Innehållsförteckning för 05-May-2016 från Pick Me Up!

What A Read! I live in the East End of London, so I loved Secrets of the Sewing Bee, by Kate Thompson. It’s a novel about ladies who survived the Blitz while their men were fighting in WWII. They made ’em tougher back then! 33 That’s how old I am this week, which is great, as a study shows that 33 is the age at which people have said they were happiest. I’ll let you know if it's true next year. What A View! My boyfriend and I went up to the Sky Garden at the top of the ‘Walkie Talkie’ building in London. The views are amazing, plus it's free! What A Giggle! I couldn’t help sniggering at some of the number plates that have…

‘You never know what’s going on behind closed doors. In their own family, too! It’s frightening, but I’m glad they can move on now that he’s finally been dealt with.’ Jenny Pierpoint, Lydiate ‘That’s a disgraceful sentence. He abused three people, and they had to grow up carrying that cruel burden. The justice system needs to get tougher.’ Alexandra Nicolaou, Morden ‘I’m glad Karen found justice, and that Glazebrook got the punishment he deserves for taking her childhood. Now she can find peace and move on with her life.’ Melanie Lodge, Mirfield…

Biscuit Break If you’re dieting but still craving the sweet stuff, we’ve got just the thing. You can now save 33% on all Weight Watchers biscuits at Superdrug until 3 May. The range includes Chocolate Digestives, Caramel Wafers and Custard Creams – so you won’t be short of choice! The Great Outdoors Just in time for summer, Asda has launched a new outdoor toy range, and selected toys are two for £10 until 1 June! From ball pits to tunnels, there’s something for every little one. Let’s Go To The Movies! Pick up a limited edition pack of Haribo Super Mix to be in with a chance of winning movie tickets for the whole family. Enter your packet’s unique code at www.haribosupermix.com before 14 May to see if you’re a…

‘Whenever Frankie had a bad day, we’d dress up’ At the park, my toddler Frankie climbed everything. ‘Careful, Spidey,’ I laughed. Frankie, then 18 months, was Spider-Man obsessed. Watched the cartoons, had his action figure. But then he began walking with a limp. Doctors were baffled, but it disappeared after several weeks. Then, last August, Frankie, 3, collapsed at home. We’d pick him up, and he’d just fall to the floor in pain. He had an eye infection, too. ‘Something’s wrong,’ I told my hubby Bryn, 30. Over the next months, Bryn looked after our other two - Kyiah, 9, and Bobby, 9 months - while I was back and forth from Warrington Hospital with Frankie. To cheer him up, we arranged a visit from his hero! Bryn dressed up…

‘I felt exhausted, needed weeks off work’ As I stood up, my head exploded with pain. I’d had a headache for three days and it was sheer agony. ‘It’s just a migraine,’ I told my husband Mark, 42, before crawling upstairs to bed. Only, that night, it got so bad that I was rushed to Wansbeck Hospital. Doctors agreed it was a migraine and sent me home to rest. But I was rushed back the next night, still in agony. The doctor put me on antibiotics, and I had a lumbar puncture. The next morning, doctors diagnosed viral meningitis. Unlike the more severe bacterial meningitis, which attacked the body much more rapidly, many people who contract viral meningitis won’t require hospital treatment. But it’s very hard to treat. And, as…

Strawberry Daiquiri Cupcakes Serves: 12 Prep Time: 25 min Cook Time: 20 min To decorate: 1 Preheat oven to 180C/Gas 4 and line a muffin tin with 12 paper cases. 2 Whisk marg and sugar until light in texture and colour, and then gradually beat in eggs and vanilla extract. 3 Sift flour and baking powder on top, then fold in. Divide mixture equally between paper cases and bake for 20 min until risen and just firm. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Skewer each cake with a cocktail stick and drizzle each one with 1tsp rum. 4 With a teaspoon, scoop out a pocket of cake and push a whole strawberry inside. Press sponge pieces…

‘It hadn’t occurred to me that I was still semistarkers’ It was late and I was looking forward to getting to bed. Me and my boyfriend Adam, 22, had been out with friends for a few drinks. My dad Simon’s flat was closer than home, so we decided to stay there for the night. ‘Night, Dad,’ I called out before we went to the spare room and I began getting undressed. Just as I’d stripped down to my knickers and vest top, the doorbell rang. It was one of Dad’s neighbours. I could hear them talking about Adam’s car - a new, blue Ford Fiesta. His pride and joy. To keep it safe, he’d parked it in the flat’s car park . ‘Someone’s smashed the window,’ the neighbour said. Furious,…

Backpack Massager, £25, www.prezzybox.com Everyone loves a good rub down – so why shouldn’t you enjoy one when you’re on the move?! Wear this like a backpack for an upper-body massage when you’re in the car. Verdict: BONKERS! Not sure we’d wear it out of the house! Balance Active Formula Snake Venom Eye Cream, £4.99, www. beautyandthebunch.com Don’t worry – it doesn’t contain snake venom! It’s made from Syn-ake, a chemical which mimics a Temple Viper’s venom to soften wrinkles, keeping you youthful. Verdict: GENIUS! A fun product for a fiver! Rollasole Rollable After Party Shoes, from £6.99, www.sockshop.co.uk Available in different on-trend varieties, from metallic to leopard-print, these flats are designed for when you just can’t stay in your heels a…

I’d secretly compete with her when she ran beside me We’ve all seen her. That skinny, toned girl in the gym, whose body you envy. In February 2010, I was heaving my blubbery, size-24 frame onto the treadmill. I could barely jog for five minutes at a time. Each gym visit, I could guarantee this petite, blonde girl would leap on the machine beside mine. She’d run for 45 minutes without breaking a sweat. If only I could swap places with her. Easier said than done. Working 12-hour shifts as a health-care assistant, I snacked on the go, ate pizzas and takeaways most nights. I’d been diagnosed with gallstones and told to lose weight or face surgery to remove my gall bladder. Looking in the mirror at Woking Leisure Centre,…

‘ I was mourning for the future our son had lost ‚ ‘I feel so rough!’ I moaned to my hubby John, wolfing down another bag of crisps and a can of pop. It felt like I had a hangover, and the only thing that could get me through it was junk food. Only I wasn’t hungover. I was pregnant! And the sickness was hitting me so much harder than it had done with our girls - Keira, then 11, and Summer, 4. All that scoffing took its toll. By the time I gave birth to our gorgeous son Noah in October 2009, I weighed 12st. At 5ft 3in tall, I’d never been this size. But I had bigger things to worry about than my waistline. Emergency At 5 weeks…

TAURUS 21 April–21 May A communication breakdown is making it hard for you to know where you stand in your personal life. Be careful of giving ultimatums as with the mood the planets are creating, many of the signs could be forcing their hand. Call: 09058 170 711* VIRGO 24 Aug–23 Sept You may have to put a younger face into place for their words or their actions. Ensure you know how far is too far to go, otherwise you could end up saying things which hurt and which you cannot easily take back. Call: 09058 170 715* CAPRICORN 22 Dec–20 Jan You start to relax into life and are no longer so worried about the little things that had bothered you at the beginning of the month. And Geminis…

‘At least they’d caught it early… I was positive’ ‘Doctors don’t know how long I’ve got left’ I was pregnant with our second child when I first noticed it - a little flat, brown mark on the top of my right ear. ‘I’ve got hair dye on my ear!’ I sighed to my fiance Lee, 42. Only it wouldn’t budge. As the pregnancy progressed, the mark got bigger and itchy. Probably just hormones, I thought, realising that it wasn’t dye. By the time our son Sid arrived in October 2012, it was about 2cm big, and scabby, too. ‘I need this removed,’ I decided. Lee told me to go to a GP, and, a couple of months later, I had it removed under local anaesthetic and sent for testing. Soon,…

1 Consider options  You can save £100s by swapping to a lesser-known destination…go to Valencia over Barcelona, save 20%. 2 Go online  Use a price-comparison site like TravelSupermarket to compare different holiday options across package holidays, flights, hotels and car hire. Sign up for ‘price alerts’ to keep you up-to-date with changing prices. 3 Be flexible  Travelling midweek is usually cheaper than the weekend. If you can, avoid school holidays. If you’ve got kids, avoid the first or last week of the summer break. 4 Plan ahead  If you leave booking airport parking, travel money and car hire until the last minute, you may pay over the odds. 5 Flying with a low-cost airline? Check in online and print out your boarding pass before you go. If possible,…

Itchy…and expecting Q I’m 20 weeks into my pregnancy. Everything was going so well, but recently I’ve started to itch everywhere. I don’t have a rash but I can’t seem to stop itching. Are there creams that might help? Donna, Weymouth A Pregnancy can cause liver-bile salts to build up. And they can make you itch like mad! You need liver blood tests one or two weeks apart. See your GP as soon as you can. Bunged-up Q My daughter’s always tended towards constipation. A little while ago, we started her on laxatives, but we’re still not making much progress. Is there anything else can we do? Catalina, Lincoln A It may take a few months for the laxatives to work, and they might make your child’s overflow…

‘Nehemiah spent the following day with his girlfriend’ ‘He loved music and hoped to serve in the military’ At around 1am, one weekend in January 2013, Nehemiah Griego snuck into his parents’ room. His mother Sara, 40, was sound asleep, and Nehemiah’s little brother Zephaniah, 9, was dozing beside her. But instead of snuggling up with them, Nehemiah, then 15, raided the wardrobe where the family kept their guns. Pulling out a .22 rifle, the angry teen, who was annoyed with his mother, shot her in the head, killing her. When Zephaniah woke up, his brother told him their mother was dead. But the little boy didn’t believe him... No mercy So Nehemiah picked up his mum’s head and showed her bloody face to his brother. When the child got…

1 M&S Chocolate Fudge Cake, £2.90 A featherweight sponge – not at all fudge-like – and not as much filling as either of the others. And it simply didn’t match up for flavour. 2 Sainsbury’s Taste The Difference Belgian Chocolate Cake, £2.65 A fairly light chocolate sponge with a buttery, rich chocolate buttercream. A little goes a long way, so it’ll easily serve eight or more. 3 Morrisons Signature Decadent Double Chocolate Fudge Cake, £2.65 Very dark sponge, a dense texture, and a rich, grown-up flavour. Even with lots choc buttercream as a filling and on top, it’s not too sweet. Make it yourself... Serves: 12 Prep Time: 40 min Cook Time: 30 min To decorate:  chocolate, melted •…

‘We knew what we wanted to spend the winnings on’ I Won£17,701! Lucy won £10...and then hit the jackpot! Lucy Robinson, 28, Loughborough, Leicestershire Heaving the rest of the boxes through the front door, I sighed with relief. ‘That’s everything,’ I said to my boyfriend, Paul, 35. We’d just bought our first home together and had finished moving in all our stuff. A two-bedroom semi, it was perfect for us. And it was ours, thanks to Pick Me Up! Bingo. See, in January 2014, I hit the jackpot - literally. I was due to finish work, then head to Paul’s parents’ house. We were saving for a deposit, to buy a place of our own. But when I left work, the roads were too icy, so I called Paul to…

TRIED & TESTED This week: Make-up fixing sprays Try one of these… 1 L’Oreal Paris Infallible Fixing Mist, £7.99, Boots Helped to reduce oil on my T-zone and kept my make-up looking matte all day. Just make sure you shake before using to avoid a powdery face! 2 Makeup Academy Pro-Base Fixing Mist, £5, Superdrug Works as well as pricier sprays and stopped my foundation going cakey on the dry areas of my skin. It dries very quickly and doesn’t leave any residue. 3 Freedom Professional Makeup Fixing Spray, £5, Superdrug This comes out in a wide burst, meaning you only need a couple of sprays to cover your whole face. All day long, my make-up looked like it’d just been applied. Jess’Beauty Hero Avon Anew Clinical Advanced Resurfacing Peel…

Our eyes met across a crowded disco as teens, and, for a while, my boyfriend Andy Morrison and I were love’s young dream. It was 1996. Andy was tall and good-looking with a trendy, curtains haircut. At 15, he was a year older than me, but after six months, our romance fizzled out. We lost touch until, in 2014, Andy added me on Facebook. Now a postman, he was still good-looking and, after some messaging, Andy asked me out. In October 2014, we went on our first date and fell in love. When our first anniversary came around, Andy took me to a seafront restaurant. After dinner he suggested we check out the lights twinkling on the pier. Though it was normally closed by now, the pier master let us…

‘ Between them, Ben and Riddick got Kyra to safety ‚ Dogs are said to be man’s best friend. But in my family, for ‘man’, read ‘teenage daughter’. My youngest, Kyra, 16, and our dogs Ben, a 7-year-old husky, and Riddick, a 20-month-old Akita, are inseparable. Kyra was thrilled when we got Ben from a rescue centre, 8 Below Husky Rescue, three years ago. We’d seen him on their website and knew instantly we had to have him. Ben and Kyra had bonded at once. But she was soon nagging me for another dog and, in June last year, she found Riddick on a local pet site. He was only a pup at 9 months old, but had already been rehomed four times. He needed somewhere stable. ‘Please can we…

‘He was lurking around, trying to catch me on my own’ ‘We carried the burden of his dark secret for so long’ Arriving at my nan’s house, my big sister Helen, 11, and I ran up and hugged her. ‘Hi, Roy,’ we smiled politely, seeing her husband Roy Glazebrook, 60. ‘He’s your grandad and you should call him that,’ our nan Alma insisted. ‘Sorry, Nan,’ we mumbled. Our mum Colleen’s dad had died when she was just 11, and Nan had married Roy. But although he’d always been there, we were so used to Mum calling him Roy, we’d slipped into the habit, too. It didn’t help that we found him odd. He’d interrupt chats to bore on about computers or his beloved CB radio. At family gatherings, he’d say…

‘Chatting over dinner, I felt as if I’d known him for years’ ‘I was woken by him ranting and calling me a slag’ The clock had hardly ticked past 10pm, but my friends were already yawning and talking about heading home to their families. Girls’ nights out had changed a lot from when we were younger. Once, we’d have partied all night. Now it was dinner, a couple of drinks and home to bed before we turned into pumpkins! ‘It’s alright for you lot, you’ve got husbands to go home to,’ I joked. ‘You should try Internet dating,’ one friend piped up. ‘I couldn’t think of anything worse,’ I said. But, lying alone in bed later, I wondered if she might be right. While all my mates were married with…

Endometriosis 1 Endometriosis is rare. True False 2 It’s just normal period pain. True False 3 There’s no cure. True False 4 Endometriosis is easy to spot. True False 1 FALSE Endometriosis is one of the most common issues affecting women, with 176 million cases worldwide. A lack of awareness of the disease means many women suffer in silence, with hit-and-miss treatment and diagnosis. 2 FALSE Endometriosis is when tissue behaving like the lining of the womb is found outside of it and it impacts women’s mental, emotional and social well-being. As well as painful periods, symptoms include pain during sex and, in some cases, infertility. 3 TRUE Endometriosis is controlled and treated via hormone medication and painkillers, but there’s no cure. Surgery can help, where patches of endometriosis tissue…

‘The girls raced down to meet their new sister’ Waking up, I squinted at the clock - 3.30am. It was a very special day in our house. I was nine months pregnant. Not only was it my due date, it was my partner Richard’s 47th birthday! I’d woken with some twinges. Braxton Hicks – practice contractions, I thought. As a mum to Isobel, 16, Josh, 14, and Lily-Rose, 6, I knew what labour pains felt like and this was nowhere near agonising enough! I thought stretching my legs and having some brekkie might help. But, sitting in the kitchen, I felt a familiar, sharp, shooting sensation... Labour! ‘We’ve got to get to the hospital right now!’ I called, waking up the birthday boy. Richard flew out of bed. ‘I’ll get…

‘The outpouring of grief was too little, too late’ Just before 6am on 18 April 2010, a woman was walking down a road in Queens, New York. A man approached her from behind and a noisy dispute ensued before the unidentified woman was horrifically attacked. Without a moment’s hesitation, homeless Guatemalan immigrant Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax, 31, came to her aid. A Good Samaritan. Hugo stepped in to help the lady. How was his kindness and bravery repaid? By the knife-wielding attacker launching a vicious assault on him, stabbing defenceless Hugo several times in the chest. All because he’d tried to help. After, the knifeman fled in one direction, the woman in the other. Poor, brave Hugo stumbled forwards a few steps before collapsing, face down, on the pavement. Blood oozing…

‘My poor baby was vomiting up green fluid’ You should do a test,’ my hubby Edd said in November 2014. We were already parents to Isabelle, then 9 months, and I didn’t think we’d be lucky enough to have a second baby. It’d taken three years to fall pregnant with her due to my polycystic ovaries and endometriosis. But I did as Edd said... ‘It’s positive!’ I said afterwards. We were utterly thrilled! So much so that we paid for private scans. And at 16 weeks... ‘It’s a boy,’ the sonographer said. ‘One of each,’ Edd, then 30, grinned. My pregnancy progressed well and we planned a home birth. In August last year, I’d bathed and put Isabelle to bed. My stomach had been hurting, so I got into bed…

THESECRETOF MY SUCCESS NAME: Andrea Cooper, 36, from Skelmersdale, Lancashire. VITAL STATISTICS: I’d struggled with my weight since I was 11, but because I got into bad eating habits in my later years, it spiralled out of control. By the time I was 36, I’d reached 20st 10lb, size 24. Something had to give but I was looking for the ‘hallelujah’ moment! MY MOTIVATION: I slipped down the stairs at a bar, and everyone laughed. It was humiliating, and when only one person helped me up, I knew more might have helped if I’d been slimmer. MY ACTION PLAN: Last year, I joined LighterLife with trained counsellor Carol Gamble. I swapped conventional food for bars, porridge, shakes and soups. I also went to weekly group sessions where Carol helped me…

Being told my beloved husband Nik, 54, had terminal bowel cancer was devastating. But breaking the news to our daughters – Zoe, 13, Lucy, 7, and Nicole, 3 – was even harder. Initially, we just said he was poorly. But although surgery and a round of chemotherapy held the disease at bay, a year on, Nik’s health began to deteriorate. After making the difficult decision not to have more chemo, he sat the girls down again. ‘I’m going to be a star in Heaven,’ he explained, giving them each a necklace with a star pendant to remind them of him. Heartbreaking. We decided Nik would go into the Florence Nightingale Hospice when he became really poorly. To make it less frightening for the girls, we took them to visit it…

Gotcha! Why do men and w omen cheat? A new poll for infidelity drama Satisfactionfound out... 1. Revenge 8.6% of the fairer sex claimed revenge would be their primary motivation for infidelity, compared to 6.2% of blokes. 2. To save a relationship The most common reason men stray is 'to save the relationship’ by satisfying themselves sexually. 3. Practice 6.4% of blokes said they’d cheat in order to hone their skills between the sheets. And 1% of women agreed they would, too. 4. To equal the score If their p artner had been unfaithful, 4% o f men and 2.8% of women said they’d cheat, too, in order to 'even the score’. 5. They wouldn’t! Thankfully, there’s some good news to restore our faith in monogamy. A whopping 78.5% o…