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.

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

 

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I have to confess that until we visited Berkeley Castle last year I had never heard of it. It seems strange that you can live so near to somewhere and not know about it, but there you go, I can’t be expected to know everything.

If you read about our trip though, you’ll see that it was an excellent discovery and I’ve been recommending it to people ever since, if only for the butterflies and the yurt cafe. (I love yurts).

Today then, I am very pleased to have a family ticket to give away to visit the spectacular Berkeley Castle over the Easter weekend. There’s loads going on, including life-like dragons and a Chinese dragon parade on the Sunday and Monday. There’s also a dragon egg hunt around the Castle and grounds, and dragon themed arts and crafts activities on all weekend.

Berkeley castle Easter acitivties

Berkeley castle Easter acitivties

Berkeley castle Easter acitivties

Tickets will be valid for any of the Easter weekend days – Friday 18th – Monday 21st – and will be available for collection on the day, so you don’t need to worry about the post arriving in time. The competition will close on Wednesday 16th April at midnight. To enter, just use the widgety thing below.

Good luck!

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I was having a bit of a weird, grumpy day yesterday. Nothing really was wrong, and yet I was wracked with self-doubt and suffering a complete lack of motivation. Fortunately, I had half an Easter egg in the cupboard and eating the whole lot alongside a sneaky lunchtime episode of CSI made me feel much better.

That’s the wonderful power of sugar for you.

A complete addiction to chocolate is the reason that I went and entered the Webloyalty competition to win ten Easter eggs. If I win I plan to change into my pyjamas, lock myself into some sort of cupboard for a few days and devour them secretly, possibly at the same time as watching a Friends box set. Or I might give them as Easter gifts, I haven’t decided yet.

Whatever I do with them though, you have to admit that it’s a really fun prize. Just look at them all!

Easter egg competition

To enter it couldn’t be simpler, all you have to do is visit the Webloyalty blog, vote for your favourite Easter egg, and send a quick tweet, job done. Obviously if you win then you will have to send me one egg as my 10% commission for telling you about the competition in the first place. I will have the Ferrero Rocher one please.

Enter now for your chance to win 10 Easter eggs and live the pyjama cupboard dream.

Disclosure: this is a sponsored post. I need the cash to buy more eggs.

 

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By Annabel Middleton

There are many things that change with the dawn of parenthood; you start going to the toilet with an audience, you leave the house with an array of bodily fluids encrusted into your clothing and you wave goodbye to long weekends spent in a debauched haze at the myriad festivals on offer every summer.

This is one of the bits that my partner struggles with most.

He was very pleased then to discover that there may be a way to recapture some of the fun of festivals past, maybe with less debauchery but still music, food and the occasional beer – the glorious annual Wychwood festival.

Camping at Wychwood festival

Known for its super friendly atmosphere and nominated for ‘best family festival’ every year since it began, Wychwood festival is the top destination for those with children still wanting to sample some festival festivities. Celebrating their 10th birthday, their 2014 line-up will be the biggest and best yet.

There is much excitement in our household as come 30th May this year we will be finding out for ourselves and packing our backpacks, rolling our sleeping bags and stocking up on wet-wipes to make our way to Cheltenham Racecourse for a weekend of frolics. Fulfilling the cliché ‘something for everyone’ there will be over 100 bands over four stages partnered with many different and far-ranging workshops, performances and activities to entertain and excite all family members.

Have a go at mastering circus skills, sit back and enjoy a new and exciting mime show in the family theatre or take up a new skill such as harp playing.

(Doesn’t everyone secretly want to play the harp?)

“Mr Tumble is going to be there?!?!” says my son, barely able to contain his shock that cbeebies characters can escape from the television and make it out into the real world. We are flicking through the Wychwood festival line-up and he spies children’s favourite Justin Fletcher, who is going to be providing some of the younger audience’s entertainment perhaps with his red-nosed, freckled (slightly unnerving, in my opinion) alter-ego Mr Tumble making an appearance.

Mr Tumble Wychwood festival

As if that was not enough, Waterstones will be providing a children’s literature festival covering the whole weekend with favourite authors and illustrators. Roald Dahl stories will be brought to life by the performers from the Roald Dahl Museum; who will also be celebrating fifty years of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with crafts and interactive parades.

There promises to be more chances to unleash younger artists with many craft workshops across the whole weekend, from withy weaving to local organisation ‘Squiggle ‘n’ Jiggle’ (I promise it is child-friendly) who make exciting things from ordinary recycling.

Wychwood festival

To top things off, there will be a Bubble Show from, what I think will become my personal favourite, Sam Sam the Bubble Man-the most famous bubbleologist in the world (if only I had known that was an option in careers guidance at school). Then to help tire them out so they sleep well in the tent, there are dance and movement sessions to burn off energy.

For the grown-ups there will be plenty of great bands, incorporating soul with The Real Thing, new wave Irish legends, The Boomtown Rats and acoustic mastery with Newton Falkner, plus so many, many more. There will also be more grown-up friendly workshops with crafts to nourish the mind, yoga to nourish the body and delicious food stuffs and satisfying real ales to nourish the stomach.

If you want to be part of the family event of the year then you could come join us! (Don’t worry, you don’t have to actually hang out with us).

To win family tickets (two adults and two children), worth £290, plus camping, simply tick off as many items on the Rafflecopter widget below as possible before midnight on 8th April.

Good luck! Hope to see you there!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Wychwood Festival takes place on Cheltenham Racecourse from 30th May – 1st June 2014. Weekend Festival Tickets for Children/Adults/ Concessions are from £125.00, Under 5’s go free but must register for a ticket. Camping passes must be purchased
in addition to a festival ticket. Visit www.wychwoodfestival.com for further information and to purchase tickets.

Win competitions at ThePrizeFinder.com

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Today’s post is written by my very lovely and talented daughter Bee.

In my mind, when I think about the possibility of having children at some point in the next 5-10 years (god, is that all? *panics slightly* maybe I’ll wait till I’m 40,) I envision myself being the perfect parent. I’d have a freezer stocked full of pureed celeriac in heart shaped ice cube trays and a series of development enhancing, bespoke, organic wood toys that I could watch my children play on, supervised by their father Harry Styles, through the window of my beautiful office filled with matching antique furniture as I bang out my fifth award winning novel on my vintage typewriter.

Seems legit right?

This is obviously all very naïve of me, but I do feel like there is quite often a wrong and right when it comes to parenting decisions. Do I let them have Maltesers and a Fruit Shoot for lunch? No. Should I make them brush their teeth before they go to bed? Yes.

Maltesers cake

Note to self: this is not OK for breakfast

One area that I don’t have a strategic action plan for though is discipline. On one hand, I’m not taking any shite from a toddler who thinks they can do whatever they want. I birthed you and you will have the upmost respect for me at all times, young man.

However I don’t want to be mean, because they are probably going to be adorable. If I shouted at them I would feel like I just kicked a puppy and now it won’t look me in the eyes. I also really want my kids to like me, just like Marlin from Finding Nemo:

“What if they don’t like me?”

“Marlin, there are over 400 eggs. Odds are one of them is bound to like you”*

My own mother** will say that her disciplinary methods are wishy-washy and inconsistent but to be honest, I think she’s got it down. I wouldn’t consider myself to have been too much of a terrible child or a rebellious teen, but whenever I did do something wrong it was usually resolved, not with screaming and a meaningless punishment, but an adult conversation where we worked the issue out. Any punishment given would usually be related to the crime, enabling me to set right whatever I had done wrong. I think that because it was dealt with in this way, I usually felt genuinely sorry for my actions and not just like my Mum was over reacting or being a bitch.

I’ve never been grounded, simply because having a plausible excuse to not leave the house for an extended period of time would be a reward to me, not a punishment.

Have you got any discipline techniques that work every time? Are you still trying to work out your discipline style? The way you approach punishing your children obviously will vary with each individual child and will change with age.

The adorable children’s furniture site Room to Grow are looking for parents to give their views on disciplining their child by taking their new survey. You can submit your answers anonymously, but if you provide your details you can be in with the chance to win a £250 voucher to spend on the site! Fab, yes?

The purpose of this short survey is to gain an understanding of the different UK parental attitudes and practices towards child discipline, so your opinions will be really valued should you participate.

Take part in the survey now to be in with a chance to win £250 to spend at Room to Grow!

Good luck!

*I quoted that entirely from memory. I know all the words to Finding Nemo. The whole film. Every word.

 **Note from Editor – that’s me readers!

Disclosure: this is a sponsored post on behalf of Room to Grow. Photo credit – Eldriva.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Do you ever feel like there just aren’t enough hours in the day? Do you wish you could squeeze more in?

I do.

I’m a total sucker for it. Take last week for instance. Thursday was a really busy day for me – I was delivering a half day Twitter workshop in Bristol in the morning, then whizzing over to London to run a social media workshop in the evening. In between I also had to squeeze in a couple of hours of other work. Of course what always happens when you have lots on? You get offered more work. And what do I always do? Say yes.

D’oh!

It seems that no matter how busy I am, I always want to lever in than little bit extra, just to tip me into the chocolate digestive zone.

chocolate digestive

The chocolate digestive zone

The chocolate digestive zone is a very dangerous place. It’s where I have so much to do that I panic and just eat biscuits instead. I feel like in order to get everything done, I need to constantly fuel myself with inappropriate snacks, just in case I get hungry and that means I can’t concentrate.

(I do have a bit of a worry about getting hungry, so tend to pre-empt it by always nibbling on something. I don’t know what I imagine will happen – that I’ll get stranded on a mountain top somewhere, my blood sugar levels will plummet, and that the only thing that will keep me going is the fact that I ate that emergency Rice Krispie square at the station an hour earlier?)

What I should do of course is prepare myself a range of wholesome salads and nutritious nibbles, but that always feels like such a lot of faff – much easier just to reach a sneaky hand out for something.

So…

All of this is why pairing up with Actimel to promote their fabulous Twitter competition felt like such a good fit for me. The giveaway is all about squeezing more into your family day as Actimel, like me, believe that squeezing a lot in is a good thing. In fact, they squeeze yogurt, live cultures, fruit puree, calcium and essentials vitamins B6 & D into every 100g bottle of Actimel. Their fruit flavours even have Vitamin C!

Because Actimel believe squeezing a lot in is a good thing, they are offering you the opportunity to be squeezed into once in a lifetime great events – in this case an amazing music concert at the O2 in London.

Tweet to win!

It’s dead easy to enter. All you have to do is follow @ActimelUK on Twitter and tweet them with the hashtag #squeezemorein to tell them how you are squeezing more into your day. Perhaps you’re juggling several jobs, running the kids from club to club and all at the same time as learning the play the trumpet. Maybe you’re training for a marathon and cooking a lasagne. Whatever you’re doing, Actimel want to hear about it.

The promotion ends at 23.59 on Thursday 6th March 2014 and you can read the full T&Cs on their Facebook page.

Good luck!

Actimel squeeze more in

This is a sponsored post.

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How was Christmas for you? If you are anything like me, (which I suspect you are, otherwise why else would you be here, reading my blog, trying to make yourself feel better about yourself), then it involved quite a lot of lying around.

I did do some exercise, but most of it was the ‘reaching for another piece of toffee’ kind, and I’m not sure that burns off an awful lot of calories. When I went back to netball recently then, for the first time in nearly three weeks, I was in for a bit of a surprise. It wasn’t so much that I wasn’t up to speed on the day, but the next day I found it quite difficult to get out of bed and walk up and down the stairs. Not a good sign.

Truth be told, we tend to let ourselves go a little over the Christmas period. Getting back into fitness can be an uncomfortable business and the other niggly aches and pains, which we tried to ignore as we lugged the Christmas decorations down from the attic and rushed desperately around John Lewis looking for last minute yet thoughtful looking gifts, rear their ugly heads again. View Post

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This Christmas, Virgin Pure is offering fans and followers the chance to win a fantastic water bar by asking them to spread their joy by sharing the things that make them feel good at Christmas! (Not sure what a WaterBar is? Find out more here.)

This might be taking time off work and relaxing at home, eating great food and watching TV, buying gifts for loved ones, catching up with old friends and family that you’ve not seen all year, decorating the Christmas tree, getting creative in the kitchen…

Whatever it is, Virgin Pure want hear about it. View Post

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I have been all about the competitions over the last month.

It seems there is something about Christmas that makes everybody just want to chuck presents at each other. (Not literally obviously. That wouldn’t be very festive. Although I did recently get a netball as a present – that would probably be OK to chuck if it was to someone looking in your direction.) My Win Christmas competition finally drew to a close on Saturday night and those gifts are now all wrapped and in my living room, waiting for me to post them off to the lucky winners.

It’s enough to make you want to refill your sherry glass and crack open another chocolate orange.

In this spirit of giving then, My Family Club are holding an advent giveaway. Every single day in the run up to Christmas you can click on the advent calendar to open up another competition. View Post

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I’m really spoiling you with competitions this month aren’t I? It’s because it’s nearly Christmas and I love giving presents. Ask American Express – they’ll have a look at my statements and tell you it’s true.

People get in touch with me, they want to give you something lovely, I can hardly say no can I? Where are the good tidings to all men in that?

If you’re a coffee drinker and you love Christmas as much as me then you are going to love this Christmas coffee hamper from Beanies, The Flavour Co. It includes winter warmer, Christmas pudding and mulled spice flavoured coffees, a couple of mugs, some chocolates thins and some biccies to dunk, should you feel so inclined. It’s basically everything you need (minus the blanket) for a cosy Christmas night in. View Post

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I’m a very lucky girl when it comes to shopping. I live just off the Gloucester Road in Bristol, possibly one of the most popular and thriving shopping streets in the UK, packed full of independent retailers, foodies, craftspeople, butchers, bakers – it is awesome.

Not that I am biased of course.

Not everyone though lives with all of this on their doorstep, so what do you do when you believe in the ethos of independent retailing and want to support local producers, but don’t have them conveniently lined up just around the corner?

The answer is myhigh.st. View Post

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You won’t have failed to notice that it’s that time of year again, when smoothie bottles around the country don their woolly hats to raise money for Age UK. This year, to mark the tenth anniversary of the campaign, Lily Cole’s knitwear company The North Circular is creating life-sized versions of some of the teeny tiny Innocent hats.

On sale at The North Circular, the people-size beanies start from £85, with all profits going to Age UK, but if you really can only stretch to the price of an Innocent smoothie then you can win one here! Hooray! View Post

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