The Monday Piece - Positive Parcel

This week's Monday Piece is on Positive Parcel! PositiveParcel was launched by ex-Liverpool goalkeeper, Chris Kirkland, and award-winning entrepreneur, Jack Knowles to offer the nation a hug in a box and bring positivity to people's lives. This Christmas the team have launched a range of new bespoke parcels including His and Hers Parcels and a Vegan Parcel. The parcels are full of handpicked treats to put a smile on your face, encourage self-care, and most importantly spread some positivity!

The new Vegan Parcel offers a range of vegan treats and a beautifully designed book, ‘How to go Vegan’, that offers facts, tips, advice and recipes to help, encourage and prepare to continue their journey as a vegan or to become one just in time for ‘Veganuary’! The new ‘His’ and ‘Hers’ boxes offer a bespoke selection of treats for your male or female loved ones, colleagues, neighbours or anyone that needs their day brightening up. Both boxes come with ‘The Positive Planner”, an encouraging companion and reminder to bring more positivity into your life. This wonderful book helps individuals with Self Care, Gratitude & Daily Positivity.

The run up to Christmas and the festive period can be a very difficult time for millions of people and is often the toughest time of year if you have struggles in your life as it often magnifies these problems. We all need to be conscious of each other’s wellbeing and look out for each other especially over the next few months and Positive Parcel is a cost-effective and thoughtful solution to let someone you care thinking about them :).

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The Monday Piece - National Geographic The Best of The World List

This week's Monday Piece is on National Geographic the best of the world list! As international travel restrictions lift and the world slowly emerges from the pandemic, National Geographic Traveller (UK) reveals its annual list of the 35 must-see destinations for the next year. Profiling inspiring places, communities and experiences, this year’s list comes at a crucial moment. The pandemic has transformed when, where and how we see the world. With the return of travel, National Geographic is rethinking what it means to be a traveller and the impact of those choices. What remains unchanged is the organisation’s commitment to travel stories that illuminate our beautiful world and the diversity of communities and people within it.

Framed by five categories — Nature, Adventure, Culture, Sustainability and Family — selections on the 2022 list honour national parks and wildlife, outdoor activities and experience, green travel and destinations, and multigenerational destinations and journeys. From the ‘next great safari destination’ of Caprivi, Namibia, to the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, to the ancient tea mountains and traditions of Yunnan, China, this year’s list is a reminder that there’s much out there to inspire us. Moreover, this year’s list celebrates the 50^th anniversary of the UNESCO World Heritage Convention, with 14 World Heritage-designated sites featured. Check it out to inspire your next trip :).

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The Monday Piece - Majestic Togo

This week's Monday Piece is on majestic Togo! This weekend we were out on Birmingham vat the Christmas market and ice skating in the city so Togo had a doggysitting date with his Nanny. My mum took this stunning photo of him up the Malvern Hills and I'm totally obsessed! I'm desperate to know what he's thinking about... :).

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The Monday Piece - John Cooper Clarke Tour

This week's Monday Piece is on John Cooper Clarke tour! Nick and I spent Saturday evening at The Courtyard Theatre in Hereford, watching John Cooper Clarke. I'm a long time fan of his and can't get enough of his kooky humour and naughty writing! He was a little wobbly (no surprises there) but definitely on form. He recited lots of his classics as well as some stand up, singing and story telling - he's a class act and a real punk rocker entertainer, I recommend checking out the tour as it stretches across the country and well into next year :).

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The Monday Piece - Worldwide Department Stores

This week's Monday Piece is on worldwide department stores! Whether you’re a dedicated shopaholic or not, department stores are world renowned because of their goods, sense of luxury and their architectural appeal, becoming tourist attractions in their own right. But the question is, which ones have stood the test of time as the world's most popular department stores?

 

Property experts Stokemont.com wanted to answer this question by collating a core list of 47 of the world’s most famous stores and recording the number of Instagram hashtags, TikTok views and average global search trend data, assigning an overall popularity score, in order to rank the most popular stores.

Some of the key findings include:

 

Macy’s in New York just beats Seattle’s Nordstrom in the battle for top spot.

The UK and US dominate the top five with the most popular global department stores.

The UK’s flagship department stores, Selfridges and Harrods, rank strongly in third and fourth as the world's most popular department stores

Macy’s, New York unsurprisingly tops the list as the most popular global department store with a final score of 9.65, with 118,300,000 TikTok views (1st in category) and 14,200,000 average monthly searches globally (1st in category) and 1,231,000 (3rd in category) for Instagram hashtags. 

Macy’s was closely followed by Nordstrom in Seattle (9.58), and Selfridges, London with a final popularity rank of 8.96. 

Overall, in the top 10, 4 were in the US and 2 were in the UK. When reviewing the entire data set, the US and the UK had 6 department stores respectively, followed by Germany and Italy with 5. Where do you love to shop? I was in Harrods last week picking out a few birthday treats :).

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