Reviews

Hotel Chocolat competition and review

November 22, 2012 by Merry

Last week we were very excited by the arrival of a review product from Hotel Chocolat. We don’t often get food goodies and this was very, very big news in the house.

We had to have an unboxing 😉

We were sent a Rather Large Cracker which had a variety of entertaining things in it; excellent quality hats for one…

And some really terrible jokes too.

Most of all though, it had little packets of extremely lovely chocolates. I hadn’t had their chops before; the girls blagged samples while in Cambridge the week before but it was new to me. Ooooh so yummy. Mulled wine chocs! Eton Mess chocs! Heaven! Champagne chocs! Delicious! And there was a penguin shaped one… We gave it to Josie. Of course.

Errr… Yes, I liked them very much. I let the children have some too. And then sent them to bed. Ahem.

This cracker is, of course, designed to be a party piece. It really does go bang (we did comedy cracker pulling) and it was the source of much merriment. It would look amazing on a big table for a family christmas and the chocolate is good enough to bring ooooh and aaaaahs. If you do big parties, I definitely recommend it 🙂

If you would like to win one, Hotel Chocolat have offered a second cracker to one of my readers. Leave a comment on this post and I will pick one winner randomly on the 28th November. You can leave a fresh comment for every social media share you do via Twitter, Facebook or Pinterest. Comp will close at midnight on the 27th Novemember. Hotel Chocolat are responsible for providing the prize. UK entries only.

We had a lot of family fun with this. Thank you to Hotel Chocolat for the free sample and for providing a competition prize. All views are my own. I did not miscounted any chocolates and give my children less than they deserved. Definitely.

DVD Review: Monster High, Ghouls Rule.

November 9, 2012 by Merry 1 Comment

We were recently sent Monster High on DVD to review. I thought the girls might quite like something halloween ish that I probably wouldn't approve of for a change. It quite amuses them to be able to torture me with films and programmes that makes me go aaaarrrrgh…. But that's another story.

Monster High (I'm told, I was too busy screaming in the corner and buying up vast quantities of costume making netting on eBay) is the story of two sections of a community in a fictional town in America, the Normies and the Monsters. I gather from Maddy that they live quite separate lives with their own schools etc but on Halloween, the Normies are particularly mean to the Monsters.

Interesting premise.

My ears were waggling in the background and I have to say I didn't actually pick up on anything about this story line that had me screaming in despair. It's the kind of thing that could easily be horribly moralistic but it seems to have provoked quite a bit of conversation in the house, with a surprising amount of extrapolating from the younger ones about what it was really illustrating. The themes of bullying, face value judgements and segregation were obvious but they didn't outweigh the storyline. It got watched a few times and while its not a style of animation I'm especially drawn to (drawn.. See what I did there?) I found myself drawn in a few times.

Eventually friendship and do-the-right-thing-manship overwhelms the town divide and they mix and collaborate. Apparently two of them snog from opposite sides of the species fence. I'd left the room by that point. Probably a good thing. Maddy hates it if I see her watching anything with teenager/romantic themes. I think she thinks I was never a teenager.

In conclusion, a fun, older kid halloween cartoon that would be okay the rest of the year too.

Bad Stuff: (according to Maddy) there is kissing and they all have boyfriends.

Good things: (according to Amelie) it came with free nail varnish attached!

Disclaimer: we were sent this free for the purposes of review. All opinions are our own. As you can probably tell. No mothers were harmed in the writing of this review. Nail varnish has been put away till they are 18. My daughters will never snog monsters. Or anyone. Ever.

Review: Just Juicey!

October 30, 2012 by Merry 1 Comment

We were recently given the opportunity to review a Citrus Juicer from Littlewoods; I said yes, with smoothie maker in my head and not quite sure (because I was reading in a poorly baby sleepless daze), what I had actually said yes to! However, once it arrived, Maddy eyed it up with delight, because although she loves making home made lemonade , the juicing bit is not her favourite thing!

So I sent them off with a bag of lemons, a bag of oranges, an iphone and told them to do their worst. And because we are addicted to iMovie, you get another silly video.

We probably do need to get out more 😉

In all seriousness, the girls loved this gadget. It is electric, therefore no effort after you sliced the fruit in half and operates by ‘juicing’ once you press the fruit down on to the top cone which presses the pole in the centre and makes it move. Instant juice with no fuss and much comic entertainment. I’m not entirely sure how it occupied them as long as it did, but I’m not complaining. It certainly made for very low wastage, as you can see from the empty skins, no pips (collected at the top) and a lovely juice with plenty of the ‘bits’ in 🙂

A definite kitchen gadget for the family who has everything (everything except, in our case, a decent kitchen!)

Review: Ocado Allergy Free From Food Range

September 18, 2012 by Merry 1 Comment

A few weeks ago we were kindly sent our (best ever!) food hamper from Ocado as an introduction to their “Free From” allergy friendly range of foods. As a family with milk intolerances and a nut allergy in the house, I’m always curious about new ranges of foods. Milk intolerance we mostly handle with a general ‘not too much’ approach now, but Amelie has quite a severe reaction to cashews and pistachios (and therefore by default also mangos) and we are now also beginning to wonder if gluten causes her some issues too. So new foods we can be very sure about are always welcome.

The Ocado hamper causes much excitement on arrival (it also came with a gorgeous jug, two glasses and a bottle of Ginger Wine which, ahem, didn’t make it to the photo) plus a Sistema lunch box which I love.

Here is what we thought of the foods…

The chewy sweets were a huge hit, really nice and juicy and over far too soon! I loved the cassava crisps and will definitely be getting something similar again. I’m not a big fan of crisps as a rule, especially the ‘keep eating them till your sick’ feeling they give you and I loved the delicate flavour and feel of the cassava. The chocolate buttons didn’t do it for any of us, perhaps because sometimes if you can’t have something, it is almost better to just give up and not try to have a replacement. I’m not sure how successful milk free milk chocolate can ever be.

On the other hand the gluten free Dino biscuits and pasta was a hit and so was the pasta sauce. All tasted good and had a nice feel to eating them. I’ve not tried the cheesebread mix yet, but I will update when I do.

For all of us the big hits were the two snack bars; the banana one was scrumptious and the nutty one great, though Amelie couldn’t have it as it has cashews and pistachios in it. It was in fact exactly that sort of bar which was how we discovered the original allergy, as my dad kindly brought her one (it was milk free!) and she projectile vomited on us within about 2 minutes of eating it. Finding it in the hamper was a good reminder to check labels even when you think of something as being allergy safe; it’s not that long since we accidentally gave Amelie a pasta sauce from a cheap range that had powdered cashew in it as a thickener.

From my point of view, being an addict of the stuff, I loved the Freenut Butter. It really tasted exactly like the peanut version, which might make it a good alternative for camps where there are children with peanut allergies. Personally, I loved it on toast with my new and very yummy jam 😉

All in all, I’d say I felt really positive about the range. It was well labeled and described, the tastes were good, the packaging attractive and it felt very much ‘normal’ food rather than food for people who ‘can’t’ have things. Well done Ocado 🙂

Disclosure: We were sent the goodie bag for free. All opinions are our own.

Review: Gold Stars Workbooks

September 5, 2012 by Merry 1 Comment

Back in the old days I used to orgo-plan a structure and a way of trying to home educate for the coming month. These days, I’m a bit more honest and laid back but have felt things to be fairly stale recently, so now life is back to normal and pretty stress free, I want a change. In fact, I’ve started, for the first time, thinking we will go for an almost entirely autonomous approach, encouraging projects, researching and wide reading rather than following any text book or anything similar.

And because I decided that, a set of Gold Stars workbooks landed on the mat for review and the 3 girls fell on them and have been devouring them whole for several days. Ain’t that always the way? 😉 😆

Firest up is Josie trying out the KS1 Maths book as a slide in/revision/do it without mummy exploit. It’s a good consolidating book, nicely illustrated and colourful with sums that are baisc enough for a child across KS1 to manage nicely. It was too easy for Josie (as it should be) but she quite likes ‘doing sums’ so she was perfectly happy doing it and liked how clear the pages were to understand.

She also had a go at the 7-9 maths; this is much more of a stretch for her, conventionally laid out with the expected topics each on a double page spread and some explanation of each one. It’s visual without being cluttered and colourful in a way that is helpful and adds clarity. It doesn’t have gold stars (unlike the KS1 book) which disappointed her given the title, but she got over it 😆

Maddy and Amelie have really liked the 7-9 and 9-11 Bumper books they received which cover Maths, English and Science. Although technically aimed at a lower age than both of them, elements of both have been stretching enough to keep them occupied (especially the English) and it’s been good to see them getting their teeth into it. The 9-11 one in particular would make an excellent SATS revision or perhaps a book for just making sure everything is covered if joining senior school after home ed or junior school. They are compact and well explained and have plenty to work away at; I’d say they are the best mainstream workbooks I have seen. The science has practical and theory to do and the english has a wide variety of grammar, comprehension and writing assignments. Both girls found them unthreatening and fun and have gone back to them plenty of times.

As a regular buyer of all sorts of workbooks through the years, these scored very highly on the scales for ones easily available. They wouldn’t be enough to be a home ed curriculum but they’d be a great way of seeing where a child was at when they came out of school or a good prepare for going into school. I’m quite happy you could use them for a child who needed a good brush up before term starts or an exam and they’d walk a nervous parent through topics too. There is plenty of substance to them and their compact size would probably make them a decent quiet time/distraction/puzzle book with meaning for a holiday or long car journey too. I also really liked the additional test booklet with them, which is a quick way of doing additional activities and seeing what has been understood. Nice touch.

Gold Star awarded 🙂

Disclosure: We were sent these 5 books free of charge for review and the Amazon link is an affiliate link of my own. Opinions are honest and my own and my girls have tried them out on several occasions and genuinely liked them.