Well I wasn't exactly star baker with my efforts for week one of the Great Bloggers Bake Off, but that hasn't deterred me. Week two's theme is bread which absolutely petrified me until Helen Hollywood and Jenny Berry (again possibly not their real names) said that you were allowed to use a breadmaker. Hallelujah! I've a couple of books full of breadmaker recipes which I tend to ignore in favour of a standard wholemeal loaf which I generally make as our "daily bread". It's fascinating to see just how many thing you can make with your ... read more
August Tassimo Blogger Challenge – Costa Caramel Latte
I've blogged before about the Tassimo machine that I'm putting through its paces as my role on their bloggers network. Each month we're sent a new challenge to complete and I have to say I'm rather fond of the August challenge. Along with a pack of their new Costa Caramel Latte T-DISCS was this simple instruction: "brew yourself a delicious drink, sit back and relax" I'm a big fan of simple instructions like those - especially when life's busy with the kids - so I did exactly as they told me to. I had actually already bought a pack of the ... read more
Choosing and setting up a new aquarium
Over a year ago, before Master C was born, we started talking about getting an aquarium and some fish for Little Miss C. We then started looking into what was involved with the hope of having these new members of the family before Master C made his appearance. However, having discovered just how much there is to know and along with everything else that was going on in our lives at the time, it just never happened. Move forwards a year and I received an email from SwellUK saying that they were looking for family bloggers to work with. Exactly the motivation we needed to finally make ... read more
Return of the needles
Over the last 12 months my heart just hasn't been in knitting. No real idea why as I was still going along to my weekly knitting group, but I was finding that at home I often wouldn't pick up my needles from one week to the next. That all changed at the end of July when I was fortunate enough to have a child-free half day at Fibre East with some of the wonderful ladies from my group. As soon as I walked into the first hall I just knew that it's where my crafting mojo had been hiding for the last year. Surrounded by gorgeous things to look at and touch it was impossible ... read more
Ladybird Tuesday: Water
There are many, many reasons why I love my husband. One particular one has to be the fact that he now only rolls his eyes when I ask him to pop into the charity shop that he's about to pass to see if there are any vintage Ladybird books waiting for me there. Just last week he came home with a particularly good haul - a nice mix of half a dozen fiction and non-fiction titles for which he paid less than £2 in total! One of these titles was one that I've not actually seen before, Water from the Ladybird Leaders series, series 737. The aim of this series was to provide "first ... read more
Great Bloggers Bake Off Week 1 – Victoria Sponge
If you're in the UK you really can't have missed the fact that the Great British Bake Off arrived back on our screens this last week. If you love baking then this is must watch TV. Last year I was a bit busy giving birth in the middle of the series so didn't really join in at all, but this year as soon as I saw plans for a Great Bloggers Bake Off I just knew that I had to be involved. I bake quite a bit, but generally tried and tested old recipes and I often feel too scared to try anything really new. I'm not normally too bad at baking, but there's definitely ... read more
A 1950s Housewife – Sheila Hardy
I've a bit of an ongoing fascination at the moment with the role of women in the home over the last 100 or so years, and how that has changed over time. When my Godmother bought me a National Trust gift voucher as a birthday present it was a great opportunity to buy a couple of the books that they sell in their gift shops about exactly this kind of thing. A 1950s Housewife: Marriage and Homemaking in the 1950s does exactly what the title suggests - tells of the role of a housewife in the 1950. This was a period in which the role of women was changing. Following the war years ... read more
Thrifty Friday – Making the most of vouchers and couponing in the supermarket
This week saw my return to the Nick Coffer show on BBC Three Counties radio and this time round I was talking about money saving vouchers and coupons and getting things for free. If you'd like to listen then the show is available on iPlayer here until next Wednesday, 28th August. Today's Thrifty Friday is going to look at coupons and vouchers, in particular for supermarket shopping. The first thing to point out is that "couponing" as it's known is a completely different ball game in the UK to what it is in the USA. Over in America there is even a TV programme devoted to ... read more
Joining in with Warburtons Krazy Kitchen
In a house with two small children lunchtime (in fact all mealtimes!) feel somewhat crazy. There's often tears, laughter, shouting, screaming and food thrown across the room - and all that's just from eleven month old Master C! As the one who has to make lunch everyday things can get a bit monotonous though and that's where Warburtons have tried to inject a bit of "krazy" fun into the usual routine. They've launched a gameshow on their Facebook page (possibly the first Facebook gameshow ever?) where two families compete against each other in the Warburtons Krazy ... read more
Ladybird Tuesday: The Fun Guys – the bottleneck and the mole hole
You've got Annie over at Mammasaurus to thanks for the book I've chosen as this week's Ladybird Tuesday. From the Fun Guys series (series number 814) it's the bottleneck and the mole hole. The Fun Guys series was first published in 1981 and features Inky, Flop, Toad, Stump, Lumpy and Rot - six friends who love FUN! "Each of them is good-hearted but not very bright and this, combined with their very unusual appearance, leads to many hilarious adventures" Well, their strange, somewhat comical appearance is something that can't possibly go without ... read more