If you share the typical British appetite, you will have worked your way through more than 1.5kg of meat this week as part of your annual 80kg quota of flesh-eating. Britain is one of the biggest meat consumers in the world, but at the top of the charts, America beats them all. The average American ploughs their way through 125kg of flesh a year. Do we really need to be eating this much meat? Most people in this country and the US eat double the amount of protein they need. Excess is just broken down in the body for energy or stored as fat. Over three years ago, I started cutting down on meat. I can tell you that the benefits are extraordinary, but you won't know until you try it for yourself. Here are a few reasons to give it a try. 1. Better Health The number one reason I started to cut down on meat was because I wanted to improve my health. Animal foods, especially red meat, are among the largest sources of saturated fats in our diet. Meat's fat, cholesterol and cal...

Someone once asked me if I was a spiritual person, and I really wasn't sure what they meant. I shrugged and said "yeah I guess". What one person might mean by "spiritual" could be very different to the next, and I'm not even sure what it means to me. At first, I start to think about ghosts and spiritual mediums who claim to communicate with the deceased. Does being spiritual mean that you believe in ghosts? Spiritualism is a religion in the UK which seems to be based around communication with the deceased, but I'm not sure what else their beliefs entail. I often pass the local Spiritualist church on the bus. It's a very humble little building, and I imagine seances being held every week where people imagine conversations with their dead grandparents. I don't give them much credence myself, but if that's how they want to spend their weekends then that's their decision. Who knows, maybe there is some way to reach those who are no lon...

Firstly, what does animal testing involve? skin and eye irritation tests where chemicals are rubbed onto the shaved skin or dripped into the eyes of restrained rabbits without any pain relief repeated force-feeding studies lasting weeks or months to look for signs of general illness or specific health hazards such as cancer or birth defects; and  widely condemned "lethal dose" tests, in which animals are forced to swallow large amounts of a test chemical to determine the dose that causes death. at the end of a test the animals are killed, normally by asphyxiation, neck-breaking, or decapitation. Pain relief is not provided. I have been learning more and more about animal testing and which companies to avoid this year, and I am working on replacing my makeup collection with only cruelty-free products. I have to big up LUSH as one of the best cruelty-free natural vegan choices in the UK. I have been a lover of LUSH ever since I saw their first shop in Poole, D...

This is just a short break from my series of blog posts on the Tarot. I have just been too busy to blog this week. As you may or may not know, I exhibited again at the New Forest Fairy Festival. Whoop! It went well and I have made a few videos on this, if you haven't seen them on youtube yet. I have been very busy this month preparing for said fest. Now that it's all over I'm pretty exhausted, but excited to carry on with the fairy fun. So I spent some time revamping my etsy shop, and I'm in the middle of listing items to sell. I will get back to blogging about the Tarot, because I still want to design my own deck some day. Yep! I'd also like to make a million wooden signs. I love working with wood, it's so natural and environmentally friendly. Ah trees, god love 'em. They are marvellous things. Not just things. Beings. Friends.   And whenever they drop a limb, leaving it lifeless and dry on the ground, I am happy to pick it up and give it a new lease ...

Well hello there! I know I haven't posted a blog in a while but hopefully you have been kept up to date via my facebook page and youtube channel! Fairy Fest is finally over and I have a little video documenting it, if you haven't seen it yet, check my youtube channel! Now I can relax as I don't have any deadlines ahead of me, other than December, which is when the shop I'm working in right now will close. Yes, close! So I will be out of a job! And this is why I need to figure out how I can make some money. Right now I am thinking about opening up my very own shop. So I am doing lots of research, posting about this on facebook and youtube. I have sold my paintings online through my personal website many times, I intend to carry on doing this but branching out into other items too. For example, I have been making jewellery, which I have sold some of at Fairy Fest, and I intend to carry on selling online. Jewellery made by Annika This is all I have to say right now,...