A Couple of Underrated Super Mario Games

As someone born in the early 2000s, my childhood was racked with a lot of gaming, mostly made possible the Wii console or Nintendo DS, both of which are still iconic in my opinion. Nintendo is my favourite games company and always has been, so today, I’m going to take you through some of the more underrated games of the Super Mario series as it’s my favourite.

1. Super Paper Mario 

I adore this game. Hands down, I just adore it. This game is the third installment of the Paper Mario series but it’s arguably the best. I especially love the plot as it’s surprisingly complex for a Mario game. It isn’t the usual setup and the main story mostly doesn’t revolve around Mario and co. You can flip from the 2D side-scroller mode to the 3D mode with one button press in order to avoid obstacles and find hidden paths. There’s just something about this game that I love. In July 2020, the Paper Mario series will be getting a new game, The Origami King, which you can guarantee I’ll be getting.

Unfortunately, this game was released in the same year (2007) as Super Mario Galaxy, the latter deserving its own category. SMG definitely outshone Paper Mario (which is understandable since that game is something else) so that’s why this game is my top underrated Mario game. 

2. Super Princess Peach 

As the name implies, in this game you get to play Peach as the main character, who actually has to go and save Mario for once. Released in 2005, the game revolves around Peach travelling across ‘Vibe Island’ in order to save Mario and Luigi. She is accompanied by Perry, a sentient umbrella who has his own backstory. She also has powers of ‘vibes’ from the Vibe Sceptre that Bowser has stolen (I’m not making this up) and they include joy, rage, gloom and calm. These can be used in your journey to best your enemies and complete levels. As you can imagine, I spent many, many hours trying to complete this game. I eventually did and it was a very proud moment let me tell you. 

3. Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time

The second game in the Mario & Luigi series, this game is my favourite out of all of them. Though most prefer Dream Team or Bowser’s Inside Story, this one will always have a special place in my heart. Turmoil occurs once again in the Mushroom Kingdom and Mario and Luigi have to partner up with their younger selves in order to save it. It’s honestly so fun to play and has another interesting plot, I would highly recommend. Unfortunately, the developer company that made the software for this game as well as the others in the series, AlphaDream, went bankrupt in 2019, and so sadly we won’t be seeing anymore in the series. Unless some clever person decides to take them up again, which I would massively appreciate. This series even had a collab with the Paper Mario series, Paper Jam.

These were my opinions on the underrated Mario games that are out there, I hope some of y’all check them out. 

Until next time! 

-Grace 😁

Another Gardening post

Hello!

Nice to see others getting up to gardening! I have also been busy in my garden and it's been a pretty good year so far for gardening with lots of sunshine and lots rain. So here's a few pictures from my garden over the past few weeks.


Unfortunately my established bed of  strawberries,  lost the war against the invading bindweed. But on the bright side, the wild strawberries are thriving as usual.

Wild strawberries grow pretty much everywhere, keep an eye out for them on your walks!

While my strawberries may not be doing so well, it has been a fantastic year for red currants. They usually do pretty good but I'm always so busy this time of year I can't get to them before the birds do. But this year, thanks to lock-down, I got to them first!

This isn't even all of them, I had two more boxes in the freezer!

Making the Jelly 

The finished product

Vinegar ready to steep

I harvested nearly a kilo and a half of red currants and made them into red currant jelly. The handy thing about red currants is they are naturally high in pectin so you don't have to use jam sugar. This jelly was super easy to make and I really enjoyed it!

I used the leftover pulp to make redcurrant vinegar, by adding some white vinegar and leaving it to steep in the fridge for two weeks. You can also do this with blackberries and it makes a great salad dressing! The recipes i used were:

https://lovelygreens.com/making-redcurrant-jelly/

https://puttingupwiththeturnbulls.com/2011/08/03/one-womans-garbage-is-another-womans-vinegar/

Flowers on my runner beans 

Latest harvest of beans

My broad beans have been plagued with black fly as usual but they managed to provide a decent crop of beans with more on the way. I treat them with soapy water, which was fairly successful (thankfully the rain seems to have mostly killed them off now). My runner beans have only just gotten started but they're already flowering!

Latest harvest of rhubarb 

The Rhubarb has been going strong the past few weeks and my dad has been picking it pretty regularly to make rhubarb crumble!

Hope you are all well and happy growing!

Semi-successful Gardening

As part of the district Virtual Attendance challenge badge, I was growing some radishes.

I had a little M&S growing kit with a few seeds and a little pot to plant them in. I followed the instructions and nurtured my little radishes the best I could. They very quickly sprouted their leaves and a couple of weeks later it was time to move them to a slightly larger pot.

 

Their leaves grew really big and they seemed to be thriving! One was growing big enough to start to pop out of the soil. The instructions said they’d be ready to harvest after 4-6 weeks. I picked out the clear largest and it was a perfectly formed radish!

I gave the rest some more time but, when I did pick them, only one had grown! They all had huge leaves but the remaining 4 radishes were measly, slim tubes, not round radishes.

I have attempted to transplant them back into the soil to see if there is any hope of plumping them up a bit now there’s more space in the pot!

Wish me luck!

Sarah

On this day...

On this day in:

•1392 an assassination attempt on Pierre de Craon van clission of France failed
•1707 Hungary declares itself independent under Francis II Rákóczi
•1721 England signs treaty of Madrid
•1753 Austria, Great Britain and Modena sign secret military treaty
•1868 Oscar Dunn becomes first African American to be elected a Lieutenant Governor, of Louisiana
•1886 a fire destroys nearly 1000 buildings in Vancouver, British Columbia
•1900 Barron von kettler the German minister to china, beats two young boxers with his walking stick; when word of this circulates, rioting and arson spread throughout Peking during the night
•19l7 the deadliest German air raid on London during World War One is carried out by Gotha G bombers
•1920 the US post office says children cannot be sent by parcel post after various instances due to it being cheeper than other ways to travel (as long as they weigh less than 50lbs)
•1922 longest record attack of hiccups began which lasted for 68 years
•1932 Great Britain and France sign peace treaty
•1940 Paris evacuates before German advance
•1956 the last British troop leaves the Suez Canal Zone in Egypt
•1965 Vietnam war: Battle of Dong xoai ends in a Viet Cong victory
•1980 UN Security Council calls for South Africa to free Nelson Mandela
•2014 Christchurch, in New Zealand is hit by a 6.3 magnitude earthquake
•2015 floods in Tbilisi, Georgia causes animals in the cities zoo to escape including bears and hippos
•2018 raccoon climbs 23 story office building in St. Paul, Minnesota becoming a internet sensation
•2020 the queens birthday was held under unique circumstances due to COVID-19.

Rating Childhood TV Show's

Recently I’ve been feeling really nostalgic therefore I’m going to review some TV shows that I used to watch.

Wolfblood-

The show follows a teenager named Maddy as she figures out how to balance her human life and werewolf life. She does this along with her friends Shannon, Tom and Rhydian.

I’d rate this show a 7/10. It started off great but the last series had no direction or point.

Horrible Histories-

Horrible Histories is possibly the most iconic CBBC show. It taught history to children in an entertaining and engaging way. The songs were possibly the best part (a lot of people in my age range remember all the lyrics to the Kings and Queens song)

This show deserves an 11/10.

Charlie and Lola-

Charlie looks after his imaginative little sister, Lola. Its overall such a wholesome TV show (and book series) so it deserves a 9/10.

Tracy Beaker-

Tracy is a girl living in a care home referred to as ‘the dumping ground’. She’s a bad role model, constantly breaking rules and getting into trouble.

I’d rate it a 9/10 as it’s a classic CBBC show.

M. I High-

A team of teenagers work as undercover spies for ‘MI9’. They work to take down the ‘Grand Master’ in the first 5 series.  It deserves a solid 6/10, it got very repetitive.

The Sparticle Mystery-

An experiment goes wrong, leading to everyone over the age of 15 being sent into a parallel universe.  A group of children then travel to the Sparticle Project in an attempt to align the parallel universes.

I’d rate it a 7/10. It started off good but went downhill towards the end.

Thank you for reading!

~Lauren J

The Baking Bandwagon: vegan rhubarb and ginger muffins

Another recipe I've been enjoying recently was given to me by a friend - these vegan rhubarb and ginger muffins are delicious so I thought I'd pass the recipe on for everyone to enjoy! This recipe can easily be adapted to suit a gluten free diet by swapping the flour for a gluten free alternative.

Ingredients:

280 g self-raising flour

170 g light brown sugar

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground mixed spice

A pinch of salt

300g chopped rhubarb

2 pieces of stem ginger finely chopped OR 4 tsp diced stem ginger

80 ml vegetable oil

240 ml almond milk (or any other plant-based substitute - I used unsweetened soy)

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

2 tbsp demerera sugar, for topping

Method:

1) Preheat the oven to 180℃.

2) In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, spices and salt.

3) In a separate bowl, add the chopped rhubarb, ginger, oil, almond milk, vanilla extract and apple cider vinegar.

4) Stir the wet mixture into the dry until it is combined.

5) Divide the mixture equally between muffin cases in a muffin tin, and sprinkle some demerera sugar over the tops.

6) Bake for 25 minutes until they are golden brown.

The recipe is from this website:

http://wallflowerkitchen.com/rhubarb-ginger-muffins-vegan/

Happy baking!

- Kayley

Trying to Keep Fit

The one thing I miss the most about secondary school is PE. Now PE can divide a class, for some PE was the best lesson in the timetable, for others it was the worst hour of the day for them. I loved it. I love sport. Pretty much any sport there is I will enjoy and give it my all. I loved trying new sports and getting better and developing technique. I think what I loved the most was playing with my friends, working together as a team and having a laugh whilst we did it. Oh and winning, obviously I love winning too.

When I was at school I joined sports teams too, the rugby and netball team. I even joined a women's rounders team outside of school. I love sports, but I hate working out. Throughout lock-down I've felt really lazy and unproductive, so I try and workout but I just don't like it. It's not even that I don't know what to do, I've boxed for the past eight years so I know plenty of exercises and plenty of stretches but I just find it so boring. I'm even now trying 'couch to 5K' trying to build up to running 5K, but running is also horrible and painful and boring. If I'm going to run I need a purpose, like running to get a ball in a hoop or past a try line.

I'll have to make do for now, but I definitely can't wait to start playing sports again and I'm determined to join societies and play sports at uni. If anyone reads this and has any ideas for a fun or more interesting home workout, please let me know!

Emily :)

Zoom Fun!

Hi,
it's Emily again!

I had my first Brownie zoom meeting last week, it was fun to see the girls faces again! (and the leaders of course!) We talked to each other about what we have been up to. Then we played a few games including Scavenger Hunt! It made me feel content to see everyone and to talk to them for a while.

Also, I enjoy being a young leader because I feel that I have given back to the community.



Tonight, I have my second Brownie meeting and I am so looking forward to see everyone else again!




Thanks for reading! 😊

a tentative return to normality

Hi, its Emily,

Obviously as the lockdown rules are being lifted, some aspects of life are starting to return to normality, such as having to restart all of the daily social interactions and general life admin that has been non-existent during the past few months.
Although lockdown is restrictive and the general stresses of the pandemic were (and are still) present, I found the peace and quiet of my life in isolation was exactly what I needed to reset after my recent whirlwind of college/work. I've been quite happy keeping myself busy with things to do in isolation whilst also keeping in touch with friends. In fact, I now have more to talk to friends than if I had been doing exams (I find that crying over geography textbooks tends to cut into socialising time).

However, now after being isolated for a while, I feel that for some of us it will be more difficult to transition back into 'normal' life. For example, I have an interview this Tuesday for a customer service job, and after so long not talking to that many other people in person (or actually going anywhere at all), it is pretty daunting to go straight into an interview situation. Can I even remember how to have a conversation? - we'll find out.
Similarly, many of us will be currently making big (and a bit scary) decisions about colleges and universities. For me, emails about going to university in September have been coming through asking  to accept and reject offers with deadlines etc. I think things like this are a bit of a shock to the system - suddenly and out of nowhere we have important choices to make again! (terrifying, I know)

So all in all, I have discovered that I need to face up to the fact that I need to reintroduce myself to the 'normal', non-lockdown Britain that is imminently returning.
Soon, we will all go back to colleges, universities and work - for some it will be welcomed and exciting, but for others it will be a bit more strange and daunting.

Thanks for reading!

My Experience at Work during COVID-19

As we all know, there are many places that are gradually reopening within the UK during this stressful time. For me, that includes my part-time workplace. I usually only work on weekends as I was a full-time college student before all of this kicked off but recently, I’ve been doing more shifts with the extra time on my hands.



I thought I’d share my experiences at my work at the moment with all the changes and safety precautions we have in place. 



Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)



I work in a garden centre as a front-end customer service advisor, meaning I mostly work on the tills or on the shop floor putting stock out. This also means I have regular interaction with customers, whether it be at the tills as I’m serving them or when I’m on the shop floor and someone has an inquiry. For this reason, we have personal protective equipment available to colleagues at all times.



The staff room has boxes of disposable masks that we are encouraged to wear, as well as change for a new one every 2 or so hours. There are also plastic visors available that clip around a person’s head and covers their face. These are much easier to breathe in but a bit fiddly to attach. I personally just go with a mask. Each till also contains boxes of latex powder-free gloves for till staff to wear when interacting with customers. 



Social Distancing Measures



Customers are informed early on that we have social distancing measures in place within our garden centre. As you drive in, there’s a clear sign that states this message. There is only one entrance to the store and you can only get into it by queuing outside (with 2m apart guidelines) and waiting for a trolley to be given to you. As we have quite a variety in terms of size of stock, each customer is asked what size trolley they require. Trolleys are also wiped on the handlebars with disinfectant before handed to our customers. Once a customer is finished with their trolley, they are encouraged by the till staff to wheel it back to the staff outside who are dealing with the trolleys to save them from scampering around the car-park to fetch them.



We have a one-way system in place within the store and all customers are encouraged to follow it. When queuing to pay for your items, a small green circle on the floor indicates a 2m gap between it and the next circle. The idea is that you move from one circle to the next as the queue moves forward.



Once at the tills, which are now restricted to 3 instead of the usual 5 (as using all 5 would be a violation of social distancing) there are clear screens that separate customers from till staff, with the exception of a small gap for the card reader.



Customers are also told on the door that we aren’t accepting cash at the moment and that it’s card payment only. The concessions (the smaller branches within our store) are also currently closed but will reopen soon. This is also made clear on the door. Our restaurant is open for takeaways but takeaways only and there are plenty of social distancing measures in there too.



We also like to encourage customers to shop singularly or with one other person if need be. It’s also advisable that if you come to our garden centre that you know what you’re after, as we dislike people simply browsing or using it as a family outing during this trying time. If a customer finds that we don’t have the product they’re after, we advise them to stick with our guidelines and queue with everyone else until there’s a gap for them to leave the store. As annoying as it sounds, it’s for the public’s safety.



Other measures I can think of include that only 2 staff members are allowed in the staffroom at a time and must be sat 2m apart. We also regularly wipe down the tills, as well as the card reader pin pad and the tops of the tills where the items go.



One last thing is that we only allow roughly 40 people (depending on how many are in a party) in the store at a time. We maintain this by only having 40 trolleys available outside at the start of a day and giving them to every customer so we can keep track of the numbers within our store. Each customer is encouraged the take a trolley even if they say they don’t need one. Most customers respect that rule, as well as our other social distancing measures. A large majority of them wear their own masks when they shop with us, which is greatly appreciated. 


I feel safe at my workplace during this time and I’m happy to go into work.



Check out our other interesting posts by the girls of our Ranger Unit and I hope you felt informed by this one.



Until next time!


-Grace 😄

Cancellation, cancellation, cancellation

Hi all - Sarah again,

Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a variety of cancelled plans for me. For my birthday last year, I was given tickets to see Derren Brown's latest stage show in Leeds in May 2020 - this would've been on Saturday just gone. We were told several weeks ago that this was cancelled, obviously, and we were originally told it was moved to August 2020. However, just a couple of weeks later we were informed it had now been rescheduled for May 2021, a whole year later than initially planned.

For my birthday this year I was supposed to receive tickets to the MotoGP at Silverstone in August 2020. However, a few days ago we were contacted to be told the event is now totally cancelled. That's two years of birthday presents delayed and cancelled.

I have a holiday to Fuerteventura booked for later in the year. I booked this long before COVID-19 was a threat but there's now a good chance my holiday will also be affected - whether it be cancelled, or thwarted by self-isolation rules.

This year was set to be one of the best I've had, but like for many other people, my action-packed year has slowly dwindled away. Almost halfway through and very little to show for it.

However, I'm not going to feel sorry for myself or get too frustrated or upset by how the year is shaping up. I have been incredibly fortunate despite the pandemic. I am healthy, as is everyone I know; I have been able to work from home, meaning my income remains unaffected; and I have lost no money to these cancelled plans, as everything has been fully refundable.

Plans can be rearranged. Right now what is important is the bigger picture: the ending of the pandemic and the recovery of the economy.