Do you remember a while ago when I showed you that amazing bangle I had that looked like a sparkly nail?? You should go back and have a look if you don’t remember. The company that makes said bangle – Infinity & Co – is back today with another competition.

Hoorah for sparkly things!

The competition is to celebrate their new range – LOVE X INFINITY. It’s a lovely collection of more affordable pieces, designed to be given as gifts. They have some really sweet bits and pieces, including this gorgeous jigsaw puzzle necklace and a wishbone bracelet, which are two of my favourites items in the range:

Infinity & Co jewellery View Post

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win coffee

Coffee is something I’ve come to a bit later in life. I’ve always been a weak and milky tea drinker, (the tea being weak and milky, not me, although I’m not strong exactly), but over the last year or two I’ve developed a bit of a taste for something stronger.

What I am discovering is that, just like tea, there is a lot of variety in coffee, and a huge gap between a good and a bad cup of the black stuff. (Do people call coffee ‘the black stuff’ or did I just make that up? I think it’s real.)

Anyway, today I’m giving away a bundle of coffee related goodies that definitely fall on the good end of the coffee spectrum. Spiller and Tait is a company local to me, based down on a farm near the Devon coast in Budleigh Salterton. They’re a small company, not looking for world domination – all they want is to make decent, fresh coffee that tastes good and doesn’t spend ages sitting in packets on supermarket shelves. All of their coffee is delivered to your door within seven days of roasting, so you get a fantastic, fresh coffee flavour, plus parcels are letterbox friendly, so you don’t have to worry if you’re out.

To introduce new people to what they do, Spiller and Tait has very kindly offered to give one lucky winner a bundle of coffee making goodies. You can win: View Post

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I have two questions for you:

  1. Do you like cheese?
  2. Do you like it when someone offers to pay your electricity bill for you forever?

If you answered yes to both these questions then read on.

Wyke Farms has teamed up with Good Energy to offer one lucky person the chance to win an entire lifetime’s supply of renewable electricity. Wyke Farms is big on sustainability and both brands share a passion for food and energy provenance. Wyke Farms also make ace cheese.

Wyke Farms electricity competition View Post

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When I was younger I was never really a coffee drinker. I thought that whole ‘first coffee of the day’ thing was totally blown out of proportion and, if I’m honest, I probably looked down a little bit on the kind of people who were all like ‘Oooh, let me just get a coffee and then I can think about it!’ Jeez, can you not just think on your own without some kind of stimulant?

(I do still hate this approach from a PR mentioning flat whites mind.)

In the last few years though I have become something of a convert. Perhaps it’s age. Perhaps I can’t just leap out of bed in the morning now and feel instantly excited about life. Most mornings I wake up feeling a teeny bit bleurgh about the world, and have to remind myself that it’s really okay, and that once I get out of bed, get moving, and have a coffee, I’ll be fine.

God, I’ve become one of those people.

Ah well, best embrace it I figure, so I’ve got a month’s supply of coffee to give away!

Cold brew from Minor Figures

The coffee I have for you is rather special. It’s a cold brew coffee from a small company called Minor Figures and having tried it, I can confirm that it’s amazing. The chocolate is especially ace, but I think my favourite is the milk. It has this wonderful smoothness to it that doesn’t give you any of that shuddery feeling that bad coffee can. It packs just the right punch to get me going without making my face twitchy.

Basically I love it, and I want you to share the coffee joy.

Oh and they look great too. Very Instagrammable, if that affects your coffee choices. (And why would it not?)

free cold brew coffee competition View Post

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7 books that could change your life

If you’re anything like me then you’re going to be very excited about this competition. I love books, and especially books that are aimed at teaching you something about yourself or helping you to improve your life. (Apart from that AWFUL one I ranted about earlier this week of course. Damn that woman.)

None of the books in my competition are hideous like that one.

These seven books all come from one of my very favourite websites of all time, The Book People. What that means is that technically, although the RRP of the collection comes to more than £89, you could buy them all from The Book People for less than £30. Now you see why I like The Book People so much.

So this is what I’ve got in the collection: View Post

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How perfect a competition is this for me to promote?!

You know I love front doors. Here are a few of my favourites:

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January blues, post-Christmas depression, SAD, Blue Monday – whatever you call it, January is a bit crap isn’t it? It’s light for about 47 minutes a day, you’re broke and tired… I know what you need!

A competition!

This competition comes courtesy of the lovely people at Get Fruity. January isn’t crap for them – they’re celebrating because they’ve just started selling their Cornish made fruity oat bars in Tesco.

Hoorah!

I’ve been munching my way through a couple of their mixed boxes over the last few weeks and they really are tasty. Get Fruity bars are made with fruit, oats and virgin coconut oil, contain absolutely no refined sugars, and are gluten free, dairy free and vegan certified. They have really interesting flavours too, like juicy apricot, orange and ginger.

Basically they’re pretty ace.

Because they’re so tasty and wholesome, they’re perfect for packed lunches. With this in mind, Get Fruity have put together a fantastic prize bundle, consisting of a month’s supply of their mixed boxes, a choice of either a Frozen or an Avengers lunch box and drinks bottle, and a £50 voucher to spend at one of their stockists – either Ocado, Waitrose or Tesco – it’s up to you which you’d prefer.

Get Fruity bars View Post

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This dairy free pineapple and coconut smoothie recipe is inspired by my recent trip to Vietnam.

They have a lot of coconuts in Vietnam. We visited the Mekong Delta on day two, and went by boat to a tiny island where they make sweets out of coconut, grinding up the coconut and boiling it with sugar cane. We saw a lot of coconut based souvenirs too and, best of all, I got to drink a lot of coconut water. Pretty much everywhere you go you can order coconut water to drink, just like you might order a Coke – they just cut the top off a coconut and stick in a straw.

Not only does it taste amazing but it looks pretty cool too.

When Dole asked me if I wanted to try out their new frozen fruit packs then, I thought it might be fun to try and create a coconut smoothie recipe that you could actually drink out of a coconut, should you felt so inclined.

Pineapple and coconut smoothie recipe

Of course you can just make it and have it in a glass like a normal person, but where would be the Instagrammable fun it that?! I realised too, when I came home and found myself ordering a massive cheese platter when out for lunch with a friend, that I pretty much ate no dairy in Vietnam, so I figured a dairy free smoothie recipe would fit well.

But first things first…

How to break a coconut in half

This was the challenge.

I’ve won coconuts at fairs before, but I’ve only ever eaten them by smashing them up with a hammer. You can’t display a smoothie just by pouring it over a smashed up coconut can you?

No.

I needed something a little more professional looking.

I watched a few YouTube videos and the best approach, should you not happen to have a circular saw lying around at home, (which I don’t), seemed to be to tap around the circumference of the coconut with a hammer. (Drain the coconut water out first, or you will make a mess.)

I did this for about three or four minutes and started to get worried as nothing was happening. I had bought three coconuts, just in case anything went wrong with the first one, but I didn’t especially want to fail at the first hurdle. I kept on tapping and lo and behold, just at the point when I was ready to throw it on the floor and stamp on it, a crack started to appear! I kept tapping, following the crack, and look what happened!

I felt pretty pleased with myself.

dairy free pineapple and coconut smoothie recipe

Then the recipe – this is a piece of cake in comparison.

How to make a pineapple and coconut smoothie

It’s pretty straightforward to make a dairy free pineapple and coconut smoothie, and the beauty of smoothie recipes is that you can be really flexible with them and adapt them according to personal taste or whatever you have in the fridge. For this recipe I used the following:

dairy free pineapple and coconut smoothie recipe

I was making my smoothie just for me, so if you want to make it for more than one person you’ll need to scale up the quantities.

Start with a big dollop of coconut yogurt in the bottom of a regular sized Nutribullet cup. Add a good handful of Dole frozen pineapple chunks. The benefit of using frozen fruit, other than that you don’t end up with mouldy fruit in the fridge because you forget to use it, is that you don’t need to add ice – the frozen fruit thickens the smoothie up a little and makes it lovely and cold.

dairy free pineapple and coconut smoothie recipe

Top up your cup to around the ‘max’ line with coconut drink. I used Koko dairy free but you could use whatever you like. You could even try using the liquid you drained out of your coconut earlier if you are going for the full tropical experience.

dairy free pineapple and coconut smoothie recipe

Then just whizz it up!

Now is the fun bit. If you’re just going to drink it, like a regular person, then go ahead! It’s yummy isn’t it? I was worried about the balance between the pineapple and coconut flavours but I think this is just about perfect. The Dole frozen pineapple gives it a lovely fresh, clean flavour and chills it too. This would be lovely with a cheeky splash of rum.

If, like me, you prepare all your food and drink with the sole purpose of taking nice Instagram pictures, then now’s the time to pour your pineapple and coconut smoothie into your coconut. (If you’re using the half with the three holes then don’t forget to plug them with something. I used blutac. Please don’t take that as a recommendation.)

I decorated my pineapple and coconut smoothie with tropical straws and toasted a little bit of flaked coconut to garnish. I did this just by tossing the coconut in a dry frying pan for about five minutes.

Tada!

dairy free pineapple and coconut smoothie recipe

dairy free pineapple and coconut smoothie recipe

 

How to win your own Nutribullet

If you’d like to win your own Nutribullet, so that you can easily whizz up a dairy free pineapple and coconut smoothie whenever you fancy it, all you need to do is come up with your own easy smoothie recipe, inspired by your own travels. Take a picture of your smoothie and post it on Instagram with the hashtag #MYDOLESMOOTHIE.

I’ve posted about the competition here on my own Instagram, to inspire you:

It doesn’t have to be a super fancy recipe, just something that you love, and that makes you think of a favourite holiday or adventure. The winner will be chosen based on a combination of creativity, quality of photography and the story behind the recipe. The competition will close at midnight on 31st December, so you have the holidays to get creative. (Full T&Cs at the bottom of this post.)

Good luck!

Like the look of my dairy free pineapple and coconut smoothie recipe? Why not pin the image below for later?

dairy free pineapple and coconut smoothie recipe

Produced in association with Dole. 

 

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If ever was a post that proved that I am a woman not afraid to make a fool of herself in the name of money fun, then this is it.

Now probably there would be a few of you who wouldn’t fancy the idea of sharing videos of yourself dancing, but really, when you stop to think about it, why the hell not? What exactly are you thinking that people will see that they don’t see every day? Not keen on a close up of your bottom? I hate to tell you, but everyone can see your bottom all of the time. It’s just that it’s behind you, so you forget about it.

Embrace it! Flaunt that bum! Celebrate the fact that you’re alive and can dance around your living room should you want to.

Like this…

You’re welcome.

My incredibly accomplished dancing isn’t just for fun though, it’s to let you know about a competition from OVO Energy where you can win a custom onesie by sharing your own super cool dance moves. A onesie is just the thing for throwing some shapes at home over the winter. It doesn’t even matter if you’re a little bit shy – why not just take a little video of your feet getting jiggy? All you have to do to enter is to pop your clip on Instagram or with OVO Energy on Twitter and use the hashtag #ShakeItOVO.  View Post

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We often chat about what we’d do with our home if we owned it. Top of the list would be a new kitchen and bathroom. Our kitchen has that classic late 1990s orange pine vibe going on, and the bathroom… Well, the bathroom has more of a ‘windowless prison cell with peeling paint’ feel. You get used to it, but if it was ours it would definitely get a makeover.

I actually have a scrapbook of pictures that I have cut out of magazines. It’s like Pinterest, but in the good old days, when we used Pritt Stick. When I do own my own home, I will know exactly what I want.

The key element for me is colour.

After so many years of renting, and being stuck with white walls, I’d love the freedom to experiment with colour. This doesn’t necessarily mean painting all the walls in bright colours – it might be a bit more subtle than that – but just having the chance to add a bit of wallpaper or some colourful tiles would be lovely.

All of these tiles are available at Tile Mountain and I’d be happy to have any of these in my scrapbook:

Tile Mountain voucher View Post

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Do you remember a little while ago I tried out Everdine? It’s a food delivery service where everything is wonderfully wholesome and delicious. Imagine what it’s like being at my house for tea. (We had fish fingers, mini potato waffles and baked beans last night.)

Everdine is the opposite of that.

In yet another fantabulous Christmas competition, I’m giving away a month of clean eating meals from Everdine. It’s two, eight meal boxes, spread over a month, so 16 meals in total. That’s enough to make sure that you’re nicely balancing out all the Christmas excess and don’t have to feel quite as bad about yourself as if you were having mince pies and mulled wine for every meal.

Everdine clean eating View Post

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How early is too early to put up a Christmas tree?

I say ‘NEVER!’

Fiancé says that anything before the second week of December is common. I pointed out that I AM quite common, which he accepted was probably true.

I was prepared to compromise. Our tree at home – always a real one – would wait and instead I would decorate my office.

Hoorah!

An office Christmas tree is definitely allowed to go up earlier, because you don’t spend as much time at work over the actual Christmas period and so you need more time to appreciate the sparkles. Luckily I share an office with a friend, Paul, who is just as easily excited about Christmas as me, and another, Marcus, who is only young and so happily goes along with whatever I tell him.

Paul and I agreed that November 25th – one month exactly until Christmas – was an excellent time to head to Poundstretcher to fill a basket with all things sparkly.

I’ve never bought an artificial tree before and was a bit worried that it would look naff. It really doesn’t though. We went for a 6ft tree with snow tipped branches and fir cones, which was on special offer and just £24.99. It came in three parts and was very easy to erect – you just slot it together at the trunk and then bend the branches to bush it out a bit. Easy.
Poundstretcher Christmas decorations View Post

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