Saturday 26 August 2017

Quality Built to Last with Vorwerk's Kobold VK200


Vorwerk Kobold VK200 Electric Brush ToolThere was a time when, if you bought something, such as a fridge, or a toaster, you would assume it would last for years. In my parent's day, no one expected to replace an electrical appliance. Perhaps perform a repair now and again, but you would anticipate having the same one until it got a bit battered and loved, then replacing it would be a major event. In today's 'consumable' society, everything seems to need replacing every few years and its driving me mad. In the last five years, I have been through three vacuum cleaners, the quality has been that bad. So, in this review I am investigating what you get for your money when you invest in the Kobold VK200, from Vorwerk. An appliance designed to last.
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Monday 21 August 2017

Camping Must-Haves and What You CAN Leave Home Without!


A traditional-style tent in a field
Camping can be ideal as a low-cost family holiday option when money is a bit tight. However, on your first camping trip, it can be very easy to get bogged down with the different products available to buy, until you end up spending the cost of a week in the Algarve. As we've got better at camping, we have found some products that have been invaluable, and some that haven't. This is our guide to your camping essentials and how to keep the costs down by avoiding what you really don't need. This post contains items we've bought, and some we were sent to try and really liked. I have marked the review items, with an asterisk * for clarity.
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Wednesday 16 August 2017

Improving Children's Handwriting with Free Printables


A child writing
There are a lot of positives to the advance of the digital age. Laptops and iPads are providing a wealth of opportunities for children to develop their writing. Without the limitation of forming the words individually using a pencil and paper (which many children struggle with) it's proving much quicker for them to get their ideas down, so their story writing and other subjects are progressing much faster. However, the downside is that it might discourage them from persevering with the important skill of good handwriting and, at some stage, they will still need to write nicely. It is so much easier to start good habits early, so here are some ideas to encourage good handwriting in children. 
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Saturday 12 August 2017

Top Tips for Camping When it Rains


A tent, with some very inquisitive ducks waddling past.
Everyone hopes for good weather when it comes to the annual family holiday, but none more so than the dediated family camper. Like all holidays, once it's booked, it's booked and you are pretty much condemned to suffer whatever is thrown at you and, usually, the worst of these will be the weather. We've just returned from our third camping trip, through Campsites.co.uk and we had spells of dreadful weather during each of them. This time, the tail end of a hurricane made us glad of our storm pegs, and this was just one of the things we learned from our previous trips. With this in mind, this post contains advice from myself and other campers on how to brave the worst of the British weather in a tent! 
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Thursday 10 August 2017

Forest Glade Holiday Park: Family Campsite Review


Beautiful forest glade, situated in the Black Down Hills
Regular readers will know that sometimes I review things I've been sent to try and sometimes I review things I have purchased myself, but I am always honest in my reviews and upfront about where they come from. This time, though, it's a bit more complicated, because I bought and paid for this holiday, but the lovely owner gave me a refund when I said I would be happy to review it. The park is just stunning and there is so much I want to tell you about it, along with millions of photos I've taken for you, which I've tried to whittle down a bit. I hope you enjoy my unbiased review of the beautiful Forest Glade Holiday Park, situated in the Blackdown Hills between Cullompton and Honiton in East Devon. 
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Tuesday 8 August 2017

Sister Act: The High- Energy Musical Extravaganza


A line up of nuns, playing various musical instruments
I had been looking forward to this performance for weeks. This has been a favourite film of mine since the 90's and it was so exciting to imagine it transferred to the stage, it is such a show-stopper anyway. This is our review of Sister Act The Musical, which turned out to be pretty surprising in many ways. It's always interesting to see how a film transforms on the stage and Craig Revel Horwood's direction brought some twists and turns I was not expecting. We are lucky enough to get press tickets for shows at the Bristol Hippodrome and you can read our previous reviews of Gangsta Granny and Dirty Dancing by clicking the links, if you would like to.
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Win a 16" Marvel Iron Man Action Figure

Large 16" Iron Man Action Figure
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Monday 7 August 2017

Making Informed Lottery Choices Just got Easier with Lottoland

Pile of money, with title overlaid. Like most people, I have played the lottery in this country since it opened in 1997 and dreamed of a big win ever since. It soon became apparent though, that lottery players in other countries were getting a much better deal. In the dark ages; BG (before Google), it wasn't as easy to find out what was happening in other countries, but sometimes news of huge lottery wins would come through from the U.S. where they would roll over seemingly indefinitely until someone picked the right combination, resulting in piles of dollars that couldn't even be imagined. I also found out that the Irish Lotto, at the time, had way better odds than the British Lottery and my much younger, more self-assured, self was not happy about this. 
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Friday 4 August 2017

Choking Hazards and Children - Prevention Better than Cure


A sepection of objects that a small child could choke on. When my daughter was small, she choked on a Hula Hoop crisp. It was at our local playgroup and, whilst I was just a few feet away, it was the quick-thinking mum who was nearest who picked her up and slapped her back. She was instantly sick and disaster was very much averted. I was a member of the St John's Ambulance Brigade from the age of 12, so I was trained in first aid from an early age. I have always been relatively confident in emergency situations, but not everyone is, or would be able to remember under pressure. It's also very distressing for the child, and the parent, so this post is about preventing choking situations occurring in the first place.
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