ASDA: A Shocking Display of Apathy

Dear Asda,

I tried very hard to avoid having to blog about this. I phoned, I tweeted, I used the fiddly little feedback form on the website, but you don't seem to have any medium to convey a serious complaint at all. Sometimes a standard 'Have a free delivery code' ping-back response is simply not enough. Sometimes, things go wrong and how you deal with them reflects how you operate as a company and how much you care about your customers. So, after pleading with you to give me an email address to communicate with you, in order to keep this a private matter, here is the email you refused to accept. Incidently, I don't think it shows a company in a very good light, when they don't have an email address. Makes me wonder what it is they're afraid of.

Hair Today... Supporting The Little Princess Trust

Did you know I'm a little bit scared of hairdressers? I know it sounds silly, but I have really unruly hair and after a couple of bad haircuts, I just let it grow, so there would be no surprises.This went on for several years, enjoying the savings I made on scarves and earmuffs as it got longer and longer, until... it all went a bit wrong. I started *gulp* AGING!! Gigantic white hairs started snaking their way through my very, very dark layers, like neon springs of impending doom. I knew the time was near.  Another thing I was sure of was that I was NOT investing in enough hair dye to colour that great mop, so, it was time for the chop!!

A Day as a Penguin Keeper at Birdland Park and Gardens

I am proud to introduce my daughter Jade, with her first guest post for you. She is here to tell you all about a lovely place to visit with children. Birdland Park and Gardens in Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire is a lovely, family friendly environment with lots to offer, including an assortment of over 130 bird species. The prices are very reasonable, and there are extra activities that can be prebooked at fantastic prices. Click on the link to visit their website for more information, or join them on Facebook here. For Jade, the best part of our visit to Birdland, for a life-long penguin fan, was the keeper experience, which included feeding the penguins, amongst many other duties. Here is an account of the day, in her own words. 

British Barbecue Blethers with MoneySupermarket.com!

Like most families, we tend to hit the ground running when the sun comes out and head for the burger aisle! We love barbecues, especially the boys, so when I heard about The Charcoal Challenge from MoneySupermarket.com I knew I'd be getting involved! £50 is a lot of money, so we thought we'd better make a bit of an effort! So... Out came the napkins and flowers! Just because you're eating at home, there's no harm in creating a bit of atmosphere. The thing with barbecues, though, is they can get a bit samey, so we've got a few side dishes to add a bit of variety.

Kids Grow Wild at The Parent Game

 Fun in the Garden, Parent Game Style! 

Here at The Parent Game, we believe in a fun, relaxed approach to life. So, when a lovely Gardening Kit arrived from Money Supermarket, we knew just the friends to invite along for a bit of fun in the sun! The kit included everything you could possibly need to brighten up your borders, as shown by my lovely volunteers!

Thrifty is the Word!

This is a competition post, in association with fromspendingtosaving and whichoffshore and it is on a subject we are very, very fond of at The Parent Game, saving money! Fromspendingtosaving is a brilliant new blog, by the writer of Northern Mum, charting one family's all-too-familiar road to solvency, surviving on one income. It's a story most of us know all too well and we all do what we can to make the best of it. It's all about imagination I think, when it comes to a thrifty life with children. We've all heard the older generation telling us how they managed to entertain the children with next to nothing but their imaginations and the great outdoors, but things were different then.

For the Love of Matilda Mae

On February 2nd this year a tiny light went out in the world. A light that burned with the love of devoted parents, who worshipped her. The little light was Matilda Mae and at just nine months old she passed away suddenly and unexpectedly in her sleep. A victim of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.