Spring is just around the corner, which means that summer is on the horizon. In the height of the summer heat, you may have longed for the cold crisp mornings that winter brings. But now they’re here you start to find yourself longing for the days where you can drag out that big sun hat and garden recliner to enjoy a refreshing glass of iced tea (preferably long island, but regular will do just fine). Though it is possible to enjoy your garden in the cold, everyone knows that it is far more inviting in the summer. Having a beautiful garden takes a lot of time and effort, and if you’re someone ... read more
Look After My Bills – saving money with minimal effort
Saving money on your energy bills is one of those thrifty things that should be easy. There are sites out there offering to help you save money on your bills by finding the best tariff based on your usage and where you live, but the key thing that you have to remember is that these sites are just helping you at one moment in time. On the day that you enter your details they assess the market and tell you what the best deal is for you that day. But what about when your current deal ends? Do you remember to make a note of when your deal is due to end? Or do you just wait until you see that ... read more
Doing it again
Shhhhh.... Can you keep a secret? You see the thing is I'm kind of planning a wedding. A second wedding. For both of us. But this time it's going to be different. Very different. The thing is that not many people seem to talk about second weddings. All the articles I read first time around, and trust me I read every wedding website I could get my hands on back then, were very much about making the day special (obviously) but also about how getting married was a once in a lifetime thing. Don't get me wrong - I wasn't expecting to be in a position to ever be getting married for a ... read more
Going alone, or with the kids?
I'm going to get a tad controversial here today, just a tad, but this is a topic where my thoughts and opinions have definitely changed over the years. Yet, it's a subject that seems to really divide people, no matter which side of the fence you sit on. What's the thorny subject I hear you ask? Is it political? Moral? Well, children and weddings. It shouldn't be that hard to discuss. After all, a wedding is a celebration of love and, what love is stronger than that between parents and their children? Despite this though the question always seems to come up as to whether or not children ... read more
8 Must Have Apps for First-Time Travellers
Going travelling for the first time is an experience you’ll be both giddily excited and wracked with nerves for. How will you get to your hostel? Find cheap places to eat? What about the language barrier? These things will be at the forefront of your mind as your flight lands in the whole new world you’ll call home for the next few weeks or months. Luckily, there’s an app to quell all your worries. Here’s our top picks of the best apps you need to download before you leave the country, so your adventure goes without a hitch. 1. Uber Always get to where you need to be by hailing an ... read more
Spring Is Here! Use These Suggestions To Get Your Garden Ready For Summer
The springtime is now upon us, and so you need to start thinking about getting your garden ready for the summer. The temperature is beginning to improve, and so you won’t have to wear your coat or worry about freezing outside. You just need to work out how you plan to use your garden this year so you can start getting things sorted. There are some suggestions below that should come in handy and point you in the right direction. Use the advice from this article to ensure you don’t overlook anything critical, and your garden looks stunning by the time summer arrives. Clean your patio and get ... read more
Great Things Can Happen In The Garden- Don’t Let Yours Be Wasted Space!
For most of us, there’s a big chunk of the year where we simply don’t use the garden. When it’s cold, wet and dark outside, it’s usually more preferable to be wrapped up in the warm than digging around in snow, rain and sleet. Which is fine, none of us can control the weather and we just simply have to switch up what we can do around it. However what it does mean is that when the warmer months arrive, we really should be making the most of our outdoor space. It’s essentially an extra ‘room’ we can use on our property, and when it’s only really nice to use for half of the year then why not use ... read more
The Rustlers Burger Hacking Challenge #RustlersHack
It's all got rather foodie here on the blog hasn't it? I can't even pretend to be some great culinary whizz in the kitchen, but all these years of eating and feeding others, plus buying a crazy number of cook books, does at least seem to have taught me something. I think I've got a pretty good understanding of what things go together and I can get quite inventive with using the contents of my fridge and cupboards to pull a meal together quickly. Being able to produce a meal quickly seems to be the key thing as my kids get older. So many evenings are spend playing mum taxi and driving ... read more
Celebrating Yorkshire Pudding Day with Toby Carvery Yorkie Wraps
I may have lived down South for a while now, but I'm a Yorkshire lass at heart and it will always remain that way. My heart is very much in Yorkshire, and my food preferences too. Therefore when Toby Carvery invited me to join them at their food innovation centre to come up with some new recipes for Yorkie wraps for Yorkshire Pudding Day I just couldn't refuse. Let's start with some basic facts. Yorkshire puddings (or "batter puddings" as my ill-informed Norfolk born other half insists on calling them) are quite simply the nicest foodstuff known to man (or woman) kind. Admittedly it's ... read more
Life Is Hard Enough: Staying Smart
Life is hard, hard enough that one feels like they have the right to complain about how hard it is. Of course, not everyone is as unfortunate and some end up being able to take it easy a bit, but don’t let yourself fall into the mindset that you will never be able to do the same. In fact, even starting tomorrow, you could start making life easier for yourself, because right now, we have opportunities in life which were not around a mere few decades ago. We are living in rather tech-oriented times, and if the fact that the president of the United States keeps impulsively posting on twitter ... read more