by jo

BritMums Live 2013 – The Brands

BritMums Live 2013 was a week ago, and it’s taken a week to catch up on sleep (as well as then catching a stinker of a cold which hasn’t helped). Here’s a quick summary of the brands I saw:

Panasonic Breadmaker

Panasonic had all their latest gadgets out on display – and of course I had to check out the breadmaker – and yay! – you can make jam in it now! My old Panasonic one doesn’t have that function, and while there are lots of new things you can do, it’s something I’m familiar with. There’s also a slow-yeast release section – which was interesting as that would be for when you put a loaf on the timer and don’t want the yeast and water to be mixed together. There was a combi oven which looked fantastic – a good microwave replacement for baking cookies and brownies and a lot more – which also works out energy-efficient compared to a regular oven and heats up really quickly. I may have taste-tested several of these cookies and brownies to make sure; I can report they were very good.

As well as the kitchen gadgets there were cameras on display – as mentioned on the previous post I love my Lumix camera – the zoom on it is great. The camera has progressed a lot since I bought mine in 2008.

Butlins mints

We’re currently planning a break with H’s best friend before they start school and Butlins is on the shortlist – so it was nice to chat to the people on their stand to find out more. I hadn’t realised we only have three Butlins in the UK now (the last time I went was 1980 to the one in Pwllheli which is now Hafan-y-Mor the Haven place), but I do know Butlins have amazing entertainment, especially for almost four-year olds. Oh, and they have eighties weekends too!! (I may have got a little bit excited about Madness)

Argos had a stand, where I gushed about their new system and how I’ve started to enjoy shopping there again in the last year (as it’s so quick) – there isn’t really a lot to say as everyone knows Argos – it’s just a much better shopping experience in there nowadays! I just need to remember you can redeem Nectar points in there too…

Diet coke JoI got a personalised Diet Coke bottle and learned some facts about the caffeine amount in each bottle (it’s more taste related than caffeine related) which was interesting – especially as I have had Diet Coke when I’ve felt like I need a caffeine boost – anyway, a personalised label! Can you believe no shops near us had a Jo one? Crazy. Anyway, it doesn’t matter as I have one now. It’s a brilliant idea. Coca Cola have a caffeine calculator too which is handy.

Having had about two hours sleep the night before I was on the strongest coffee I could find by this point (so already the calculator was helpful), and found myself at the Visit Orlando section where this video was made: (this is why I could never be an actress)

I would LOVE to go to Orlando, but our biggest problem is having family in another country (Australia) that would always take priority. One day, maybe. H loves Disney and I know would have an amazing time. There is so much to do in Orlando that there’s a handy planning tool over here.

Vitamix

I saw a Vitamix! They are SERIOUSLY impressive. If I didn’t have all the gadgets I do in the kitchen I’d be saving up for one – hummus in two minutes? Ice cream in not much more? The food tastes so good too. I made the mistake of asking if it was dishwasher-friendly and was looked at like I was crazy “you just rinse it with water, it’s self-cleaning” – like I said, impressive. That’s my kind of gadget which involves easy cleaning. There may have been margaritas too, they may also have been amazing.

Foxs Caffe Thins

Fox’s Biscuits had a coffee lounge, including the most expensive coffee which was SO good (and strong) – and plenty of samples of their new Caffe Thins range designed to be eaten with a cup of coffee – and just the right shape to dunk too. We had a pack in our goody bag so got to try the hazelnut variety (which I wouldn’t normally have chosen, but they’re really quite yummy).

Parragon Cupcakes

Parragon Books had a stand (and delicious cupcakes) and we received two books from their range suitable for H – both are fabulous books – ‘Goodnight Little One’ and ‘Things You Never Knew About Dinosaurs’ (set for release here this August). Keep an eye out for a We Love Books for these – plus the Egmont titles we got in our goody bags (which includes a William and Kate story, much to Shaun’s anti-royal horror – I like it though, back in my day it was factual Penguin books about Charles and Diana! plus a new one from David and Carrie Grant – more on those soon too). We’ve joined Parragon’s blogger club which is really exciting.

Royal Fairytale

Warner Brothers had a room, and we got an entire series of Speedy Gonzalez which I’ve introduced H to and she’s enjoying – that’s one for the iPad and handy to have when we’re out and about. We also got to meet the owl (not literally, stand next to him) who was Hedwig in the Harry Potter films as well as hold a wand. I was a bit nervous. Warners gave us a goody bag which also included the disgustingly marvellous Bertie Botts Beans in there – I had to pick out all the bad flavours as they are truly vile (and as one friend pointed out, how do I know what grass or dirt tastes like? The flavours are way to accurate and I never knowingly have eaten any) – brilliantly done.

jo and hedwig

We got a Kattoo sample pack which we’ll be using at Lollibop on H – so a review of that to follow in due course, but I think they’re a brilliant idea! Then there were the Pilot Frixion pens we got – ones you can rub out the ink if you make a mistake? Genius. I’m won!

 

I think that’s everything, there was a lot to get through. I’ve come out having spent lots of money in my head for things I know we need, and things I’d really like! Thank you BritMums Live! Also, as a footnote, the wine was provided by Asda – and it was seriously good. Now if only I’d remembered to take a photo of the wine names….

by jo

Weetabix Cake

Weetabix Cake is really simple to make, and we decided it was about time we involved her in the kitchen a bit more.

Weetabix cake isn’t something you’d think of when thinking about cake, but H made this at nursery the other day and after chatting to her key workers about how it’s made we decided to give it a go. They use butter where we used sugar, so it’s very adaptable. I’m thinking about adding bananas next time.

Get your pinny on… (hmm, could that be the theme for all my random cookery things?)

Weetabix Cake

Get two Weetabix. Crush them in a bowl.

Add a cup of raisins

Add a cup of sugar (this does seem a lot)

Add a teaspoon of mixed spice (we used cinnamon, nutmeg and ground ginger)

Mix the dry mixture together well

Add a cup of milk

Weetabix Cake

Mix into a dough. Splodge into a pre-greased tin and put in the oven at 160-170°c/325°f/Gas Mark 3 for 45 minutes. The Weetabix cake tastes yummy – I think next time we’ll use less sugar and more spice, but it was lovely and crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside – and you’d never know that it was made with Weetabix… I’m now pondering whether we try using a Weetabix cake for H’s birthday cake this year… hmmm!

Weetabix Cake

with thanks to most of the internet for all your various recipes which we adapted slightly!

by jo

H Starts School Soon

In September H will start in reception, properly starting school for the first time. Tonight we had our first visit to her classroom to meet staff and have a look around and get to know other parents. As luck would have it I recognised a few which has made everything feel much more reassuring.

So the next thing we need to think about is school uniform. Gulp. Four years old and in uniform… I had a look in the shops near work, mainly as I wanted to see what was available but also I want to check what the sizing is like.  All my local shops in Wandsworth FAIL! I tried Sainsburys (who to be fair are having a refit, so have removed all clothes), Next (order online only, which I’ll happily do if I know they fit), H&M (some polo shirts and some skirts but not much, and really only bigger sizes) and Primark (“sorry, we have nothing in at the moment”).

What do people do when they need to buy emergency school clothes at this time of year then?!

H-uniform

As it was, advice on Instagram said M&S who are also doing 20% off for the rest of this week. Yesterday H and I went to our local one in Sutton and took a load of clothes into the changing room. She loved doing the dressing up and I looked at my grown up baby about to head into the world of school for the next fourteen years. Asda also had a range in, though not a huge amount – good prices though.

So right now I have uniform basics in – polo shirts, dresses, skirts and trousers. I need sports things, shoes, school-branded sweatshirts and tights.. then we’re done. Then it will be time.

My nerves are frazzled though things are slowly calming down. Roll on September, I think we’re nearly ready… what am I going to forget? What did you forget? Please share!

by Shaun

Mick Jagger by Philip Norman – We Love Books

Mick Jagger by Philip Norman was recently published by HarperCollins.

Shaun here, having stolen Jo’s book to read on the condition I review it here. I’m going to sprinkle in a few Rolling Stones song titles (see if you can spot them)…. so start me up!

Mick Jagger by Philip Norman

The author has one a good job of covering the formative Mick Jagger years, and the 60’s/70s era Stones – this period makes up most of the book. It’s interesting to learn that Mick comes from such mundane surroundings as Dartford and later went to the London School of Economics (although he didn’t graduate – he chose to see how far the Rolling Stones would take him), and how he met Keith Richards on a train platform one morning, as he happened to be carrying around some blues records and Keith spotted them. We can also see how the Rolling Stones started off with Brian Jones as the leader and driving force, then Mick taking the mantle later on as Brian succumbed to drug and health problems.

Mick Jagger by Philip Norman generally portrays Mick as a fairly ruthless unsympathetic character – he doesn’t treat the (many!) women in his life well, and also had a child with singer Marsha Hunt and strenuously denied it was his though it was eventually revealed he was wrong. I had no sympathy (for the devil) (Sorry!).

On the other hand it was clear he was the driving force behind the Rolling Stones – they wouldn’t have got as far or done as well had it not been for him. He is also given a lot of credit for staying on stage in very difficult circumstances during the Altamont concert in 1969.

It doesn’t go into any detail whatsoever about creating music or recording the albums, and just tends to say something like (to paraphrase) “and then they went in to record ‘Exile on Main Street’ in the south of France” without any depth – so look elsewhere if you’re looking for any great insights into the recording process or music writing process.

About 7/8 of the book brings the reader up to the mid-seventies, with the last eighth of the book covering then until now – it’s very abbreviated to say the least – obviously the sixties and seventies are going to be more interesting than later on, but I found it a little disappointing how quickly the last 30 years was covered. You can’t always get what you want, I guess…

Overall the book does succeed in describing the events, people and comings and goings in Sir Mick Jagger’s life – although you are left with a feeling that he is a somewhat aloof figure, not particularly interested in reliving and going through his past life. It’s a long book and took a while to read – it’s a comprehensive read and I did find it enjoyable.

Wild Horses wouldn’t have prevented me from finishing this book (sorry again!)

We received this book for the purpose of review, all opinions are our own.

by jo

Making Ice Cream – Blueberry and Pear

So we have our Ice Cream Maker – the Silvercrest one from Lidl, and have used it a few times now. The mixture is the same basic base for the cream, now it’s just the different flavour before we’re going to try things like sorbets and so on…

So, that’s two egg yolks, 70g icing sugar, 200ml milk and 200ml whipping cream (1) – and same as before, mix the yolks and sugar together, add 200ml of milk (2) then whip the cream until stiff (3) and add to the mixture (4).

Now comes the fun part as you add your flavour (5). This time I went for blueberry and pear, and blended it up – the pear kept quite bulky in parts and I found the blueberry left a few speckles – but that made the finished mixture look better.

I had 200g of blueberries, 100g of pear.

Blueberry and Pear Ice Cream

As ever, I forgot to leave the mixture to be chilled for four hours before adding to the maker, and put it in immediately. After 30-40 minutes it was ready, and was pretty darn good – for something I had no idea would work, the two flavours were really subtle together. I actually made it to share with my pals who were staying over on the Friday after BritMums but I forgot (SORRY!) – we tried some today and it is still pretty good.

Finished Ice Cream

Shaun has spotted the ice cream gets quite icy – and reading up on it, this is due to a lack of ‘oily’ substance – or rather, something which won’t freeze. I’m not keen on adding anything extra, another suggestion was to remove it from the freezer 20 minutes before serving which we think may work. We’ll see…

Anyway, we’re pleased with the results – now I need to work on getting more milk and less cream into the recipe – after chatting with Maggy Woodley of Red Ted Art about making ice cream in a can with just milk and fruit, as well as ice and salt for the chemical reaction to make the mixture work – so stay tuned!

by jo

It’s National Picnic Week

Did you know it is National Picnic Week this week? That’s the 17th to 23rd June – and Higgidy are taking all picnic matters very seriously indeed.

Higgidy logo

Firstly, there’s a competition over on their website to win a picnic hamper (there are 250 winners each week) and secondly, they’ve made available a limited edition Balsamic Onion and Mature Cheddar Quiche. Now, at this point I should be telling you all about it, but our local Sainsburys didn’t stock it. However, they do have the Spinach, feta and Roasted Red Pepper variety so we chose that for our picnic tea tonight.

Our Higgidy Picnic

See, the weather (apart from yesterday) is being so unpredictable again – I had plans for a picnic at Painshill Park on Saturday but it was threatening to rain (it didn’t). So instead we planned an indoor picnic this evening – the spirit of a picnic is there, it’s just a bit more contained.

So we had the Higgidy Quiche which didn’t need any cooking and was just served as-is, some Quorn cocktail sausages and some Quorn Scotch Eggs. Add to that a salad, some salsa and a few nachos and a tub of olives and we were ready! A balsamic dressing on the salad and we were ready!

Our Higgidy Picnic

H enjoyed it, and to be honest, I enjoy picnic food – helping yourself to what you want rather than being served your meal – we had fun, and if the weather could just improve a little bit that would be great!

As an aside, we love Higgidy as a company – their pies, slices and quiches are all made by people rather than machines, they care about the animal welfare behind their meat and eggs, they care about what they cook and they believe in pricing their food fairly. Oh, and we think they’re pretty yummy too!

We’re going to try out some of Camilla’s recipes from the website, and I’m determined we’ll have a picnic one day soon! This also means we’ll be doing a follow-up with a review of the food we’ve cooked, as well as finding one of the Balsamic Onion and Mature Cheddar quiches – that’s unless you’ve all gone out and bought them all already…

Our Higgidy Picnic

We have been supplied with vouchers to buy the quiche – all opinions are our own

by jo

App Time – Ben and Holly’s Magic School

Ben and Holly Magic School

P2 Games have recently released ‘Ben & Holly’s Little Kingdom – Magic School’ where you’ll find familiar games, sticker rewards and all the characters from Ben & Holly’s Little Kingdom all together.

I currently have Nanny Plum telling me to “GO onnn! Touch the game you want to play!!” which amuses me.

The sections you get in this game are:

Wand Creator – Get creative by designing your very own wand! Pick your wand shape, colour, face, sparkles and sound! What will you choose?

Wand Practice – What will you turn Wise Old Elf into? Practice your wand skills by joining the stars to transform Wise Old Elf into a variety of objects and animals!

Potion Making – Create your own magic potion by picking ingredients and fairy dust and mixing them in a large cauldron to test the funny effects on Ben!

Magic Picnic – Help Holly transform the plates of food for each character into something tastier! Use your wand to tap and zap the right food at the right time!

Box of Burps – Holly wanted to show off her magic skills by creating a beautiful flower but she accidently created a box of burps instead! Use your wand to stop the burps escaping from the Box!

Elf Tag – Touch the elves and fairies that are covered in jelly to splat it off them with your wand.

End of School Photograph – Create your own imaginative photo with the stickers you have won.

Yet again the game is a hit with H – she enjoys all of the games and I like there’s different difficulty levels in each section – she particuarly likes changing the Wise Old Elf into various characters (it cracks her up, she thinks it’s hilarious!).

If you’re a fan of the show you’ll love it – and it’s available now from the App Store for £2.99.

We were sent a code to review the app, the link is an affiliate one.

App Time at Mum Friendly

by jo

National Bookstart Week 2013

Bookstart LogoNational Bookstart Week 2013 is happening from the 24th-30th June, and the theme is Fairy Tales.

There are going to be thousands of free events for babies and toddlers up and down the country, as well as activities and resources at the Bookstart website. There will be copies of ‘The Ugly Duckling’ beautifully illustrated by Masumi Furukawa given away at all events courtesy of the publishers Child’s Play. An audio recording of the story, read by Coronation Street star Julie Hesmondhalgh will also be available on the website.

The Bookstart programme (which offers packs to babies and pre-schoolers) only has secure funding until 2015 – and it has been one of our favourite things to get for H. Research has shown that children who received the Bookstart packs are more likely to choose reading as one of their favourite activities, and parents were more likely to share stories more fully, reading the whole text and discussing the story afterwards. Children also performed better at school compared to those who had not had Bookstart packs.

To help celebrate we’re going to attempt to catch up with as many books as we can and write (or maybe even video) reviews of them – we love reading in our house – check the link above to see if there’s any events near you!

by jo

BritMums Live is Coming!

FridayThis Friday it’s BritMums Live – and it will be my first time attending. I know on the Friday it’s a bit more ‘dressy’ than the following day, so have been trying to decide what to wear. I popped into my local New Look to check out their dresses – I like the Skater dresses in stock, but they’re a bit too short for me, alas – a bit of length and I’d probably have bought four of the styles!

Fortunately I bought a long ditsy print skirt from New Look a while back, so will definitely be wearing that – and have bought some clothes recently from Next – in black of course – a nice top and jumper to wear. I just have to work out which shoes now… (hence me being barefoot on the picture)

Saturday is a bit easier – I’m a t-shirt and jeans kind of girl, so will be wearing that, along with my RocketDog shoes I bought from Schuh (and got cashback from Quidco!) – cashback sites are great for good deals and I almost always remember to check. T-shirt wise it’ll be something from UniQlo or my cassette t-shirt from Teefury, and of course both days I’ll have my Mia Tui Amelie bag to carry everything I could ever need. I learnt my lesson after Cybher…

SaturdayThe other thing I’m looking forward to at BritMums is chatting to the brands and companies there. Butlins will be there and I’ll be heading over for a chat, as well as Parragon the book publishers. Panasonic will be there too, so I’m sure I’ll be talking breadmakers with them and whether I can make jam in them yet. One brand which has stood out for me is Kattoo who do temporary tattoos for kids to wear when you’re at an event – which sounds brilliant (and I’m already looking ahead to Lollibop)! I’ll also probably end up gushing at Argos for their new computer system and how shopping there is so painless these days…

So yes, I apologise now for my nervous gushing that will probably happen, but I’m intending to have a brilliant time and catch up (and meet!) some of my favourite bloggers – wheeee!