop-motion or CGI, it is still gross to watch. Still, the film is entertaining overall and well worth watching during those times when you just want to veg out and not have to think too hard for a little while. I won't tell you whether Alex ends his day alive, dead, getting the girl or going home alone. Watch it and find out!

As for me, well I can almost guarantee that there will fog-filled streets where spiders the size of houses lurk, unseen and deadly, awaiting me in my dreams when I finally fall asleep. Why on earth do you think I am still wide-awake at 3:45a.m?

Maybe I should change my name...

Maybe I should change my name to Insomnia Woman, with my super-power being able to avoid sleep and still appear the same as I usually do. I swear my eyeballs feel like they are about to fall out of my sockets and dribble down my face leaving a slimy trail of blood behind. Don't I paint a wonderful image first thing on a Sunday morning?

I have spent the night watching made-for-t.v. movies and now fully understand why they were t.v. rather than box office. The hero of the current movie is a larger man who has just shown a good size butt-crack as he miraculously escapes the runaway train by climbing onto a helicopter. I think that the writers of this particular movie have aimed to include just about every cliché imaginable. So far we have had the misbehaving son clashing with the new step-mother after the mother has passed away, the runaway train itself, the step-mom's secret pregnancy, the college football hero who fucked up on national t.v. going through his rebuilding-of-character moment, the engineer falling off the train (drama moment!). Then we had the dad saving the day by persuading the company not to derail the train in order to prevent it plowing into the hospital. I think I am actually worn out with clichés.

Well, my mp3 player is now fully charged so I am going to attempt a little sleep; assuming that damn pigeon shuts up, that is. I wonder if pigeons understand the threat of a crossbow bolt in their feathery arse...

Novel review: Naked in Death by J. D. Robb (Nora Roberts)

I sometimes have a tendency to resist reading a series of books, or watching a series on television purely because people insist on telling me how good it is, not once or twice, but every single time I talk to them. It is childish of me, I know, but the more people try to push something on me, the more I resist.

That is how it was with J.D. Robb's 'In Death' novels, featuring the emotionally damaged homicide detective, Eve Dallas. J.D. Robb is, as most people who have read her novels know, one of Nora Roberts pseudonyms. I finally - and reluctantly - picked up the first novel in the series, Naked In Death, and sat down to read it. Several hours later I closed the book and put it down only because lack of sleep was starting to make the words swim around on the page.

Set in 2058 the novel follows heroine Eve Dallas on an investigation in the homicide of a wealthy licensed companion - prostitution being both legal and well controlled - who happens to also be the daughter of a conservative Senator. The world Eve inhabits is near enough to our own that it requires little in the way of imagination. True, menial tasks such as cooking and cleaning are often handed over to drones and other technological advances, but the less savoury aspects of life such as poverty, violence and drug addiction seem to exist in greater numbers than ever. As one of Eve's contemporaries points out, basic human nature cannot be altered, even with the advanced and common use of genetic controls in the mid twenty-first century. With the world's population larger than ever, items that we take for granted in our own lives, such as real coffee or meat, are available in large quantities only to the super-rich in this futuristic world.

During the course of the investigation Eve finds that not only is she falling in love with the billionaire suspect, Roarke, her investigation is being closely monitored, perhaps even interfered with, by her superiors in the police as well as the deceased's grandfather. The bad-tempered yet caring detective is well-written and I will admit that there were times that my heart was in my mouth during this gritty novel. Roberts strikes a balance between detail and pace that is rare; the world she builds is so well-written that it is easy to imagine yourself there watching as Eve fights her way through the case to its conclusion.

I can admit that I wish I had read the novel sooner. Roberts writing is a delight to read; a futuristic crime-thriller with enough violence, police intrigue and romance to appeal to a wide range of readers. 

Where to go to find competition listings

For those who haven't noticed, I've been entering a lot of online competitions lately ('No, really?!' I hear you cry in astonishment). There are an astonishing amount of competitions and giveaways out there from businesses and bloggers all anxious to be noticed. The vast majority of us understand this and realise that businesses run competitions and giveaways in order to promote their business to new customers. This can be a far cheaper way of promotion than using traditional advertising methods; it is unlikely that your local corner shop is going to be able to afford to run an ad on television, but giving away a prize worth £50 to £100 is likely to draw more customers in through the door, providing people know about the competition. Getting people inside the door/on the web page is the first step towards them making a purchase.

I have seen numerous competitions online that are simply 'like and share/retweet' that have only been entered by a couple of dozen people at most. This is far more likely to be because people simply don't know about the competition, than because they don't want to enter. There are a variety of competition sites out there that not only list competitions for free, but in some cases will reward the person who notifies them of a previously unlisted competition, prize draw or giveaway. While many of these sites are free to join, some of them do charge subscribers - who usually receive a monthly magazine.

Some of the many competition listing sites include:

• UK competitions
• The Prize Finder
• Competition Club
• UK Prize
• Simply Prizes
• Compers News

These are a mixture of pay and free-to-join competition listing sites, most of which I am a member myself. If you do an online search, you are likely to find hundreds more listing sites and competitions themselves. Most competition listing sites will encourage members to inform them about any new/unlisted competitions or prize draws, which they will then add to their lists - which is then seen by thousands of online compers.

Just a quick word of warning though: not all competitions are as above board as they may seem. There are scams out there that just want you to promote their product by sharing their page on social media sites, but never actually send out prizes to anyone. A comping friend of mine, Leanne, has started a 'known scams' page on her blog for people to add any companies are known to run scams. In addition, any company that does not comply with the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) requirements for running a competition in Britain can be reported to them for investigation. The rest of Leanne's blog is well worth reading, not only because she is a talented writer, but because she provides some excellent hints and tips in various posts. As she has quite possibly had more wins than any other comper I know, her advice is well worth reading!

The page that I have linked to for the ASA contains a number of in-site links to relevant information both for consumers and industry in relation to competitions, prize draws and giveaways. The information is well worth reading as it gives you the knowledge you require to be safe. Much of this information is repeated on the better competition listing sites.

Finally, good luck to everyone! I would love to hear about your comping wins, so make sure that you let me know. Hearing about everyone else's wins encourages me to keep going in those times that we all inevitably have where we don't win anything for a while.