Win £100 Amazon Voucher or Equivalent

 

Win £100 Amazon, PayPal  transfer or equivalent in your own currency just in time for Christmas. Enter by completing the Gleam entry form. If more than 100 people enter I will add another competition later this month! Good luck. Competition is open worldwide, closing date 30 November. 

IMPORTANT: for the third comment on a post option just choose one of the selection. I tried to change them to be relevant to the question but it didn’t work. 

Win £100 Amazon Voicher

Pet Guardianship Schemes

 

Death and what happens afterwards seems to a subject that seems to gauge very little interest or discussion. People will write a will, maybe plan their funeral but what happens to an important part of your family, your pets? Pets are classed as property in England so cannot be beneficiaries in a will. Money must be left in a Trust for them and as most of us haven’t got Karl Largfeld and his cat Choupette’s level of riches this is way beyond our means (although i would love to be able to provide my 4 cats with a full time carer so they could stay in their own home. 

Several animal charities have set up pet guardianship schemes whereby the owner registers the animal with that particular charity and you must a clause in your will stating that the charity is going to rehome your pet. When the time comes the executor of your will informs the charity and volunteers from a local branch will come and collect the animal, take it to the local branch and rehome him/her, The charities dont require payment but I have left a donation in my will to cover the costs for my cats and all the other cats that need rehoming. I have only included the details of national charities but do check to see if any of your local rescues offer this service. 

I have a degenerative spinal condition and various other health issues and what would happen to my beloved pets was a huge issue weighing me down. I was so relieved when I realised there is help available to rehome pets and make sure that they are safe during an upsetting and unsettling time for them, their slave/carer/human has gone, they need food, shelter and stability whilst someone finds them a new home. 

Dogs Trust: Canine Care Card. Rehome dogs:

https://www.dogstrust.org.uk/get-help/canine-care-card

Cats Protection: cat guardianship scheme. Rehome cats:

https://www.cats.org.uk/what-we-do/catguardians

Blue Cross: Pets Peace of Mind, covers rehomes all small animals.

https://www.bluecross.org.uk/pet-peace-of-mind

The Cinnamon Trust: helps people over 65 or terminally ill care for or rehome their pets. 

https://cinnamon.org.uk/support-for-you-and-your-pet/

Potential Christmas prizes

 So I am trying to get my blog reindexed by google and get my X permanent suspension for supposedly being a bot - I retweeted too many find my pet/ animal rescue posts! Lifted.

I want to choose some great Christmas prizes for those who have either stuck by me or have found my site this year to enter. The prizes I am considering are;

£75/ £50 or that amount in your currency 1st and second prize 

Swarovski Disney jewellery

Pandora voucher (£100)

Amazon voucher  (£100)

Any high street voucher (£100)

Please leave a comment which one you would prefer to enter for or if you can think of a better prize! 

Book Review: My Billionaire Fake Fiancé by Heidi Rice

My Billionaire Fake Fiancé is written by Heidi Rice and is the second novel in her mini series Billionaires After Dark. 

Introduction:

Orla Calhoun is the heroine of this novel. She is working frantically to try and save her family’s an Irish stud farm and the last 6 horses. Her father ran their family business into the ground, died and now she is trying to salvage what she can. She is rather socially awkward, more comfortable around animals than people. Sheikh Prince Karim Jamal Amari Khan is planning to buy the stud farm but is also in need of a fake fiancé as his father is pestering him to get married. He realises he could kill to birds etc. Orla becomes his fake fiancé, keeps a c connection to the farm whilst Karim owns it. Of course this doesn’t go to plan and there is chemistry between the unlikely pair but will it lead to a HEA?

Review: 

The novel is written in the first person, each chapter focusing upon the thoughts, view point etc of either Orla or Karim, I don’t particularly gravitate toward novels written this way as I find it difficult to gel with the characters. I can, however, see the skill it takes to do this properly and the characters still engaged and interested me in the storyline. The storyline itself isn’t innovative: Irish stud farm losing money, bought out by very rich prince etc but in this case it didn’t feel like an overdone trope. The whole novel was engaging, with cgg uc stackers that were well thought out. The storyline didn’t drag and I enjoyed the novel much more than I thought I would. I do recommend this book and I will reread it in the future. 

I received this book via Booksprout and Heidi Rice in exchange for a honest review. #gifted

Win Swarovski 100 Years of Disney Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck Pendant

This is the landing page for my Swarovski 100 Years of Disney Donald & Mickey competitions. You are welcome to enter both or just one competition. The competition is open worldwide. Good luck to you all. 

#win Swarovski 100 Years Disney Mickey Mouse Pendant, White, Rhodium Plated Necklace

Win Swarovski 100 Years of Disney Donald Duck Pendant (£119)

Swarovski 100 Years of Disney; Mickey and Donald Pendants

Who Is … Swarovski ?

 

This is the first foray in to my new series “who is …..” . Each post will look at a well known jewellery brand, where it came from, it’s history and is it still around etc. the next post will have a prize or two from that brand. My first post will look at Swarovski,  the largest jewellery brand in the world. .

Daniel Swarovski founded the Swarovski company in 1895. It is a family owned and run business, employing over  29,000 employees in over 170 countries with over 3,000 shops. Their products fall into 3 categories: Swarovski Crystal Business which covers jewellery, they are the biggest jewellery company worldwide, crystals, rhinestones, glass ornaments and accessories;Swarovski Optik which makes telescopes and telescopic sights for rifles and binoculars and Tyrolit which manufactures and sells grinding and drilling tools. 

Daniel Swarovski was born in 1862 in a small village in Northern Bohemia (now the Czech Republic). He trained as a glass cutter and in 1892 patented a cutting machine that creates crystal glass. 

In 1885 Swarovski, financier Armand Osmann and Franz Weis established Swarovski which was originally called A Osmann, D Swarovski and Co, shortened to to KS & Co,  they established a crystal cutting factory in Wattens, Austria. In 1919 Tyrolit was established bringing together all the grinding and cutting machinery from the crystal business into a wider market.  In 1935 Swarovski’s son, Wilhelm adapted a pair of binoculars and in 1949 Optik was born. 

Obviously it is not fair to look a the history and origins of Swarovski without considering where they were situated and the dates. Tyrol/ Wattens supported Nazism and Hitler, there was a march there in 1938 and at least 6 of the Swarovski family were ardent supporters of the then illegal party prior to the annexation of Austria in 1938. 

Swarovski benefitted from their support for Nazi Germany, the size of the company almost doubled during the war period and it expanded its product lines to include telescopes, binoculars and other optical devices for example. Swarovski has not granted historians access to their files so the true extent of their support for Hitler and the benefits gained from this is not known. 

So from this brief history, Swarovski’s history is rather murky. It is the largest jewellery brand in the world but although it is famous and well known for crystals it has success in other areas too.