When I was expecting Master C I turned to books to tryto explain everything to Little Miss C. I found some great stories to help explain the practical side of it all, but with her being only just two I found that she wasn't yet asking questions about the emotional side. When they find out that a new baby is joining the family some slightly older children can really get themselves quite in a tizz about it all and they worry that once the new baby is there Mummy or Daddy won't want or love them any more. I Love You, Alfie Cub is the perfect book to explain those changing ... read more
Win a Disney Sofia the First trio puzzle to celebrate National Puzzle Day
Who doesn't love a jigsaw? There's something old fashioned but incredibly satisfying about getting all those pieces together in the right places to form the picture on the box lid. And it's even more satisfying when you've managed to complete a particularly difficult bit of sky or grass - as we all know that all those shades of blue or green are incredibly difficult to get right. A few years ago, before children, Mr C bought me a couple as a Christmas present and it was great to sit down and spend a few hours doing them whilst listening to music - incredibly relaxing too. Nowadays I'm most ... read more
Featured Post: Controlling your heating to save money
We're now nearly a whole month into my year of thrift and I'm noticing that I'm constantly on the look out for ways to save money. As well as cutting down how much I spend on the weekly shop I've also become obsessed with how to our minimise gas and electricity bills. Not only am I running a spreadsheet keeping track of how much gas and electricity we use every day, but I'm also regularly turning things off and reducing the heating by a degree or two. As well as saving a bit of money, it has also become obvious that doing little things like this and checking the meter daily ... read more
Ladybird Tuesday: Julius Caesar and Roman Britain
This morning I went to a meeting all about the new National Curriculum for primary schools that will come into force in September this year. One thing that I really hadn't realised until now was that the National Curriculum doesn't contain a full list of all the facts that the Government expect a child to learn in a specific school year, but instead it talks about all the skills that children are expected to learn in each subject, and it can then be left to individual schools to deliver a curriculum that is right for their school. This means that in history for example it's not ... read more
TASSIMO Green Tea Detox
January is very much the month when you try to watch what you eat and drink after all the excesses of Christmas. Well, it's supposed to be, but if you're like us the first half of the month was spent eating the incredible amount of chocolate that was left over after Christmas and this latter part was spent moaning about the lack of chocolate in the house once the Christmas supplies had run out! I therefore had to raise a smile when the January blogger challenge arrived from TASSIMO. This month's package contained a pack of their Twinings Green Tea and Mint T DISCs and a reminder ... read more
Product of the Year Awards 2014
It's fair to say I don't get out much in an evening. Certainly not when it involves finding a posh dress to wear and heading to a swanky venue in London. Most definitely not when it involves an award ceremony presented by a household named comedian and a private gig from two number one artists. Amazingly Thursday night was just that though when I was lucky enough to be invited along to the Product of the Year Awards 2014, held at the stunningly beautiful 8 Northumberland (which bizarrely used to house my old office when I was a civil servant!) Some of you may not have heard of ... read more
The Newlyweds – Nell Freudenberger
I'm desperately trying to cut down on book buying as the house is full of books that I haven't read yet, but when I was Christmas shopping and what someone wanted formed part of a special offer in Waterstones I couldn't help but pick up something for me too. The Newlyweds attracted my attention from those tables of books that they have for all the "buy one get one half price" offers and after a quick skim of the back cover it sounded just like my kind of thing whilst not being too heavy either. Amina and George met via an online dating site and before long Amina was ... read more
Ladybird Tuesday: ‘How to do it’ Woodwork
I may keep harping on about it, but some of my favourite old Ladybird books are those which feature some of the hobbies of yesteryear. The things which have now been superseded by games consoles and iphones. This week's book covers one such hobby - 'How to do it' Woodwork. The 'How to do it' series (series number 731) only lasted for two books (Woodwork and Metalwork) before it was subsumed in the Learnabout series (series 634). When the book was republished in the new series the cover was changed to fit in with the Learnabout style of a single picture in a circle, but the ... read more
Magpie Monday – Why it never hurts to ask
In addition to 2014 being my year of thrift, I'm also making a point of trying to finish off the million and one craft projects I have half completed and also actually trying all the things that I've been meaning to do for ages. Top of my list is making my own homebrew wine. Mr C has been making beer for a few years now, but after Liz from Me and My Shadow presented me with a bottle of her homebrew when we appeared on BBC3CR together I've been keen to try myself. A while back I picked up a kit from the local chemist that sells homebrew supplies and the only thing that was ... read more
Meet the Parents – Peter Bently and Sara Ogilvie
I was actually strangely excited when I opened the envelope from Simon and Schuster containing a copy of Meet the Parents to review. We've been going through a bit of a difficult patch with Little Miss C of late where she quiet simply won't listen when we tell her to do things and she's very much of the attitude that her parents are only there to make life difficult for her. You'd think she was 13 rather than three at times! This beautifully illustrated book sets out to show pre-schoolers that their mums and dads do a huge number of things that they may not realise ... read more