An A to Z of the web - courtesy of my browser

Recently, the lovely English Mum started a post called Around the web in 20 clicks listing her top 20 recent reads. I got a mention in Tara's post of the same name, although she actually had 24!

I wondered if I should have a go myself. However, I don't think I could ever choose.  Then I had an idea.....

I am not big on storing things in my browser's favourites. I do favourite some things - mostly long and obscure URLs that point to a particular page that I use from time to time. The rest of the time I just type in the address bar and I often use the auto-complete feature. There are certain sites whose addresses pop up as soon as I type in a single letter because of my regular usage, so I thought I would go through and list the sites that are stored in my browser when I type a single letter into the address bar. There aren't 26 as some letters don't give me an answer but this gives you a flavour of my internet usage habits and where I like to hang out.

And so, I give you my browser's A to Z guide to the web.

A is for A|Wear, an Irish clothing retailer who sell to the UK. I was very lucky earlier this year and won £1000 store credit on their site so I am forever planning what to buy from them. I still have about £300 to go and it's been fun picking stuff, ordering it, and it turning up - all without costing me a penny!

B is for Blog Up North, a blog written by Garry aka himupnorth. We've been twitter buddies for what feels like forever and it is because of him that I started writing (I wrote him a couple of guest posts earlier in the year) which led me to start this blog. Form an orderly queue to thank or complain as appropriate.

C is for Chorley Guardian which shocked me as I really don't read it all that often these days.

D is for Disqus - which you may recognise as my commenting system. I log on to reply to comments so that I don't miss replying to anyone that's taken time to comment on a post.

E is for English Wikipedia's main page - again, I was surprised by this as I don't think I visit too often. I am more likely to access Wikipedia direct to an entry from Google.

F is for Feedburner which creates a blog RSS feed, allowing people to subscribe to my blog via readers or email.

G is for Google, which I guess is not a shock really. I am forever googling pretty much everything.

H is for He Tore A Hamstring, a blog written by Rohan. He writes a lot about sport - in particular Liverpool FC - but also about his life. He writes poignantly about his struggles with depression but also last year, he lost his fiancée Dani and many of his posts are inspired by her, documenting his journey through grief and his enduring love for her. Some of his posts have just blown me away.

I is for (I am) Typecast, a blog by Nickie. A couple of weeks ago on Twitter, Nickie was asking opinions on new blog templates etc and the conversation turned to domain names. The lovely Marylin from Pure Unadulterated Softthistle offered her a free domain. I came up with the name "iamtypecast.com" which turned out to be available and the rest is history. You can read the full story of that night here.

J is for JAG's Fitness Blog, written by Jo. I've known Jo for several years online, mostly from the Handbag  discussion boards. She started her blog to document her weight loss journey in 2009 and lost 50lbs in a little under 6 months. Her posts document what she's eating, how she's training and other details of her life. She is truly inspirational and her blog has a sizeable following.

K is for Kirsty's Gone Bananas blog. Kirsty lives in Florida, although she is half British. She has a daughter who suffers from epilepsy and at the moment, she is blogging about that throughout National Epilepsy Awareness Month. She also hosts the Friday Food Fight, along with her sister Karen who blogs at If I Could Escape and who has recently moved to the UK with her family.

L is for Lancashire Evening Post for which, the entry for C also applies. I don't read it that often but I do look at the news.

M is for my mailbox. Not a lot to see here, move along now.

N is for National Rail Enquiries - and I don't go on trains that often. Still, it's useful to find out train times - the fares bit is rubbish tho.

O is for Ocado. They're the only internet food retailer I will use now as they are so reliable and they rarely make mistakes. I booked my Christmas food shop with them last year and then spent an agonising 8 hours waiting for it to turn up as we were knee deep (ok, ankle deep) in snow and the delivery lorry bringing orders up from their warehouse blew a tyre on the motorway. They got here - but the van got stuck on our road. I don't use them all that often, but it's always a nice treat when I do.

P is for Pizza Hut. Not entirely sure why - although the kids love pizza, we don't go there very often.!

Q is for Quidco. This site allows you to earn cashback on your internet purchases. Liking a bargain, I always check for deals before I buying anything large!

R is for Random.org which is a random number service. I used it to help me draw entries for the competition I ran a couple of weeks ago.

S is for Sticky Fingers, written by Tara. It is, of course, home to The Gallery most weeks so I'm constantly visiting to load pictures or to check the prompt. However, the whole blog is great and unsurprisingly, it has some great pictures too.

T is for The Five Fs blog! Hardly surprising, is it?!

U is for, erm, nothing.

V is for Very Bored in Catalunya. It is a blog about Very Bored and her life as an English ex-pat mum of one in - strangely - Catalunya (northern Spain).

W is for Who.Unfollowed.Me, a tool to discover who has unfollowed you on twitter. I know some people use it and agonise over any unfollows. To be honest, it doesn't bother me unless it is someone I am very close to. I guess I just like to know who has unfollowed me. Sometimes, I do ask people why they have unfollowed if I feel I know them well enough to do so and it is usually a twitter problem. I generally check it 3 times a week although sometimes I forget to do it.

X, Y, and Z are for .... erm, again, nothing.

So, there you go. I think I may have revealed myself as obsessed by blogs, stats, information, saving money and food and possibly retail therapy.  I fear my browser says way too much about me.

Boobs!

Boobs are a big issue for me, for obvious reasons. *looks downwards* For years, I hated mine because bras never felt comfortable. This was, in part, due to going to a bra shop once, asking for a fitting and the woman looking at me saying "You're a 34DD" and handing me a bra. I took her word for it but seriously, I'm not that dumb, I could have figured it out for myself that it was not right.

Then, one day, I discovered Bravissimo. I love their bras and they opened a shop near us in Manchester. I went and it was a revelation. They didn't use a tape measure, and they fitted by eye. Unlike that woman in the bra shop, they don't just look at you and hand you a size. They look at the bra you're wearing, check the fit of that, and based on what size they think you are, bring bras for you to try on. If they don't fit, they move up and down the back or cup sizes until it fits, just right. I wear a totally different size to what I measure, and it was lovely to have pretty bras that fitted me properly. I went back after I lost weight and my size changed slightly but they sorted me out again.

And then I got pregnant. We all know what happens to your breasts in pregnancy and I knew that the after effects vary. Thanks to my two being quite close together in age, I think I wore maternity or feeding bras solidly for nearly 3 years. I thought - or at least I hoped - that I would go back to nearly my pre-pregnancy size after I'd lost some weight. I seemed to fit into my new bras and after I'd lost a bit of weight, I got fed up with the ones that were starting to fall apart and decided to go back to Bravissimo and get a couple of bras to tide me over.

I was wrong. The fitter kept bringing me bigger and bigger cup sizes until she got one that was obviously too big so we reverted to the size below. It would appear that, despite losing a good half of my "baby" weight, several cup sizes extra have taken up residence on my chest, and they seem to have no intention of leaving.

Dressing when you have big boobs is a trial. If you wear baggy clothes, you lose any waist you might have as everything hangs off them. Anything too tight and too high necked and you look like someone has stuffed two balloons up your jumper. Anything too low cut and you look like a hooker or at the very least, slightly precarious. Well, maybe not quite as precarious as Marilyn in this still from Some Like It Hot, but then she's braless too. Mind you, I think I'd rather look like Marilyn than Jordan but her boobs defy gravity thanks to a high proportion of silicone. So, I could probably add trashy to that list.

A substantial décolletage can get you unwanted attention at times which can make you self-conscious when you are displaying any kind of cleavage at all - because I don't seem to do a little bit of cleavage. It's slightly uncomfortable when someone is having a conversation with your chest instead of your face although it can often be much more subtle than that and its only when someone makes a sideways reference that you realise. Or that's just me and I'm a total innocent.

With weight loss comes greater confidence - or at least it does with me - so I'm wearing closer fitting tops that might be considered more "revealing", particularly since I bought my new bras - and another one since, oops! I don't want to look all Carry On or Page 3 model, but I do want to look like a woman with a feminine shape. And I can't hide these, she says, pointing at her bosom, so I may as well work with them. So, expect pictures of my cleavage in future on this blog. S'alright, there won't be any topless ones. I am not yet that confident, nor will I ever be.

And don't start me on sports bras. I am not built for running. Fact. I did have a great bra called an Enell which kept everything as still as it's ever been or likely to be - even if it doesn't look that attractive - but I don't think I'll ever fit into it again. Looking at their fitting guide, I am not sure I will fit into any size! I'll just have to stick to short runs as part of my workout combined with lots of lower impact stuff. I don't need the black eye, thank you.

Why am I wittering on embarrassingly about my boobs? Because, now I've got your attention, I wanted to tell you that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month - Breast Cancer Care, who support breast cancer sufferers, say that 46,000 people are diagnosed with breast cancer every year. My friend and fellow blogger, Nickie from Typecast is running a series of posts called Pink Fridays to coincide with Breast Cancer Care's fundraising initiatives. Nickie runs a series of guest posts on her blog called Cancer - Your Story, inspired by her own family's encounter with cancer, so it seems fitting for her to feature posts and information about breast cancer in this series during October. The first post is about how to check your breasts, known delightfully as Cop A Feel. It's a humorous name for a serious subject, for I'll bet there are times when we all forget to do it when life gets in the way. I know I do, for shame, but I'm trying to get in more of a routine with it, particularly ever since my sister found a lump, which later turned out to be benign.

If you get a chance, please check out Nickie's post and the rest of the series as they appear. Helping to raise awareness means earlier diagnosis, which improves survival rates. That has to be a good thing. Even one life saved is worth it.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I must go and try to get these two balloons out from under my jumper...

(I didn't get paid to mention Bravissimo, Breast Cancer Care or Typecast, by the way. I mention them all, because I think they're all bloody brilliant.)