Hello! It’s Bee again. I know what you’re thinking, thank God, a break from all the wedding talk, time to talk about something real, something relevant.
You may remember my last post about pizza and you may remember ordering a Domino’s right after reading it. Anyway, continuing along the theme of delicious but probably not that healthy foods, I’m going to be talking to you about Jelly Beans!
So if any of you read my actual food blog, you will probably know that I have taken a little break recently due to starting a new job and moving house and all that, basically becoming a fully grown adult over night (terrifying). Well on the last day of living in halls at uni I checked my postbox just in case someone had sent me something, although I wasn’t expecting anything.
The reception desk lady proceeded to bring out the most humongous parcel. I was excited but also slightly annoyed that that was one more box I had to pack into my friend’s mum’s car and then carry up two flights of stairs to the new flat. I got it up to my almost empty room and when I opened it I felt about five years old. It was mounds and mounds of jelly beans from The Jelly Bean Factory, in boxes, tubs, packets, tubes and glass jars. I worked out that there must have been about 4kg of jelly beans in that box. It was glorious. View Post
REVIEW: Warner Bros Harry Potter Studio Tour – Sweets and Treats
I sent my roving report, Bee, off to the Harry Potter Studio Tour. Here’s how she got on.
The other day I went on my third visit to Warner Bros Studio Tour. You would have thought that the excitement would have died down a bit seeing as I had already been round the thing twice. But no. I was ecstatic. The whole way round.
After a rocky start to the afternoon, where I lost my bank card on the London Midlands train, we arrived only half an hour late, but nothing had really started yet. We were given a lanyard, which put us at VIP status, and a token for butterbeer, which I was super excited about because it’s actually delicious.
Then the tour started. We entered the great hall and it was as magical as it always is. It’s really surreal actually being somewhere that you’ve seen on movies time and time again. But we weren’t just there for the lols! Oh no! We were there to celebrate the new Sweets and Treats campaign, featuring an inside look into how they created all those amazing food based props for the Harry Potter series. View Post
The importance of living in the moment
I had a bit of a moment of realisation this morning.
I’ve been getting slightly obsessed, and very boring, over the last week or so about a blogging related competition. I never normally do any sort of awards or competitions that involve getting people to vote for me, and this experience has been a reminder of why not – very quickly it became less about actually wanting the prize and more about just winning. I AM Monica.
It has brought out all of my worst qualities, and, more importantly, taken my mind away from the here and now. My thoughts were focussed in the future, I was distracted, and as a result, failed to appreciate actual life, as it was happening, in quite the same way.
The competition hasn’t finished, but when I woke up this morning and my first thought was not of the sun streaming through the curtains but of wondering how voting had gone overnight, it was a sure sign that it was time to stop. I had gone into second place overnight, and couldn’t face a whole new wave of begging. I don’t want to be that person thank you very much.
So i have come out into the garden instead.
I nearly sat on a bee, but avoided it at the last moment, which is yet another thing to be grateful for. I have a cup of tea, the garden we share with the other flats in our block is empty, and the sun is already hot on my face, even though it’s not yet 10am. There are several bushes in the garden that are full of pale pink roses, and when you get close up and stick your nose right in they smell beautiful.
When I’ve finished writing this I’m going to lie down for five minutes and feel the sun heat up my skin and listen to the sounds of the birds. Who needs to win a holiday when we have all of this around us all the time?
I just need to remember to look for it.
5 ways to make ‘back to school’ easier for everyone
My summer holiday planning tends to go something like this in my head:
“Tra la la la la! Plenty of time to think about the summer holidays yet, it’s only the beginning of July… GAH…. HANG ON!!!”
The start of term sneaks up on my in similar way. ‘Buy new school shoes’ is on my mental list for weeks, and then suddenly it’s the last weekend in August and I’m in a 27 strong queue of parents in my local shoe shop.
Getting back into the swing of things after a holiday, or even starting school for the first time, can be pretty stressful for everyone, so to make the process go as smoothly as possible, here are my top five tips: View Post
4 cool things to do in Edinburgh in July
I’ve only ever been to Edinburgh once, and I feel bad about it. I have some American friends, and when they are in the UK, a day trip for them is to Paris or Berlin – how can I have lived in the UK all this time and only ever made it as far as Scotland once?
It’s extra shameful as it’s so easy to get to – we’re less than an hour from Bristol airport and you can fly right into the city in only about 90 minutes. Accommodation doesn’t have to be pricey either; Edinburgh’s Holiday Inn for example offers great value, especially for families, and is handily placed between the airport and city centre – ideal for your Edinburgh mini-break.
I will have to go again at some point within the next few years, as ‘tell a joke at the Edinburgh festival’ is on my list of 40 things to do before I’m 40, but in the meantime, here’s a teaser of some of the fun things that are going down in Edinburgh this July: View Post
3 easy Boursin ideas – recipes for self-indulgence
It’s a bit of a standing joke in our family, at my mum’s expense, (sorry mum), that her favourite way to serve Boursin is ‘on a knife’. You’re thinking about it now and salivating aren’t you? There is something about Boursin that is just so wonderfully decadent. That advertising campaign they used to run, with the husky French voice – Du pain, du vin, du Boursin – will stay with me until I die, as a symbol of what I wanted my life to be like when I was a proper grown up lady.
I have a rather unhealthy habit come the evening of instinctively reaching for something to snack on while I watch TV, and that something is normally sweet. Lately though I’ve been doing my best to resist the sugar cravings and when I really do want to treat myself, I try to make it something savoury instead.
The last few months have been really busy for me work wise, which is great, but it does mean I’m working hard and am quite often travelling about, so when I get home and the phones, tablets and laptops have been put away, I want that time with my little family, or occasionally on my own, to be special, and all about us. I consider myself very lucky, as Belle still wants to spend time with us, and we love cuddling up on the sofa, watching the TV or a film, playing a game or just chatting about our day.
And for this sort of indulgent, quality time, you need snacks. View Post
11 cool cafes in London to work in – creative spaces for freelancers and for meetings
Looking for a cool cafe in London to work in? Want a creative workspace in the city to hang out in for a couple of hours? Need somewhere funky for a London meeting that will make your prospective client think you’re super cool?
You’ve come to the right place, because I’ve put together a list of 11 cool cafes to work in in London. (I bet you guessed that from the post title didn’t you?)
After six years of freelancing I can safely say that nothing is guaranteed to sap your motivation and creativity more than five days in a row sat at home, staring at the same four walls as you work, with only the murmur of Escape to the Country in the background for company.
You need to get out there dude! Soak up and the sights and sounds of life! Honestly, the change of scene is just what you need to kick start that dusty old work ethic, and finding a great cafe to work in can be a lifesaver. I took a whole day recently, getting up extra early, to explore some of the best cafes for freelancers that London has to offer. All of these I have visited myself, (or a branch at least), and I paid for all my own food and drink, so you know I will be totally honest.
Of course one of the key factors in choosing a cafe to work from is the internet access. Experience tells me that wherever you are in London you’re never far from the Internet, but just in case, I went armed with an 4GEE WiFi Mini from EE. This funky little device not only looks pretty cool, but it’s actually useful too. It acts as a mobile internet hotspot, so even when you don’t have access to WiFi you can still get online. In fact, you can connect up to ten devices at once! Not only that, but it doubles as a charger, so you can use it to top up your phone or tablet battery when you’re out and about. View Post
Pin your dream living room and win an item for it! Competition from Casa Bella
I had a little sad moment this week about my living room carpet. You know how you can get sometimes, where you focus on one random thing and let it really bug you?
“Waaah!” I wailed. (Not out loud, but in my head for sure.) “I hate this carpet! My living room is never going to look pretty with this carpet in in!”
I have to check myself, as I once went a little bit mad over a bad carpet, and had to move house. It’s good to keep perspective.
To cheer myself up, I made a Pinterest board full of lovely pictures of living rooms and velvet sofas and wooden tables. This is exactly how my own living room would look if it wasn’t for the carpet obviously.
A video review post from Belle – Vertbaudet summer 2015 girls’ clothes
Do you remember a little while ago when Belle and her friends made the lovely little video slide show thing about her new clothes?
Cute wasn’t it?
So cute in fact, that I made her do another one.
I mean, I didn’t make her, there were no threats or head locks or anything, that would be cruel. I just asked nicely, about 47 times, over the period of about a month, until she finally relented.
And here it is:
Honeymooning with children – 10 top tips
When I say ‘honeymooning with children’, I do mean your own children. I’m not suggesting you turn your honeymoon into some sort of subsidised summer camp, as that would be weird.
I am planning a wedding at the moment, (did I mention it? Just once or twice?), and one of the things I’m most excited about is the honeymoon. I can safely say that I will not be honeymooning with my children, as lovely as they are, but from talking to other married couples, honeymooning with children is a lot more popular than I realised. It could be a childcare issue, or perhaps financial – it may be the only holiday you can afford and you feel bad leaving the children out. I’ve even heard a rumour that some people just actively choose to take their children on honeymoon because they want them there!
Who’d have thought it?
It might be that you can’t help but take your baby, but I don’t think this is so much of a problem as childcare really isn’t an issue here:
4 funny things to do with a guinea pig
This week we have been babysitting Baby the guinea pig while friends of ours are on their honeymoon, so in their absence we have been having a lot of fun making Baby do funny things. Belle’s favourite is to fill a little box with grass and then watch Baby try to climb in, flicking the grass into her own face as she does.
(Baby tells us she enjoys all of this hilarity, we aren’t being cruel, I promise).
Here are some of my favourites: View Post
Competition – create your summer capsule wardrobe with Joe Browns + win £50 to spend
“This was the only jumper I could find,” said Bee, coming downstairs wearing a black cardigan she had pilfered from my chest of drawers, “you need more clothes.”
It’s true. I am notoriously bad at buying clothes. I have several issues with it. Firstly, I find it difficult to justify spending money on clothes when technically I already have some. It’s not like having an empty fridge, where you have to buy at least a token tub of hummus and some yoghurts to not look like you’re neglecting your children, because there are actually clothes in my wardrobe. I have things I can wear, so buying more feels a bit greedy.
Secondly, I hate trying things on. You get all flustered and sweaty, and then you look in the mirror and see your thighs at angles you never normally see them from and you just want to cry. That is not my idea of fun. Thirdly, I apparently have no dress sense, so my kindly family have told me many times over the years. Rude.
In Joe Browns though I have found the solution – they are very reasonably priced, they deliver, so I can try on everything in front of my carefully positioned mirrors at home, and finally, everything is so lovely that even my mum surely wouldn’t be able to question my taste? Also, a lot of things have flowers on, which is my Best Thing when it comes to clothes. View Post
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