20/06/201324/06/2018 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.

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.

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!

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…

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

20/06/201328/01/2014 by jo

App Time – Ben and Holly’s 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.

20/06/201328/01/2014 by jo

National Bookstart Week 2013

National 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!

19/06/201307/03/2014 by jo

BritMums Live is Coming!

This 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…

The 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!

16/06/201318/01/2015 by jo

Getting Green Fingered

Warmer days are with us now (with plenty of rain of course), and although we’re later than usual we’ve been planting various seeds and things. As part of MoneySupermarket’s Kids Grow Wild challenge with BritMums we received some seeds for flowers, as well as a mini gardening kit for H which includes gloves, a watering can, a trowel and a fork – and a garden bag to keep them in. She loves having a ‘kit’ to do things and this makes her really enthusiastic when we try things like this as she’s got her own special things so gets properly stuck in.

So plenty of digging and planting and re-potting was done. Our seeds range from various flowers to radishes, to carrots, to peas, lavender (of course) and more pretty flowers. The majority of these were already growing, so Shaun picked up a large pot for H’s new project and they’re off!

H has always been quite picky about having dirty hands – if she falls over and gets muddy she’s more upset about that than having fallen, especially if it’s her hands – so gardening seems a good way for us to make her realise it’s okay to have mucky hands (plus having the gloves is a genius move, we hadn’t thought of that!). They set to work – Shaun put plenty of soil in the pot, and H added seeds, a few at a time.

A week later and it looks like this!

I was quite amazed how quickly radishes start – I bought a £1 tray from Tiger and some seeds, and within a week really big plants had appeared – so they were repotted today.

Last year in the garden we grew potatoes, carrots, peas and peppers – and had a failed attempt at courgettes. This year we’ll have peas and carrots again as well as some of the seeds you get in Pizza Express – I know there’s some mint in there, I can’t remember what else. Then there’s the radishes, and we’re going to try again with cress (how can you fail at cress? We managed). H is out there every night after nursery watering the plants and making sure they’re okay with daddy.

With the next week set to be sunny and rainy it’s good plant growing weather – so keep an eye on our instagram feed and you’ll see how we’re getting on! Also, Shaun bought a new book last week which uses old wine boxes instead of pots to plant in and it looks great too. Now there’s an idea, a little salad garden… that and when we’ve cleared H’s toy tubs they might make a good plant pot..

This post is an entry for BritMums’ #KidsGrowWild Challenge

16/06/201328/01/2014 by jo

Dads Go Free at Painshill on Father’s Day

We made our annual Father’s Day trip to Painshill Park today, where dads go free – which works out (as of June 2013) at £6.50 for one mum, one dad and one three and three quarter year old.

We didn’t brave a picnic as it was raining so had waterproofs and umbrellas – although the sun came out mid-way round and it became way too hot to walk up the hill to the Turkish Tent.

Nonetheless, we walked, saw The Grotto and how the restoration is going (it should be open for a few hours every weekend in two weeks) and got around a lot of the park, including the two new bridges. Things are changing at Painshill and in a good way – they’ve received money to do essential restoration work, and the next plan is a proper boat shed for their barge (which lives at the side of the main lake and has been known to sink).

We love Painshill – it’s somewhere we can go back to many times and spot something we’ve not seen before – plus there’s several long walks you can do there, and several good places you could stop for a picnic (we had picnic envy when a large group of friends with kids walked past with their various supplies).

If you got the Gardeners World 2 for 1 coupon you can get to Painshill Park using that card, otherwise it’s £6.50 per adult.

14/06/201326/01/2014 by jo

Porridge On Tuesday – I’m An Ambassador!

Porridge on Tuesday is a new website with healthy recipes tailored to your diet and helping you organise your life (and food cupboards) – and I’m proud to announce I’m an Ambassador! If you’ve followed my weight loss challenges over the last few months then you will already know I’ve done pretty well following Weight Watchers. I didn’t make it to my target of 12 stone (I got to 12 stone 2, so I’m not beating myself up here) and I’ve been in ‘maintain’ mode for a while now.

Porridge on Tuesday is going to help me get organised. More often than not on Weight Watchers I’d stick to food I know, and I need to branch out a bit while keeping my food healthy and easy to make in a short space of time. Luckily their website is set up to do just that.

I put in all my current information – including my previous medical conditions (diabetes, high cholesterol issues) and my current weight and height, plus waistline. My ideal weight has been set at 10st 9 which is quite a lot to lose so we’ll see how we get on. I’ll be happy if I could get below 12 stone and have tastier food (disclaimer: I’m not saying Weight Watchers wasn’t tasty, we made some lovely recipes with them) – and I particularly like that you can generate a shopping list based on the recipes.

Firstly, you need to set up an account. That’s straightforward and you decide which programme you want to be on. I opted for ‘eat well and do more at my current weight’ as I don’t need to lose a lot more weight but I could use better stamina and be toned a bit more. After that you need to meal plan. That can be time-consuming, but already there have been some delicious dishes I’ve seen pictures of that I want to try. I’ve been vegetarian for 30 years, whereas Shaun and H eat meat (when Shaun cooks it) so our dishes will be vegetarian ones unless they opt for meat. It’s a simple click and drag process to choose the foods you want, and the calorie content is taken from your daily total.

After that there’s exercise – you mark when you can do anything (I’m not sure if running for the train every morning counts, but I may well log a two-minute sprint) and you have calories set for the day.

Unlike Weight Watchers your calories aren’t broken down into points – this is proper calorie counting and initially I’m finding myself dividing everything by 40 to work out a rough points value as it’s what I’m used to. The choice of recipes are constantly being added to, so I’m looking forward to trying some things out.

So, here we are – a new weight loss journey. I found I worked much better doing it publicly last time, so here’s hoping the good work continues!

12/06/201306/01/2015 by jo

Cupcake Cookies Making with Magic Belles

H is becoming quite obsessed with the Magic Belles – six really lovely little fairies who sprinkle their magic dust as they go, each with their own ‘wonder’. She’s been signed up with the FREE Flutterbud Club – yes, you read that correctly, and if you have a young girl then really truly sign them up as it’s lovely – every month H gets a picture, badge, sticker, book to make and loads of activities within that.

We were lucky to be chosen as one of a few bloggers to receive a special treat from Cupcake Belle – a recipe and of course the all-important things you need to make cookies.

Wednesday is my day off, so H and I headed to the shops and got to work…

When we got home I weighed out the main ingredients – so that’s 125g of unsalted butter, 125g of caster sugar, 250g plain flour and had a medium egg and some vanilla extract ready. In the meantime H laughed at me a lot when I told her to “put her pinny on”.

So H mixed the butter and sugar together

We cracked and added the egg together and she carefully measured the vanilla extract with her special measuring spoons

I helped a little bit with mixing, mainly guiding her to make sure she did it right, as she seemed to want to rush it rather than do it slowly and carefully. H was in charge though, never let it be said otherwise.

After that we sifted in half the flour and mixed, then the other half and eventually made the mixture into a dough. I then wrapped it in clingfilm and left it in the fridge for about four hours while we went out to soft play and swimming.

We got back and I needed the bigger rolling pin to get the dough rolled out, once we’d done it H cut a few cupcake shapes, and we laid them out on a tray to be baked – 20 minutes later and they were done.

Then all we had to do was roll out the icing and cut out more shapes and roll pink icing and trim it for the cupcake top (which I did as it’s a sharp knife) then get some water and make sure the icing was stuck to the biscuit, add sprinkles and a small circle of icing on top and voila! Sugar treats for us (which will be shared with my mum at the weekend as there’s lots of them!).

Thank you Magic Belles – the key thing I spotted with this was how much H felt like this was ‘hers’ – she had her special mixing bowl and measuring cups and tools as well as a hat and pinny, and she did the majority of the mixing and making – the recipe is simple enough for a three year old to manage (like H) without being complicated. Add to that she thinks Cupcake Belle is her favourite and really you’re on to a winner.

I like to work her hard 🙂

For more Magic Belles information head here

To join the excellent Flutterbud Club head here

We were provided with money for ingredients and goodies to make the cookies, all opinions are our own.

12/06/201326/03/2018 by jo

V05 Dry Shampoo and Replacing My Eighties Nightmares #cbias

I am a member of the Collective Bias® Social Fabric® Community. This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias and their client.

VO5 have a Dry Shampoo which has recently been launched in some stores around the country. We wash our hair every day, though this weekend past at our local carnival Sutton and Surrey Water had a stand and gave us a timer to attempt a three-minute shower – so trying out a dry shampoo was something I was keen to do as I don’t need to wash my hair every day. I have long-lasting memories of going to school having had talcum powder rubbed into my hair by my mum in the eighties – and I can definitely remember a time it wasn’t rubbed in very well – so I was keen to see how it would work.

We don’t have a lot of time at home, and I often use my soup maker to save time and get some quality family time for meals, so need all the help I can while it’s not possible to magic another hour in the day. (that would be good though, just the one)

I work in Wandsworth Town, so have the shops at Clapham Junction to choose from most days, including Superdrug and Sainsburys within the station. I decided to try Superdrug as they have a wide range of haircare (and the previous day I’d checked Boots in Waterloo who didn’t have very much at all – you would think a decent selection of dry shampoo would be something a commuter would go for?) – it’s very convenient and has a broad choice of goods available and means I can walk in, get what I want and get out – Clapham Junction Station shops aren’t for browsing in. I have approximately five minutes to do my shop and make it into work on time so I’m always in a rush.

They had two kinds of VO5 shampoos, though disappointingly the front two rows of cans had no caps. I had to get to the cans at the back before I found one that was intact – and that included a smashed up lid too. The cans were fairly easy to spot on the second to bottom row of the shampoo aisle. I went for the ‘Plump Me Up’ range which suits my thick fine hair, that often looks flat and drab by the end of the day – it ‘has been developed with collagen to give instant body to tired, lifeless hair & banish greasy roots. If you want you can backcomb loosely for added oomph. Now you can skip a wash and still look beautifully bouffed!’. That’s me sold.

I don’t need a bag as I always carry a large reusable one with me, so left the shop, purchase complete. A quick trip to Sainsburys and Caffe Nero and I was ready to head to work. There’s some photos over here in a Google+ album. Now to put the shampoo to the test…

This picture was taken on Monday night, my hair was flat and dull, but with a bit of shine.

This morning I sprayed it onto my hair, having carefully read the instructions. It took me about thirty seconds which is much quicker than my usual process where I’ll wash my hair and then condition it if it is feeling especially dry which can take anything up to three minutes on it’s own even with my short hair length.

I have to say, my hair felt good, and did have a bit more ‘oomph’ to it and was definitely plumped up, oh and it smelt good too – though my eighties nightmares came back mid-morning when I visited the toilet at work and the bright lights near the mirror showed a white circle around my head. Oh no! So I dampened my hair to make it look less obvious and cursed myself. The instructions say to spray it near the roots, leave and then rub it in so it’s definitely something which I need to work on – but also as I have quite dark hair, maybe it’s more obvious. I suggest practicing at home a few times first, if you’re anything like me.

Overall my lasting impression is my hair hasn’t flopped and felt heavy and although it lost the nice smell the dry shampoo definitely helped. I can see it fitting in with my day-to-day life when I don’t want to spend long in the shower or we’re running late and my hair needs something to make it look presentable.

09/06/201328/01/2014 by jo

H’s Room Needs Improving

MoneySupermarket have a ‘Room For Improvement‘ challenge to do exactly that – improve a room in your house on a budget. We were given £50 to make up a room of our choice, and naturally the room had to be H’s.

We rent so we were a little restricted with what we could do, although then again a lot of it was making £50 stretch and make a significant difference – and I think we’ve done well.

One thing her room has been lacking is storage – and space. When her friend stayed over on a sleepover we had to move a lot of her room out of there due to lack of space and it seemed silly. Living in the corner of her room was the nursing chair too – easily the most comfortable chair we own, but for an almost four-year old’s room? It has to go.

When the weather is colder you can really feel it in our rooms, we have no central heating, just a vent which pushes warm air out – so we chose some paint to give her walls a warmer feel. Dotted all over the walls were nails and hooks from previous tenants, so we removed all of them, filled in the holes and repainted them in a warm yellow – it makes the room feel nicer too – also gone are the marks from the walls where things have bashed it.

I’ve collected Dick Bruna postcards and put them in Ikea frames, trying to keep a fairly basic colour scheme for her room – so we bought more of the 3M frame stickies to avoid blu-tack like stains or making too many holes in the wall – we need more though, which has taken us over budget. They’re great, and do hold some heavy frames, although need multiple stickies to hold them on (some have fallen off, hence the bare-looking walls!).

Shaun added some ideas to a Pinterest board I created so we’d have ideas of things we want – and two stood out. The wall with the various picture frames in all shapes and sizes is something which can grow over time (so we don’t need to put up much right now). I bought some frames in Tiger (£2 each) and have put hama beads in one, and a wooden H letter I bought in another.

The dolls house shelves jumped out at me as a brilliant idea – we’re still only part-way as we need to look at what to use on the outside – I used the sticky plasticy paper Tiger have in store (£3 a roll, you get a lot) and some that I already had. We need to cover the outside of the shelves so that will happen when we have time.

Then there’s the bunting – made from scrap fabric left over from when we bought H’s curtains and fastened together with things we already had – the colour scheme fits in with everything else in there.

So, the cost:
Paint – £18
Wall stickers £6.99
Tiger paper for covering shelves £3
New picture frames for room £4
New Ikea storage shelves £20
Two drawers for shelves £5
3M sticky pads £3
3M hooks £2

Total spent : £61.99

and here’s the result…. she has so much space now, and most importantly of all those awful plastic tubs of toys can be emptied and maybe even freecycled and we’ll have space in our spare room. Now THAT I like a lot. We’re not finished but given this was started properly last Sunday night, I think we’re doing really well.

* Things still to do – put toys into the storage, put the pictures on the walls, finish covering the shelves, add wall stickers

We were given £50 to complete this challenge, thank you MoneySupermarket!

Mum Friendly

the things we do, the things we like