Great news – today is competition day! I’ve teamed up with Upbeat to bring you all sorts of giveaway fun.

A competition hey? Sounds good! What do I win?

I thought you’d be pleased! In this lovely little competition from Upbeat you can win an Upbeat goodie bag which includes a bobble bottle, tote bag, notepad, iPhone amplifier, Upbeat hoodie and loads more! Plus you’ll get a whole case of Upbeat, the yummy protein drink.

Upbeat protein drink

A protein drink? Aren’t they just for body builders?

No way! Protein is a really important part of everyone’s diet, and the makers of Upbeat have used their years of dairy expertise to find a way to turn whey protein into a fresh, delicious, creamy drink. It’s a family run business, and you can hear from the creators of Upbeat themselves here: View Post

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There is a tendency following a break-up to neglect your diet. Last night for instance I skipped dinner in favour of three mini chocolate Lindt eggs and a gin and tonic in bed. Desperate times and all that. Plus I needed the fluids to replace the tears.

However, I’ve also heard rumour that it’s a great time for new starts and taking stock of your life and reassessing what you eat and making positive changes can be an important part of this. Plus I do have to think long-term and not every man I meet might be quite as impressed at the size of my bottom as Boyfriend was. It is in this spirit of self-discovery and improvement that I am taking on the Weight Watchers #StepIntoSummer challenge. There are prizes to be won too, so don’t give up reading now, thinking it’s just going to be me waffling on.

Weight Watchers #stepintosummer View Post

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When I was thinking about why I love Glastonbury Tor, the words ‘spiritually uplifting’ popped into my head. I immediately grimaced and felt a bit embarrassed which was ridiculous as a) I was on my own and b) I had said it in my head anyway.

There’s no getting away from the gentrified hippy in me though – there is something about standing right at the top of a hill, the wind buffeting you from all directions, fields laid out around you in a sea of patchwork green, that really is spiritually uplifting.

Glastonbury Tor

Glastonbury Tor has held a special place in my heart for a long time, which is why I submitted Glastonbury Tor as one of my favourite places on the LOOK hidden gems map (see  here). We moved to nearby Bridgwater when I was just ten years old and it became a regular haunt at weekends when we were a bit bored and fancied an outing. I loved it as a child as my mum apparently once accidentally rolled down it, and that was always funny to think about

As I grew up it became a bit of a go-to place for a third or fourth date, when I was trying to casually show that I had a secret spiritually uplifting side and also that I wasn’t afraid of climbing the odd hill. It can be tricky to act cool when you are out of breath, but if you need to stop on the way pretend that it’s because you just have to stop and admire the view, not because you are too puffed to speak.

In the summer of 1999 I took my then boyfriend Will and a four year old Bee to Glastonbury Tor to watch the solar eclipse, surrounded by pagan types banging colourful drums and chanting and I’ve spent the night at the top in a sleeping bag, dozing to the sound of an old man with a large beard badly playing the recorder.

I’ve yet to roll down it though. I think I might leave that to my mum.

What are your favourite places hidden around the UK?

Photo credit – Digitalexpress                          
Disclosure – this post is in partnership with LOOK.

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Is there a word that applies to baking that is the equivalent of good gardeners having green fingers? Sponge-fingered maybe??

Whatever it is, I am not it.

I have never quite mastered the art of cake-making, my key weakness being an inability to make my sponges rise to anything other than the height of a Frisbee, no matter how high I sieve my flour from. My most infamous attempt at making one of my children a birthday cake resulted in me having to make two cakes – four whole layers of Victoria sandwich – just to make the cake normal height. I could have probably sliced it up and marketed it as one of those calorie-dense foods they send to countries experiencing famine.

I blame my mother of course. I don’t remember much from my childhood, but the pink fire engine she once made will stay with me forever.

If you’d like to learn how to be a little more sponge-fingered in the kitchen, then why not enter my competition to win a spot for you and a friend on the Vale House Kitchen’s Children’s birthday cake course with professional celebrity cake maker Sandra Monger? By the end of the day you’ll have created this amazing monster cake!

Vale House Kitchen monster cake

The course takes place on June 13th at Vale House Kitchen, near Bath. I’ve actually been on a course there already, and can vouch for its awesomeness. The Vale House Kitchen team are all lovely and the venue is gorgeous – even if you’re not that fussed about cakes it’s worth entering purely for a wonderful day out and a yummy lunch.

Vale House Kitchen

To enter, simply complete as many of the actions below as you can. The more you do the better your chances. The competition will close at midnight on May 19th. Full T&Cs apply.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclosure: this is a sponsored post
Win competitions at ThePrizeFinder.com

 

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It’s not really much fun reading about someone feeling sorry for themselves is it?

You have humoured me with those couple of break-up posts, where I wallow in self-pity in return for virtual hugs, but it’s not jolly. Nobody actually wants to hear about how sad someone else is, and it doesn’t exactly fit with the tongue-in-cheek, heavily self-deprecating, often-times blatantly promotional tone now does it?

Enough already.

Instead I shall sob quietly into my pillow alone and return to complaining about really unimportant things like car air fresheners, offering you competitions and occasionally trying to persuade you to buy something. Come on everyone, let’s embrace the spirit of modern day blogging!

In fact, how about if we switch it around, have a bit of a fresh start, and you tell me what you’d like to read about? Do you like it when I rant, or do you prefer heartfelt monologues? Are you after world events or something a little more frivolous? Want to see pictures of every room in my house or read recipes? Perhaps you love my made-up infographics?

Or maybe your vote is with a picture everyday of an animal in a different item of festive clothing?

Guinea pig wearing clothes

Let me know!

Photo credit – Katherine McAdoo

 

 

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I have come to realise during the events of the last few weeks that it’s very rare that I feel sad. Annoyed, bored, tired, angry, frustrated, anxious, all those things yes, but pure, chest-achingly hollow sadness, not so much.

Sadness is a funny emotion. Often we try to play it down, attaching it to the word ‘just’ – ‘I just feel a bit sad, it’s nothing really’ – and yet sadness is a very powerful thing. It confuses us because it makes you feel so empty, like your insides are missing and your body is trying to collapse down onto itself, leaving you unable to breathe. It takes you outside your body and shows you yourself, going about your daily life, seemingly devoid of emotion.

Sad squirrel

It’s sneaky too. You’re busy, surrounded by people, feeling pretty much OK, and then for no apparent reason, whoosh, there it is, filling you like a swirling gas and vacuum packing your chest cavity. The pressure builds and you realise your face is wet before you even knew you were going to cry – no dramatic sobs, just tears sort of spilling silently out of your eyes.

The fact that sadness is so often associated with a physical loss confounds the issue and adds to that feeling of having a void to fill. I filled mine alone one night over the weekend by watching Hannibal. I hate horror films or anything gruesome, but was hoping that scaring myself might help to fill the space, that fear might overpower sadness and take over my head.

It didn’t really work. I closed my eyes at the really horrible bits and fear never stood a chance.

Perhaps the only thing to do with the sadness is to just acknowledge it and let it be, stare it out calmly until it gives up and goes away.

I’m staring hard. It had better blink soon.

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Today I have a guest post from my sister Annabel as part of a blogger challenge for Glisten – do check out their geodomes! Also, Annabel has recently started her very own blog – Fiandmi – and that is definitely worth a look too.

“This has been the best day ever!” My son exclaims.

Score! As a mummy this is the closest I get to a good work appraisal. No meetings with my boss, no personal development reviews, just endless days trying really hard to be nurturer, nourisher, educator all rolled in to one without the merest hint of a ‘well done, you’re doing really well’ or a ‘you could try doing that slightly differently for a better result.’

I am working blind, clinging on to some faint vestiges of hope that I am generally an OK mum but no-one ever says one way or the other and certainly not to your face.

So, I take what I can and “best day ever” seems about as good as I am going to get.

“But what prompted this exclamation?” I here you cry. View Post

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When I started my blog in 2009 I was genuinely a slummy single mummy, evenings spent at home alone watching Sex and the City, avoiding the dishes wherever possible. Not long after though, I met someone.

That someone became Boyfriend.

“Are you going to change your blog name now?” he asked me at one point, a few months into our relationship.

“No,” I said. “That’s the brand. Sshh.”

I’ve never blogged much about Boyfriend, preferring to keep him secret and special, so much of my life revealed online, but he very quickly became a hugely important part of me and we have been living together for nearly three years.

Today Boyfriend moved out.

We decided that we wanted different things. Clichéd but true? I don’t even know any more. We talked about it so much that I can’t remember whether I was really ever unhappy or whether we’re simply the victims of society making us believe that the only relationship worth having is one in which both parties feel blissfully happy and satisfied at all times. Heaven forbid there be work involved.

What I do know is that I feel gutted – literally empty. I’m in that weird limbo between not wanting to talk about it but at the same time being able to think of nothing else and wanting to tell everyone I see. How can they not tell just from passing me in the street that my heart is broken? How can it be that the world carries on as normal? I mainly say nothing, sometimes doing a brave little smile or sighing loudly.

Unfortunately neither the smiles or the sighs translate well into blog posts or pithy social media updates, so I may be a little quiet for a while.* Sorry about that. I hope that normal service will be resumed soon, in all senses.

*Apart obviously from all the sponsored posts I have scheduled. I need to earn a living after all to pay for all the gin and ice cream I will need to temporarily fill the void.

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First questions: do you love cakes?

(If you said no then just leave now. Come on.)

Second question: do you like being charitable?

This is a trick question as clearly it’s not really OK to answer no to this one.

You will be pleased to know that this year you can combine these two loves to help provide vital support to those who have suffered life changing injuries and their families, for life. All you have to do is take part in the Colossal Cake Sale, which has been set up by Help for Heroes, the charity which help those who have been wounded in Britain’s current conflicts.

Colossal cake sale

Help For Heroes are asking every community to get together between 19th April and 5th May to raise money by holding a cake sale, either at their local school or shopping centre or just making cakes to sell around the office or to friends and family. This year the event is being sponsored by Whitworths sugar and they have loads of recipes on their website to get you started. View Post

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Guest post from Bee Richards

On my way out to buy hand wash recently, I decided to check my post box. Inside was a parcel slip, and inside the parcel was some hand wash! What are the chances?!

This wasn’t just any old hand wash though. This was Method gel hand wash – designed for good. This hand wash has been designed by Method, the eco friendly cleaning products company, to help raise awareness for the fair treatment of animals.

Method hand wash cruelty free

Method believes that “guinea pigs should never be used as guinea pigs” which makes me happy, with guinea pigs being my favourite pet and all. Method never tests any of their products on animals and, better yet, their products are actually safe to use around your pets. That means no excuse for any guinea pigs not washing their hands after they’ve been to the toilet.

As well as the hand wash being pet friendly and pro fair animal treatment, it’s the most adorable hand wash I’ve ever seen. The bottle is a lovely teardrop shape and is decorated with bunnies! I love bunnies.

I received the Mimosa Sun variety, and there’s a Botanical Garden scent available to buy too. Mimosa Sun smells gorgeous – orange, peach and lily of the valley are some of my favourite smells and they are all combined into this refreshing hand wash. It really does smell like summer sun in a bottle. It also made my skin really soft; usually most hand wash just dries my hands out and I have to put hand cream on straight after. Not with this hand wash though, as it contains no harsh chemicals making it great for your skin.

All in all, this hand wash is one of the best I’ve ever tried, and it’s against animal cruelty message gives you a happy little buzz every time you wash your hands.

Disclosure: I was sent this and other products to review and in return, Method is donating £100 to Cruelty Free International! 

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As much as I hate the idea of a society governed by looks, you can’t deny that most of us do care about our appearance to some extent, whether it’s simply dabbing a bit of a concealer over a massive spot or spending an hour every day on an elaborate hair styling routine.

(In case you couldn’t guess, I’m in the ‘light dabbing of concealer’ camp. Except I don’t actually own any concealer. Opps.)

I’ve always been ‘lucky’ though in that I have really young looking skin, partly due I like to think to the fact that I’ve never smoked or excessively sunbathed and have worn a moisturiser with SPF15 for the last 20 years, but mostly I suspect because I just have very greasy skin. Seriously, my nose is so slick it doubles as a lip balm.

(True fact. I saw it once on Oprah. If you’re stuck for Vaseline just rub a bit of nose grease on your lips.)

Bee has inherited the nose grease gene, and recently tried to bill me for expensive skincare products, but as I pointed out, I was technically saving her money on anti-ageing regimes, so it all balances out.

Check out the infographic below. Would you rather be slimmer or younger looking? How would you choose between moisturiser and Facebook??

Secrets Behind Beauty
Secrets Behind Beauty from Sanctuary Spa

Disclosure: this is a sponsored post.

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Today I have a guest review, written by Kathie from Hungry Sauce. Kathie and I both LOVE Lottie dolls, but my youngest daughter is 11 and Kathie writes a food blog, so we teamed up, getting Kathie’s young daughter Em to put Lottie to the test.

Emma and her Lottie Doll

Have you seen Lottie? She’s lovely.

She’s a doll, but get this – she’s a girl. A girl, with a girl’s body, no boobies, no make-up and no weird teeny, tiny, foot-binding feet. And what’s even more amazing is she’s a girl who – and I know you won’t believe this – sometimes wears trousers. And trainers. View Post

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