So, you have loaded the fridge with ale, bought the local shop out of all their burgers and sausages and lit the inferno in your back garden all that remains is to decorate your place with all the St.George paraphernalia you can get you hand on. And what better place to start than the front door. With this great England Doormat from Doormats Delivered you can shout out your support for the England team and let your friends know exactly where the party is. Made with a soft felt top and non-slip backing (50 x 75cm) it is also perfect for decorating tables and sideboards. In fact it will protect them from the odd spillage and ring mark.

But, if any thing is true to form then you will probably use the doormat to kneel on and pray as England step up to another penalty shoot out…..C’mon England.

Large rugs
When you get out of bed and want something soft and warm to step onto, then carpets are the best thing ever. However, thick pile carpet can be really costly and either requires the employment of a carpet fitter or very strong knees and elbows to lay it yourself. An excellent alternative is large rugs. The beauty of a nice rug is that it can be laid anywhere without any fuss. So if you’re bedroom carpet has seen better days then invest in a plush, thick rug. Next time it’s cold outside, you’ll know that it’s warm in your room… or living room.

Wooden elegance
If you’re looking for the natural elegance, you can’t beat a bit of wood. As a modern day alternative, how about some bamboo flooring though? It has a similar look and feel but the fact that it’s bamboo provides that extra touch of contemporary. Alternatively, a cheaper option that achieves a similar look is laminate flooring. It’s extremely durable and if you happen to spill anything on it, a quick wipe will get it clean.

Sturdy slate rubber flooring
For your bathroom, there’s something quite regal about stone slate tiling. It provides the feeling associated with posh hotels. However, these really are very expensive. A modern alternative is a looky likey rubber flooring alternative. For example, the flooring that is provided by ukflooringonline.com . At first glances you’d be hard pushed to work out whether this was real slate or not. While you won’t have the cold feeling when you put your feet on slate effect rubber flooring, for all intents and purposes it will look like the real deal. Fortunately for us, vinyl flooring has grown in availability and now there’s a mind boggling choice of stone effects to choose from. Best of all It is also affordable and has the edge over genuine granite in
that it is highly insulative.

You can be assured that you won’t need to be putting leather elbow patches on Norwegian knit jumpers in order to pass of this little collection of cutesy coir doormats.

Keeping it natural, designer Ed Annink based these hippos and hares doormats on a 1920s pictogram by modernist artist and designer Gerd Arntz, and has had them constructed to high standards to ensure they can keep up with the wear and tear caused by busy households.

The hare doormat reaches an impressive 195 x 90cm and costs £72.50, whereas you’ll be able to pick up the hippo mat (the only hippo you’ll ever be able to lift!) for 55 quid (141 x 68cm). Pretty perfect if you’ve been wallowing in the mud all day!

If you’re looking for something a little less gimmicky, a bog standard coir entrance mat for your doorway that makes a simple yet stylish statement could be just what you need.

Fantastic at dirt-trapping, those clever natural fibres absorb moisture incredibly well. You can clean them by giving it a bit of a shake outside, or your vacuum cleaner will be able to do a good job instead.

Grab a stylishly sedate coir mat here, £25.99 for 120 x 60cm.

Accidents caused by slipping can be extremely distressing and remain alarmingly high in terms of statistics.  For some unfortunate individuals, it can lead to a lifetime of disability and in worst cases, even death. While workplace slips and trips cause the most common kind of major injury, accounting for 38% of all such incidents, slips can happen virtually anywhere – even in the home.

In many cases, the risks can be minimised through good housekeeping.  This is where the humble door mat comes into its own – amazing to think that a simple doormat could potentially save a life.

A doormat can be as much about safety as it is about floor protection.  A well fitted door mat or entrance mat with effective moisture wiping properties can significantly reduce the risk of slipping on wet floor surfaces.  The cleaner the doormat is kept, then the more likely it is to perform well so washable door mats are very often convenient for this purpose. 

They don’t necessarily have to be expensive.  Many cheap door mats are functional but may need replacing more often.  To buy doormats online, including coir door mats and dirt trapper mats,  it is worth considering a look at www.doormatsdelivered.com – a website that has something to offer most budgets.

Equine grass sickness (EGS) is an incurable disease which is usually fatal that was first discovered in 1907. Researchers are hoping the survey will help provide information to build an accurate picture of the impact of EGS and also contribute towards developing a vaccine for the disease in the future.

Most EGS cases develop between April and June and are almost exclusively found in horses that are exposed to grass. The cause is unknown, however it is indicated that a toxin is responsible due to damage found in the nervous system.

The researchers are appealing to anyone with experience of their horses suffering with EGS, and inform us that signs can include patchy sweating, shivering, constipation, reflux of fluid from the nose and rapid weight loss.

If you do have experience of a horse that has suffered from equine grass sickness, please help by completing the survey here. More information can be found on EGS here.

To reduce the amount of grass horses are exposed to, a sensible addition to your stable or field shelter would be a heavy-duty open holed 100% rubber stable mat.

Nearly an inch thick in height, the durable bedding structure can withstand extreme outdoor temperatures and icy conditions. Keep your horse safe and invest in a mat that can make a difference to their health for under fifty quid.

For more options, visit www.stable-mats.com.

Pitting themselves against the elements and on a supposedly level playing field, individual runners endure a 22-mile race though the hills surrounding Llanwrtyd Wells all the while trying the beat horses to the finish line.

That alone sounds difficult, without adding in to the mix the knowledge that the Man versus Horse race has a total ascent of 3,000ft and spans across farm tracks, footpaths, forestry roads and moorland.

This lunacy first began in 1980, although it was 2005 before a man in the race finally beat a horse.

Deputy Editor Mark Lingard of welsh newspaper, County Times, ran the race in memory of his grandmother and managed to run the course in 3 hours, 21 minutes and 25 seconds – and beat a few of the horses to the finish line.

The winning runner was Martin Cox of the Salford Harriers (2:20:06), although unfortunately he failed to beat the horse, Geoff Allen of Dukes Touch of Fun  (2:11:43). To read the full account of this crazy “two horse race”, click here.

While our runners had the luxury of some impressive running footwear, spare a thought for the poor hooves!

Treat your horse’s tootsies to a bit of TLC with one of these super grip, anti slip 100% quality rubber stable mats. Providing underfoot cushioning and firm standing support for horses, these mats also cleverly improve stable warmth and ensure flooring insulation during the winter months.

For more options, visit www.stable-mats.com.

Additionally, they informed the public, that it was technically impossible for the animals to “fornicate”.

The advert itself gravitates around the notion that Cadbury’s Moro bar (similar to a Mars bar) is “New Zealand’s fourth favourite chocolate bar, allegedly” and features other ‘fourth best’ acts to show that first, second and third place winners are just boring.

The furore came about when the advert showed Thunderfoot, a horse that came fourth in the Melbourne Cup. Seen covering a mare, the Thunderfoot is narrated with the words “he won’t race again, he has better things to do.”

See the advert here, and celebrate not being a top three winner with your own equine chum with a pampered stall fit for (not quite!) a champion.

Kit out his stable with a swanky new rubber flooring mat and his hooves’ll thank you forever!

The cause, that groups are campaigning for across the American nation, would help resolve the currently unmanageable situation where horse rescue centres are inundated with foals produced as a result of poor breeding practices.

The Kentucky and Minnesota Horse Councils are promoting an incentive scheme where horse owners are able to claim $100 towards the cost of stallion castration by a registered vet.

Essie Rogers, director of education for the Kentucky Horse Council said: “It is much more expensive to feed two extra horses every year than it is to castrate the one creating the extra horse.

“The programme is the brainchild of the Horse Protection Society (HPS) of North Carolina whose Director, Susan Lurz, explained, “People are putting stallions and mares together in the same pasture, letting them be, and they’re just producing foals like crazy.”

Fortunate as we are to be in a “rather them than us” situation, we’re fans of the “letting them be” approach provided conception control takes place too!

If your horses are happy in the pastures, pick a suitable mat that gives them great ankle support whilst in the field.

This heavy duty 100% rubber field shelter flooring is great at providing insulation from the ground and effective water drainage, thanks to the octagonal open holed structure.

Incredibly durable, this rubber horse bedding can withstand extreme outdoor temperatures and icy conditions without damage to the product, whilst providing comfort underfoot for horses. For more options, visit www.stable-mats.com.

Set amongst a four-acre reserve with room to roam, the old sandy roads and hunt trails extend into 65 miles of marked trails across the 2000-acre Hitchcock Woods.Sounds simply marvellous and pretty affordable too; Stalls with light bedding are available for $25 per night.

Email tcinn@bellsouth.net for more details. It’s just a shame that it’s on another continent.

For hotel style equine luxury a little closer to home, why not pamper your pet with one of these 100% high quality non-porous rubber stable mats?

Far comfier than a cold hard floor and providing additional warmth and insulation in the winter months, this quality stable matting offers an embossed top surface for additional grip to reduce slipping and provide underfoot cushioning too.

At £33.99, we think it’s worth the saving of a few airfares! For more options, visit www.stable-mats.com.

Log on to the site and you can enter a stableyard to choose between the stables, the office, the vet clinic, the tack room and a yard. The degree of detail is phenomenal with helpful information to ensure owners learn to take the best possible care of their horses.

For example: offering all kinds of tips for bedding out a stall, yourstables.co.uk suggests using rubber mats underneath the stable bedding to protect your horse from a cold hard floor and also reducing the amount of bedding required.

A suggestion would be this almost identical rubber stable matting with an embossed top surface to provide additional grip and reduce slipping from www.stable-mats.com.

Providing extra warmth and insulation in the winter, the 100% high quality non-porous rubber stablemats are dust-free for a healthier stabled environment. Certainly an investment yourstables.co.uk and horse insurance company Petplan would endorse!

yourstables.co.uk Stable Yard

Rubber Mats at yourstables.co.uk

Identical Rubber Mats from stable-mats.com