You know the little Interflora hamper in a wicker basket that I ordered for Mother’s day, which came with extremely speedy delivery, but very strangely had half it’s items replaced? I really enjoyed the hamper and definately rated the contents highly, but it was still strange to have items substituted. Well, after my little blog post last week, I received a suprise replacement hamper today in the post! How wonderful is it?? I cannot think of another company that would do this without even being prompted… AMAZING.

Contents of replacement hamper: Wolf Blass Fizzy Chardonnay Pinot Noir , two chocolate belgian truffles sticks, Lemon & Ginger tea (yay, tea!), bag of jumbo cashewnuts, bag of heart-shaped marshmallow, box of chocolate biscuits and oh, all stuffed in a lovely pink straw handbag, which I am SOOO stoked to receive. Incidentally, this hamper was my initial choice (pretty pink straw bag) whilst browsing through Interflora . How weird was that?

I, of most people, know the value of customer service. For example, I will never, ever return to a restaurant that displays poor customer service even if the food was magnificient. I am passionate about customer experience and doing right by the customer due to my recent work as well….without the customer, the business does not exist. Not to mention online shopping – I think it is fair to say that there is still a large population of people who are afraid of ordering items online as they believe that it would be hard to somehow return it if it did not meet their expectations. I had experienced it a few times myself, and this is WHY you MUST go with someone reputable to ensure that your rights are protected….sometimes saving a couple of bob is not worth it. Not only that, you want to be able to shop with a company that listens to their customers, and take mitigating steps to ensure that customers experience nothing short of exemplementary.

Sterling service by Interflora – I would definately recommend purchasing one of their Gift Hampers for any occassion at all …or their flower delivery service. Incidentally, this was delivered to the father in law’s house, and I think even he’s convinced to shop online in the future after realising the steps that Interflora had taken to ensure that I am nothing short of impressed. I’ve now got my eye on the personalised whiskey that they do for birthdays or even St. Patrick’s Day gift – did you even KNOW interflora does personalised whiskey??!

Best part about this hamper – I am keeping this for myself!! YAY!!

ps: I had not been paid for this post – really. I just HAD to say something because I don’t believe how excellent their customer service is!

I don’t believe it’s upon us again! Unfortunately I can’t be with the mom on Mother’s Day – I guess it didn’t matter anyway as the Malaysian Mother’s day is not the same as the English . A card was duly sent – this doesn’t mean that I will be missing out on the festivities as bacon has a mom and a stepmom, making present buying challenging for me!

After my fabulous Valentine’s Day experience, it was time for interflora to come to the rescue again! This time around I thought I should try out their food hampers – plonking for their Sweet Temptations Hamper. This lovely little hamper consists of all things nice and sweet for the sweetest lady in your life!

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Aww. Bacon’s mom would have the pleasure of receiving this cute little basket…well, except the chocolate peanuts, which I am currently polishing off now. Shh…don’t tell her..

All in all, a very pretty hamper. However, it was slightly strange that they substituted the strawberry bon-bons for golden humbug, the Strawberry and Rose Jam for just plain strawberry jam, the chocolate almonds for chocolate peanuts and completely left out the rosehip & hisbiscus tea. And oh, replaced the honeycomb and chocolate fudge with cranberry & white chocolate fudge. The hamper is still a very good gift, don’t get me wrong.

If you’re wanting to get a gift to your mom, click here for interflora’s selection of Mother’s Day gifts and Mother’s Day flowers. They do overnight delivery, so you’re still in time for Mother’s Day if you’re looking for something reasonable – prices start from under £25!!

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It’s always extremely difficult finding a gift for bacon. Like seriously, what to you get a bloke on the mushiest day of the year, surrounded by all things pink and cuddly? Well, no such problem this year! Interflora, here I come!! No, not being silly, but bacon do really love flowers, and after all that’s happened this week, it was definately good time to get him some. We seem to have abit of a reverse relationship – he’s the one who loves getting flowers.

I went on to intrerflora’s website and had a quick click around. It was easy to navigate, you can filter out products by categories or price – and of course I did it by price . It was suprising to see interflora offering affordable flowers for Valentine’s day – you can get a gift bag of flowers from only £19.90! That’s amazing – I was totally under the impression that it would cost me at least £30 to get flowers delivered. I picked one that came with a vase and a helium ballon, the Sweetheart Perfect Gift Set. Delivery was super speedy, demonstrating the level of service that you can always be sure from Interflora.

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Isn’t it pretty? Awww….

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Have a closer look. There is one giant rose in the middle with a faux-diamond, bringing the look of the whole bouquet together. Nice.

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Seeing that this year we will be up in the air during Valentine’s day and having plane food (ugh) as we travel to sunny Melbourne, I thought bacon should have something to bring with him on the long plane trip as well. No, it’s not a book – neither is some ear plugs & eyemask. It’ll probably be best if he passes out the whole long 24 hour journey:)

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hur hur hur . Do you like my inscription? I ordered him a personalised local Sheffield Pewter hip flask from The Last Detail , who specialises in wedding decos, gifts and more. Now, wouldn’t you much prefer this to your regular mushy card and teddy bears? Fabulously functional yet thoughtful I thought getting him a personalised hip flask was such a fabulous idea, not only would he get use out of it, my inscription would remind him always of how fabulous I am….no praise like self praise .

I do like the Last Detail’s website. I love how you can shop by color, narrowing stuff down to the colour theme of your wedding and only getting cream colored accesories, for example. I also love the little bits and bobs that they have, like personalised chocolates and aprons. Personalisation just puts gift-receiving and giving in a completely different dimension ….so if you’re wondering what to get me for Christmas & birthdays …*nudge*nudge*

PS: If you’re thinking of getting the hip flask for valentine’s day, give them a ring, it might not be too late for Valentine’s Day delivery – I got mine within two days of placing an order – including personalisation, that’s absolutely amazing! And of course, Valentines flowers!

A few weeks ago the lovely people at Prospera Publishing sent me a review copy of Nicky Schmidts’ debut novel – Naked in Knightsbridge. I am not a self-professed chick-lit booklover; but then again, before Twilight, I was never a teen vampire romance lover. I don’t do book reviews very often (if at all) , so forgive me if it doesn’t sound too right!

I wanted the book to be a complete suprise, so I ignored the summary that is so often available on the back jacket of the book. It started off with a letter from the heroine’s bank, demanding repayment for her outstanding business overdraft. In fact, all the chapters start with letters addressed to the heroine, Jools. I actually looked forward to the start of chapters because of the often hilarious letters, especially those where the author seem extremely preplexed at her mostly unreasonable behaviour.

Naked in Knightsbridge is about Jools, a single late-twenties woman that had always taken the easy way out of life. Stumbling into the cleaning business after finishing uni because she couldn’t really be bothered to look for a proper job, she actually achieved some success in it. However, like quite a few people, she spent all her profits- and more. Mostly on unsuitable items of clothings (i.e. 2 sizes too small)….and doughnuts. So when the business starts to go belly-up, she was left penniless and as close to homelessness as you can get, making meals out of hobnobs and expired alcohol.

What will resonate with readers is the reality that Jools live in. The spend now-pay later culture that is so prevalent in modern British society – I am very debt-adverse and am really terrified at the way people spend the money that they do not have. Coupled with references to eBay (everyone loves a bargin, right?) and sham marriages for illegal immigrants to stay in the country, this is definately intelligent chick-lit that makes itself very current and on the pulse. And of course, everyone has the one friend that you are slightly envious about right? So is the loneliness in modern society of having only a handful of friends – with everything falling apart once that small teensy support network collapses. This would not be a chick-lit without the knight in shining armour – and I do love the character development of the knight in this book. Trying not to give too much away, I must say that the eventual knight is most definately my favourite character in the book…I shall leave you to guess which one of them is the eventual saviour .

Bridget Jones meets credit crunch, I would say. Available here with FREE worldwide shipping, definately a must-have on your Christmas list for the chick-lit lover who appreciates a good laugh as well.

My sifu Moo introduced me to text link ads last year about this time. My objective was to get enough advertising revenue to maintain this domain and pay for flickr PRO. On the sideline, I was also interested in tracking how succesful does non-intrusive online adverts it works with a small insignificant blog like mine.

Well.

VERY WELL! Total payment from August 07-August 08 is USD 366.05! Even then, I did not start earning double digits $$$ until the beginning of this year….but the past 4 months have seen my monthly revenue rise to $50+ on a monthly basis.This will definately go to either a purchase of a new laptop that I sorely need now that I broke my old one or purchase of a new bring-everywhere camera that I need to be able to take sharp shots of randomness that catches my fancy.

The system is easy peasy. You sign up for an account with your blog domain, wait for it to be approved, and then voila, they start hawking your site to advertisers. You can even set it to auto-approve advertisers, thus you not having to do any work whatsoever but to sit back and watch the money roll in! Definately worth the 10 minutes it takes to sign up and install the code…especially useful for hobbyist bloggers like me. Once advertisers sign up, they take 50% of the earnings, leaving you with the other half. Now, this may seem outrageous, but bear in mind that they are doing all the donkey work of sourcing for advertisers, billing ect…whilst all you do is sit back, relax, and continue blogging. And watch the money roll in. If my small insignificant and badly updated blog can make money, so can yours!

My favourite part about txtlinkads is the fact that it is completely non-intrusive and that I am not forced to blog about crap things like credit cards, florida holidays ect….yes, those that annoy you because your fav blogger talks about windows, floorpolish and other things that are completely unrelated in every other blog – just for the sake of getting some moolah.

So, click on the below to start making money….when you register using me as a referee, I get a small token payment as well, which will contribute to the running of this site. Click click click NOW!