Most of us growing up will have had our favourite toys, but nothing is ever quite as special as your first teddy bear.
Today I want to introduce you to my teddy bear. He was given to me when I was born – I think by my Uncle John – and he has always been my very favourite teddy. His name, very unoriginal though it may be, is Teddy.
Will you be throwing a Halloween party for your children this year? If so, then you’ve come to the right place. It’s almost like I planned this just for you.
Last weekend Belle and I hosted a small spooky gathering for five friends and their children. I say small – I did have to shift the furniture about to get everyone in, but then my house is pretty teeny. It has been a while since I had a house full of so many young children and have got rather used to Belle just sitting quietly watching Poirot or doing a spot of colouring, so I was probably unprepared for the amount of noise even a small number of boys can make. Still, it is Halloween, it’s supposed to be scary. View Post
I have a little quiz for you. Picture the scene for a minute if you will…
It’s Boxing Day. You’ve eaten 439 Elizabeth Shaw mints, drunk 14 glasses of sherry, and are collapsed on the sofa. Your Christmas presents are sat in a pile at your feet. Do you think to yourself:
A. What a lovely collection of thoughtful yet practical gifts!
B. What a bunch of crap. Why do my family hate me so?
C. It’s lovely that everyone has bought me a present, but I do wish I just had that camera I really wanted instead of these 27 Boots gift sets.
Let’s find out what your answers mean: View Post
I’m starting a new weekly review slot to round up all the events we have attended and the products we’ve used in the previous week. (This is it in case you hadn’t worked that out.)
The weekend got off to a great start on Saturday, when Belle and I went to Bristol Old Vic for an audience with Lauren Child. Belle is a massive Lauren Child fan, and is particularly keen on her series of books for older children about quirky teen detective Ruby Redfort. Such a fan is she in fact that she even has a customised t-shirt. Ruby apparently has a t-shirt just like this one:
A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to spend a day at Vale House Kitchen, a brand new cookery school near Bath. Run by Bod and Annie, two of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet, Vale House Kitchen aims to reconnect people with their food by teaching basic hunting, fishing, foraging and cooking skills.
You can see for yourself how beautiful it is and find out more about the making of Vale House Kitchen in this short video:
I went on the Chef Skills course, run by fantastic local chef Kieran Lenihan. Kieran was an excellent tutor and I will definitely be paying his restaurants a visit. View Post
Last night I was invited by Kirsten – aka the Little Wedding Helper – to the launch of her new wedding pop-up shop in Clifton – Little Wedding Space.
If you have ever been to a wedding fair, you’ll know that they can be uninspiring to say the least. I once took the girls to one, thinking it might be a fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon. It was not. Think cheap hotel conference room, bland surrounding, rows of collapsible tables covered in pens and fliers. Romance was not high on the agenda on that occasion.
The Little Wedding Space is the opposite of this.
It’s a dozen independent creative types who have come together to create, until October 28th, what is possible the most beautiful collection of things all together in one place ever. If you are planning a wedding any time soon, or simply like pretty things, it is definitely worth a visit. View Post
Put the pressure on a bit.
Tell them that you work in social media and that the last time you had a smear test you blogged about how long it took a different nurse to find your elusive cervix.
The nurse I saw yesterday was in and out before I even had time to ask for her number.
What makes a perfect cuppa for you? For me it has to be whole milk. I just don’t see the point of that skimmed nonsense. It’s basically water isn’t it? What’s the point of that? It has to be weak too, none of that vigorous squeezing nonsense. My perfect cup of tea looks a bit like chicken soup. I tried making it without the teabag once – it basically tasted the same.
To help you create the perfect cup of tea, Virgin Pure are giving away one of their funky WaterBars. They look pretty cool don’t they? Obviously it helps if you have a super funky kitchen like this one, but still, we can’t all be Jamie Oliver.
To enter, all you have to do is tell Virgin Pure what you think makes the perfect cuppa. (I’m guessing for most people it would be basically the opposite of mine – something that actually tasted of tea.)
There are two ways to do enter:
Only Virgin Pure page fans or Twitter followers will be entered into the prize draw. Full terms and conditions are available here.
So what is a Virgin Pure WaterBar anyway?
Good question. The Virgin Pure WaterBar is small, stylish and sits on your kitchen worktop. (Again, the opposite of me.) It is connected to your mains water supply, purifying tap water and serving it perfectly chilled or boiling hot, thus providing your family with an unlimited supply of purified chilled and boiling water at the touch of a button. Find out more at Virgin Pure.
There is something that has been bothering me. I noticed it first on a TV ad, and then again at the weekend in a flier that fell out of a magazine.
It’s bath fillers.
‘What the hell is a bath filler?’ I hear you cry, your forehead crinkling in confusion, and you may well ask. In my mind a bath filler is a young man draped in robes, with a crown made of leaves, who fills your bath for you with fresh goat’s milk while you lounge back, sipping champagne and eating peeled grapes, handed to you by a young maiden. It sounds so decadent, what else could it be?
It’s a tap.
An actual tap. View Post
Rifle through my drawers (if you pardon the expression) and I’m pretty sure you will not find a single extended warranty. I have no critical illness cover, the most basic level of contents insurance possible, and only got round to sorting out some cheap life insurance last year after much nagging from Boyfriend.
I just don’t see the point.
I read once that the secret to insurance is to only insure for events that you couldn’t afford to cover yourself if they happened. Life insurance then makes sense – I couldn’t afford to leave enough money to take care of my children if I died, so I insure against it.
A toaster though? I’m pretty sure I could stretch to one of those if the worst happens. If I dropped my laptop and smashed it into a million pieces it would be terrible, but I could afford to buy another one, so I don’t need any fancy personal appliance protection. View Post
One of my favourite quotes is from Joan Rivers. She says “”I hate housework! You make the beds, you do the dishes and six months later you have to start all over again.”
This is exactly how I feel.
Aside from my dislike of anything that involves getting my hands wet, housework is just so boring isn’t it? And futile. You could spend a whole day tidying up and making things look nice, and then a small child will come in, push all of your books to the back of the shelf, and the whole thing is ruined.
(Because everyone knows that books have to line up flush to the front of the shelves or else everything is just wrong. Children have a sixth sense for this weakness of mine and immediately upon entering my house they will make for the nearest shelf and push all of the books back with a look of glee on their eyes. I swear they have some sort of toddler forum where they share this things like this, just to be super annoying.) View Post
I made these mincemeat puff pastry swirls last weekend and just had to share them as they are so simple yet so impressive looking. They’re perfect if you’ve got friends coming round and need to whip up a tasty hot treat, so long as you don’t mind a bit of pastry on the carpet.
Firstly, you need a packet of ready rolled puff pastry. Unroll it, but leave it on the baking parchment. Spread it with whatever you fancy – jam, mincemeat, or perhaps even some of my home-made lemon curd? We went for mincemeat as I have been planning my #WinChristmas giveaway this week and it has been making me feel rather festive. View Post