Day Zero Project - Bake 5 different types of bread

We have a breadmaker and I've used it to bake bread before, but I only ever stuck with the basic loaf. For a joint birthday and Christmas present last year I received a Kenwood Chef which came with a dough hook and recipe book, and it inspired me to have a go at making some different types of bread. Most of the recipes come from the book which you can find online here - Kenwood Chef recipes.

I thought challenging myself to make five different types of bread would be a good start, and I had a lot of fun. I also had Harry (and Mia to a certain extent!) helping me to make them, and I think that it was really important to see how bread is made. Here's what I produced:

1 - White bread rolls

I started simply and was very pleased with these rolls. They were quick and easy to make, and even the children ate them! I've since made them lots of times, they are good if we are expecting visitors for lunch.

2 - Mediterranean Fruit Loaf

This looked so impressive! Perhaps a little less time in the oven would have been better, always a problem when trying to supervise two young children at the same time as an oven, but it tasted delicious!

3 - Hot cross buns

 A bit of a last minute decision to make these on Good Friday, so I looked for an easy recipe and found this one from BBC Food - Hot Cross Buns, making the dough in the Kenwood. It was a simple recipe but with lots of stages of leaving the dough to rise. I was really pleased with them, they looked good and tasted nice too, and so I am hoping to make homemade hot cross buns a yearly tradition for Easter.

4 - Zopf Bread

A plaited loaf, I made this as part of the Great Bloggers Bake Off. It was pretty easy to do and again looked impressive as well as being very tasty.

5 - Chelsea Buns

Another bake inspired by the Great Bloggers Bake Off. I don't remember ever having eaten a Chelsea Bun before, let alone made one, but with the help of a video found online I was very pleased with the results.

I'm getting on very well with my Day Zero Project list - it's now 42% complete! (Although admittedly I have now ticked off most of the easier ones). I've definitely been inspired to try out some new things, and ticking off the finished challenges is really satisfying.

Ladybird Tuesday - The Farm

This week on Ladybird Tuesday I'm looking at a book from Series 563 - Learning to Read. I recently looked at another book in the series - Going to School - and now it is the turn of The Farm. The Farm was published in 1958, although this copy has a handwritten date on the inside of 1974.

The book might date from some years ago, but I would think that a farm today is probably pretty similar. The book visits each animal in turn, first looking at a home and then at the animal that lives there. The typical farm animals are represented - cows, horses, pigs, ducks. The final pages introduce us to the farmer and all his animals together.

This type of learning to read book is very different to the ones that my son is currently bringing home from school, which at the moment are very much based around the words that can be spelled out phonetically. I think, although I'm not entirely sure, that the Ladybird system concentrates more on frequently used words words rather than those which are easiest to sound out. There is plenty of repetition to help young children become familiar with the words.

If you love Ladybird books, do pop over and visit Ladybird Tuesday, where Being Mrs C is assembling a really comprehensive catalogue of Ladybird books and reviews.

Below you can find links to all my Ladybird Tuesday book posts.

Snow White and Rose Red
Hansel and Gretel
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
The Three Little Pigs
The Old Woman and her Pig
Little Red Riding Hood
The Ugly Duckling
The Railway Children
A Little Princess
A First book of Aesop's Fables

A Ladybird Book about Knitting
More Things to Make - For Special Occasions
Easy to Make Puppets
Learning to Sew
Stamp Collecting
Tricks and Magic

Prehistoric Animals and Fossils
Dinosaurs
Stone Age Man in Britain
Great Civilisations - Crete
Charles Dickens
Nelson
Lives of the Great Composers Book 1
Lives of the Great Composers Book 2
The Story of Music

Plants and How They Grow
The Ladybird Book of the Night Sky
Sea and Air Mammals
The Farm

The Story of Nuclear Power
The Motor Car
How it Works - The Computer
How it Works - The Rocket
The Story of Ships
The Postman and the Postal Service
People at Work - The Nurse

Understanding Numbers
Talkabout Clothes
Going to School
Teaching Reading

Stories of Special Days and Customs
Christmas Customs

Girls and Boys - A Ladybird Book of Childhood

Board games review - Who Shook Hook, Dazzling Princess game and Dobble

We are big Disney fans in this house, so I was very excited to have the opportunity to try out a couple of new Disney licensed board games which are aimed at young children. We were sent a copy of Who Shook Hook? - a game for young children based around Jake and the Neverland Pirates, and the Dazzling Princess Game - a game themed around the Disney Princesses. We were also sent a copy of Dobble, which is a card game aimed at slightly older children and adults.

Who Shook Hook?

Who Shook Hook? is a game of skill. Aimed at children aged four and older, players travel around a simple board and depending on where you land you must use different tools to remove treasure from a hammock, without waking Captain Hook who is sleeping there.

The rules are very easy for young children to follow. The number of spaces that you can move is determined by a spinner, and it is clear where you land what you need to do. Captain Hook is very stable in his hammock so I think that it would be difficult to knock him out completely, but it can be quite tricky to remove some of the pieces of treasure. Fortunately my son loved playing the game and wasn't bothered when he dropped his treasure, although it might frustrate some younger children if they aren't able to manage it.

We really enjoyed playing this game, my son caught on to the rules immediately and it's a great game to play with just two players or up to four. It also doesn't take too long to play so is excellent for short attention spans. My daughter, 2, was too young to actually play the game, but even she enjoyed playing with the character pieces and the bits of treasure.

I've made a little video review showing the set up of the game and the game play in action, which you can see below:

Dazzling Princess Game

In the Dazzling Princess Game, each player is given an empty tiara, bracelet and ring. Players take it in turns to choose a small card from a box, which has a picture related to one of the Disney Princesses. There is a picture guide to the Princesses to help you if you need it. Once the player has guessed which Princess is represented by the image, they can use a Big Heart Jewel to reveal the answer. If they were correct then they win gems which can be stuck into their items of jewellery. The first player to fill all the jewel spaces on their jewellery is the winner.

There are also some Secret Princess cards. If you pull one of these then you need to find out who the secret Princess is, then pretend to be this Princess so that the others can guess who you are. If another player is able to guess then you both win gems.

This game does require a certain amount of knowledge about the Disney Princesses, which is great for the little ones as they have an excellent chance against the adults that might not have the same amount of detailed knowledge! Although it is perhaps aimed at girls, my son is pretty familiar with his Disney Princesses, and he very much enjoyed playing the game. He was particularly fascinated with the magic jewel that reveals the answers, and sat for ages going through the cards to see what was written on the back.

Dobble

We were also sent a copy of the card game Dobble (affiliate link). Dobble is aimed at slightly older players - the box suggests age six and over - although it would also be enjoyed by adults. Dobble consists of a set of 55 cards which can be used to play five different games. On each card there are eight symbols, taken from a bank of over 50 symbols. But whichever two cards you select, there will always be one, and only one, symbol which is the same on both. This has been fascinating me, I'm not a statistician and I can't work out how it's done!

The most simple game involves drawing two cards, and being the first player to call out the matching symbols. All the mini games are based around this premise, with the winner being the one that is first to match the symbols.

We've tried out a couple of the mini-games and they have been great fun. I've been playing it with Harry, and you can really see the cogs in his little head going around as he tries to find the matching symbols. Sometimes you think you've beaten the system and there is no match - but of course there always is!

Because it's such a compact game, and it is all contained neatly in a nice little tin, this would be a really good game to take away on holiday with you, it's small and yet there is plenty there to keep you entertained for ages.

We received copies of these games to review, Amazon links are affiliate links.

Rainbow crafting with the Magic Belles

Have you discovered the Magic Belles yet? They are six magical little fairies, each looking after one of life's special wonders. On their website you can play music with them, read stories, play games and download colouring pictures. I first met the friendly Magic Belles on Twitter, and Harry was so excited to visit their Fairy Postbox at Lollibop. Since then, Mia has joined their lovely free Flutterbud Fan Club, and every month she has been receiving a gorgeous little pack of goodies, including pictures to colour, stickers and badges. It's not just for Mia though, they both love playing on the free Magic Belles iPad app, which is very sweet.

I was really pleased when we were invited to take part in a challenge from Rainbow Belle. Harry and Mia were sent a big pack of crafty bits that they could use to decorate some lovely wooden bunting and rainbows. Harry and Mia were so excited when they saw the parcel, it was stuffed full of all sorts of brightly coloured crafty things and they couldn't wait to get started.

They were given some wooden bunting to colour and decorate, and some pretty rainbow ribbon to string it up with. I allocated five pieces of bunting each. Harry was happy to get on with it by himself, and I was happy to help Mia out!

I made them a string of bunting each and we used them to decorate their noticeboards, where I stick up all the best pieces of art that they have created. It looks lovely! Their wooden rainbows were also beautifully decorated and will be proudly displayed in their rooms. Thanks so much to Rainbow Belle!

We were sent a lovely pack of crafting materials by the Magic Belles. If you have little ones, you should definitely pay them a visit!

A first attempt at Pretzels

I can't believe that it's the last week of the Great British Bake Off! I've so enjoyed baking along each week. When I first linked up my cake it was because I happened to have baked something which fitted the theme that week - I really didn't imagine that I would end up taking part each week from then on!

This week it was the final, and the last three challenges - a savoury picnic pie, pretzels and a wedding cake. I decided to go for pretzels as I've never made them before and they sounded more appealing than a picnic pie. I'm afraid that neither my budget nor my stomach is large enough for me to attempt a wedding cake without an actual wedding in mind!

Google found me a recipe for Hot Soft Pretzels which looked delicious. The recipe was simple, without too many ingredients, and they could be made in my Kenwood Chef.  The dough was a little sticky so I added some extra flour, fortunately that seemed to do the trick.

The most difficult part of the bake was shaping the pretzels, and after all that effort they expanded so much in the baking that it all sort of merged together anyway! I think that perhaps I should have rolled the dough out into a longer, thinner sausage, I didn't expect it to increase quite so much in size.

I'm so grateful to The Crazy Kitchen and Mummy Mishaps for hosting each week. I've really enjoyed taking part.

Ladybird Tuesday - Plants and How They Grow

This week I'm looking at a Ladybird book which I found in a huge stash at a local charity shop the other week. There were so many and I couldn't possibly buy them all, so I picked out ones that I knew would interest me and the children. My son is always asking questions about plants, so I thought that he might like this one - Plants and how they grow. This book is a Ladybird Natural History Book and is found in series 651.

Like all Ladybird books, this book goes into a lot of depth about quite complicated scientific subjects. After a brief introduction into "What is a plant"? there are some little experiments to help you begin to identify different types of plants and learn about them. For example, digging up a plant with roots intact and examining them, then placing it into some water with a marked level and checking back the next day to see that water has been absorbed.

The book takes a close look at all the different parts of a plant - roots, stems, bud, leaves and so on, with plenty of detailed illustrations. There is also information on how plants grow from seeds, and reproduce.

We learn all about plants which grow in different environments, and the different ways that plants have adapted in order to survive. This book is full of some fascinating information and facts, and all presented in an easy to understand way.


If you love Ladybird books, do pop over and visit Ladybird Tuesday, where Being Mrs C is assembling a really comprehensive catalogue of Ladybird books and reviews.

Below you can find links to all my Ladybird Tuesday book posts.

Snow White and Rose Red
Hansel and Gretel
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
The Three Little Pigs
The Old Woman and her Pig
Little Red Riding Hood
The Ugly Duckling
The Railway Children
A Little Princess
A First book of Aesop's Fables

A Ladybird Book about Knitting
More Things to Make - For Special Occasions
Easy to Make Puppets
Learning to Sew
Stamp Collecting
Tricks and Magic

Prehistoric Animals and Fossils
Dinosaurs
Stone Age Man in Britain
Great Civilisations - Crete
Charles Dickens
Nelson
Lives of the Great Composers Book 1
Lives of the Great Composers Book 2
The Story of Music

Plants and How They Grow
The Ladybird Book of the Night Sky
Sea and Air Mammals
The Farm

The Story of Nuclear Power
The Motor Car
How it Works - The Computer
How it Works - The Rocket
The Story of Ships
The Postman and the Postal Service
People at Work - The Nurse

Understanding Numbers
Talkabout Clothes
Going to School
Teaching Reading

Stories of Special Days and Customs
Christmas Customs

Girls and Boys - A Ladybird Book of Childhood

Starting school, six weeks in

It's been six weeks since Harry started school and it's gone quickly. He has settled in really well, he's happy to go in every morning, and he doesn't seem to have any anxieties or concerns. I struggled at first - I must admit that I spent a couple of mornings early on sobbing after I'd dropped him at school and Mia was at nursery - but we're into a routine now and things have settled down.

To mark the six week milestone, the school organised a breakfast for parents. Over fruit and croissants we were introduced to some of the adults that help to care for our child and given an overview of the things that they will be learning and they way that they are taught. The breakfast finished with a slideshow of photographs of the children taken during the first few weeks at school.

I felt quite emotional watching the video. There were a couple of lovely photographs of Harry, but what I most enjoyed was seeing all the different things that they do during the day. There was dressing up, baking and playing, as well as more structured learning activities like counting, patterning and writing. I'm not sure why I felt so emotional, perhaps because I was watching him have all this fun, and I wasn't there to see it. I was also imagining a scenario, perhaps in a few years time when he leaves the school, where they play this video back to us to remind us of how little they once were.

Then yesterday we had our first Parents' Evening. We didn't have any concerns, but it was nice to have it confirmed by his teacher that Harry is settling well into school. It was funny to hear that he plays with the boys - most of the friends that he mentions to us are girls! It was also really nice to have a look at some of the work that he's been doing. He has done some lovely drawing, painting and even sewing, as well as writing out some actual words, all much better than I've seen him do at home. I feel as though I've been underestimating him!

There's a week to go until half-term and he is definitely very tired, he's finding it very hard to scoot home at the end of the day (to be fair it is quite a way for him). We have lots planned for the half-term holiday though so I'm afraid that he's not going to get much of a rest!

Three different types of canape

I can't believe that The Great British Bake Off has nearly come to an end! I've had such a lot of fun challenging myself to make something new each week, and it has all gone so quickly!

This week for the signature challenge the bakers had to make three different types of savoury canapé, using choux pastry, another type of pastry and a third which could be anything of their choice. I'm afraid that I've bent the rules a little this week, and my third canapé is actually a sweet canapé, as sweet things tend to go down better in this house! I could perhaps have completed them all in the allocated two and a half hours, but chances of finding all that time to myself are very slim, so they were all made individually.

I started with choux pastry canapés. I've never made choux pastry before, and I chickened out a couple of weeks ago when it came up on the programme, so this week I knew I had to give it a go. I used this recipe - Choux Buns Recipe - savoury canapés with a cream cheese filling. To my complete surprise they actually worked well, looked pretty much as they were supposed to, and were very tasty!

The second savoury canapé recipe was from a recipe shared by my sister on her blog - Cheese Straws. I'm hoping that these count as shortcrust pasty canapés. They are pretty easy to make, very tasty, and the recipe makes plenty. They are also a good recipe to make with children, as they can cut them out into all different shapes.

Finally, for my sweet canapés I made Mini Chocolate and Ginger Brownies, using a recipe from BBC Good Food - Mini Chocolate and Ginger Brownies. I've never used crystallised ginger in baking before, in fact I had to ask a lady to help me find it on the shelf in the supermarket. The chocolate brownie bites were pretty easy to make, although they took a lot longer to cook than the recipe suggested, I often find that with brownie mixtures for some reason. The resulting brownie had a nice firm texture which was easy to cut up into the little squares, although they did turn out to be a little taller than the picture suggested, more like mini brownie towers.

And here's a picture of them all together, just to prove that I did at least bake them not too far apart!

I'm linking this post up to the Great Bloggers Bake Off, which is hosted each week by The Crazy Kitchen and Mummy Mishaps.

How to make a simple Piñata Birthday Cake

Since I discovered Pinterest, I've really stepped up my Birthday cake making game. It was the Smartie and Kit Kat cake that started it about a year ago, and I've also attempted a Rainbow Cake and a Pink Ombre cake. None of these cakes were nearly as difficult as they looked, and they all looked very impressive. So for a recent family Birthday I decided that I would have a go at a Piñata Cake. A Piñata Cake is a cake which is filled with sweets that tumble out as you cut into it. There are some very impressive ones on Pinterest, but I came up with a simple way of making one that worked really well.

You need a regular Victoria Sandwich sponge cake recipe. You need to double the quantities to make four layers. My simple (doubled) recipe is 12 oz margarine, 12 oz caster sugar, 6 eggs and 12 oz self-raising flour.

Remove the four cakes from the sandwich tins and allow to cool. Then cut a circular hole in two of them. Place a whole layer at the bottom, then the two layers with missing centres, using some butter icing to stick the layers together. Fill the hole in the centre with small sweets - I used Smarties and gummy bears. You do need quite a lot to fill the hole - I used two bags of Smarties and one of gummy bears with a few left over for decoration. You could also use chocolate sweets like Maltesers and Minstrels, or perhaps Skittles. Then place the final layer on top and ice over the top and sides. The sweets packed inside will mean that the cake holds its shape.

It's best not to make this cake too far in advance as the sweets may lose their colour after a couple of days inside the cake. Also, once you have cut into it and the sweets fall out it will begin to sag in the middle, so it needs eating up quickly, which is not a problem in this house!

This is a cake which is easy to make and will really impress both children and adults!

Ladybird Tuesday - Understanding Numbers

Ladybird Understanding Numbers is a title in Series 661 - Words for Numbers. There are four titles in this series and this is Book 1, first published in 1966. You can also read about two other books in the series - More Words for Numbers and Everyday Words for Numbers, with the remaining book being Words we Need for Numbers. Ladybird obviously had a lot to say about numbers!

The group of four books is intended to present a planned approach to the words used most frequently in situations involving numbers. This first book begins by devoting a page to each number, with some examples of its use along with some simple sums using the number. Each page also has a corresponding illustration with plenty of things to count in them.

Stopping at twelve, the book then moves onto words which are used when talking about numbers. They are all opposites, for example big and little, long and short. There are also some simple puzzles.

Aimed at children that are beginning to read for themselves, there is plenty of repetition in the text, and the final page has a list of the vocabulary which has been covered in the book.

This is another book which is great to share with young children, and I'm definitely going to be looking through it with my son who has just started school.

If you love Ladybird books, do pop over and visit Ladybird Tuesday, where Being Mrs C is assembling a really comprehensive catalogue of Ladybird books and reviews.

Below you can find links to all my Ladybird Tuesday book posts.

Snow White and Rose Red
Hansel and Gretel
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
The Three Little Pigs
The Old Woman and her Pig
Little Red Riding Hood
The Ugly Duckling
The Railway Children
A Little Princess
A First book of Aesop's Fables

A Ladybird Book about Knitting
More Things to Make - For Special Occasions
Easy to Make Puppets
Learning to Sew
Stamp Collecting
Tricks and Magic

Prehistoric Animals and Fossils
Dinosaurs
Stone Age Man in Britain
Great Civilisations - Crete
Charles Dickens
Nelson
Lives of the Great Composers Book 1
Lives of the Great Composers Book 2
The Story of Music

Plants and How They Grow
The Ladybird Book of the Night Sky
Sea and Air Mammals
The Farm

The Story of Nuclear Power
The Motor Car
How it Works - The Computer
How it Works - The Rocket
The Story of Ships
The Postman and the Postal Service
People at Work - The Nurse

Understanding Numbers
Talkabout Clothes
Going to School
Teaching Reading

Stories of Special Days and Customs
Christmas Customs

Girls and Boys - A Ladybird Book of Childhood

A Halloween sensory tub

I really love making up sensory tubs for the little ones to play with. Yes, they can be messy even though I lay out an old table cloth underneath, but to be honest the living room usually needs a hoover anyway so it's not that much extra work to clear up afterwards! I wrote a post all about sensory tubs on my other blog which you can read here - All about Sensory Tubs for Toddlers - with loads of ideas for different themed sensory play.

For Halloween I decided to make the children a Halloween themed sensory tub, mainly using bits and pieces that I already had around the house.

This Halloween sensory tub has the same base material that I use for all my tubs - coloured rice. It's really easy to colour rice, you just need a big bag of plain white rice (I use the supermarket value brand) and some food colouring. In a big bowl, mix up the rice with the food colouring. If you add a squirt of anti-bacterial hand gel it will dry quicker, otherwise you can just spread it out on a tray and leave it to dry for a few hours or overnight.

I also used a big handful of pumpkin seeds which I saved from our pumpkin last year. I just scooped them out, cleaned them up, and left them out to dry. They have lasted fine from last year, I just need to watch that they don't end up in any little mouths!

I added some suitable coloured pom poms, and a selection of Halloween themed plastic toys, including glow in the dark bats that I picked up in the post-Halloween sales last year. I also found some Halloween foam cut outs and sequins which were left over from Halloween craft kits.

When I gave the tub to the children to play with I also laid out a selection of spoons, little pots and bowls. I love seeing what they do with the materials. Mia tends to spoon the rice about for a bit before getting bored and throwing the rice about. Harry will play for ages. He made Halloween soup in the bowls, and then moved on to small world play with the plastic pieces, in particular the witch keyring and the bats.

Another sensory idea for little ones at Halloween is a Halloween ice block excavation activity. I've also written about a couple of crafts which are brilliant for toddlers at Halloween - some really simple Halloween window decorations and a make a monster kit busy bag activity. If you are planning a Halloween party for young children you might like my post with ideas for a Halloween party for little ones.

Here are some of the other sensory tubs that I've made:

Fireworks sensory tub
Beach/underwater sensory tub
Dinosaur Island
Spring Sensory tub

Halloween Hama Bead House

This post contains Amazon Affiliate links

You can find all my Hama bead Halloween crafts here - Hama bead crafts for Halloween

There isn't long to go now until Halloween, and so I've been coming up with some craft ideas for the children. Last year I decorated the house the night before while Harry was asleep, and he was so excited to come down in the morning and find spooky decorations everywhere. The trouble is that now he is going to expect that from me every year, he's already been checking that it's on the cards this year!

As regular readers will know, I love my Hama beads and I especially love my Hama bead house template. You can see some Hama bead houses that I've made previously here - Hama bead house designs. With Halloween coming up I thought I'd make a Halloween house for our collection. I used the brilliant Hama bead house pegboard (306). It's a large board, so it does use up quite a lot of beads, and you have to be careful when you iron it as it's easy to miss some areas. I only ironed it on one side for the photographs, but I've since gone back and ironed the other side too, as it makes it so much more robust when little ones are playing with it.

The Halloween house is mainly made using grey Hama beads. We normally buy our Hama beads in the large buckets, but I had to buy the grey ones separately as they aren't in the multipacks. I gave the house a purple roof and black windows. I also added a few glow in the dark Hama beads as accents which are really good and work really well. I'm rather pleased with the pumpkin in the corner!

If you are crafting with Hama beads this Halloween you might like some of my other ideas - like Halloween Hama bead napkin rings and these Hama bead witches that we used to make a Halloween witch display as well as these Halloween Hama bead coasters.

You can also find lots more Hama bead Halloween ideas in my round up post - Hama bead crafts for Halloween

Have you made any Halloween themed Hama bead creations? I'd love to see them! 

Amazon links are affiliate.

Fimo Owl

I remember making things with Fimo when I was little and really enjoying it, so when I was given a starter pack I started building up a board on Pinterest for inspiration - Fimo craft inspiration board. I wanted to start small, and I wanted something easy to make, so I chose to make a little fimo owl keyring. You can find the original in an album on Flickr by user lecielrouge.

He measures about 5cm across. I decided not to turn him into a keyring in the end, but he seems sturdy enough that he'd be a durable keyring. I'm really pleased with him! It was a bit fiddly, but I really enjoyed doing it and it was very satisfying.

I've got plenty of Fimo left so I'm going to be keeping an eye out for some more ideas. I really like the idea of making a Fimo Nativity Scene, but I think that I might need quite a lot more Fimo for that! The children also love creating little bits and pieces, they've made their favourite Pokemon and we also made some Fimo accessories for their Sylvanian Families.

Hunting for bugs in the garden with Barny

I first encountered the new Barny snacks at Lollibop. We had a lot of fun in the Barny tent hunting for digital bugs on their interactive wall. Thanks to BritMums and Barny, last week we received a Barny Discovery Kit so that we could go on an adventure of our own and find some real bugs.

I'm a bit squeamish when it comes to picking up bugs, but fortunately my Dad was visiting for a few days and he was very happy to take Harry on an adventure out in the garden looking for insects. In the kit we had a small plastic pot and a larger mesh container for observing insects and bugs. The easiest ones to find were woodlice, plenty of those under my poor, neglected pots!

Our swing has become a home for spiders, and my Dad showed Harry how if you look carefully at a spider's web you can usually find the spider in there somewhere. Harry also enjoyed having a good look at the web itself.

They had a lot of fun on their little adventure in the garden, and I know that I'm going to have to go out bug hunting myself before long!

I received a Barny Discovery Kit and some Barny snacks to take part in this challenge. 

Lemon Courgette Cake

This week on the Great British Bake Off, the showstopper challenge was dairy free, novelty vegetable cakes. I was a bit unsure how to go about making a dairy free cake until I realised that my regular carrot cake recipe is actually dairy free, so I decided to mix it up a bit and try a new vegetable - a courgette. There were some wonderful novelty cakes on the programme this week but I'm afraid I stuck to a simple loaf cake, there are only so many hours in my day!

I used a recipe which you can find here - Lemon Courgette Cake. I kept pretty much to the recipe, although the comments suggested that it could use a little more lemon so I put in half of the juice from the lemon which I grated for the zest. It also took a little longer to cook than the recipe suggested. On the whole it was an easy recipe to follow.

It was delicious, lovely and moist. It was more the taste of the cinnamon that came out rather than the lemon, so perhaps adding the other half of the lemon juice might have increased the lemon taste a bit.

I'm linking up to the Great Bloggers Bake Off, hosted by The Crazy Kitchen and Mummy Mishaps and looking forward to seeing what everyone has been baking this week!

A day out in London thanks to Matalan

I was really excited to be invited to the Matalan Movie Club event on Saturday in London. It sounded perfect - a private cinema viewing of Finding Nemo for the children, followed by a chance to meet some other bloggers and an opportunity to view the new Matalan Autumn/Winter collection over drinks and canapés.

This was definitely a trip which was just for me and Harry. London is a bit of a trek for us on the train, so I knew that I wanted to make a full day of it. We set off bright and early, and headed straight to the Bulgari Hotel in Knightsbridge. The Bulgari Hotel has its own cinema, and we congregated in the foyer before heading inside to watch the film, greeted with a platter of delicious cookies and popcorn. I'm really bad at recognising the people that I talk to on-line, but fortunately a couple of lovely bloggers recognised me, and we were able to have a chat before the film started!

We've watched Finding Nemo a number of times before, although I'm not sure that I've actually ever sat down and watched it all in one go! It's a great film, and was really enjoyable in such comfortable surroundings. Harry was as good as gold and was completely absorbed.

During the film it was funny to see that while the children were watching the film, the bloggers were busy tweeting away! After the film we had a chance to browse through some new pieces from the Matalan range. In my goody bag I received a check shawl from The Statements range of key staples which is keeping me warm while I write this post, and I was most impressed to look it up and find that it's only £10, a bargain!

After the event I took Harry just around the corner for his first visit to Harrods. We found the toy department and he was happily entertained here for quite a while, exclaiming loudly over all the large Playmobil and Lego sets on display and trying out some magic snow.

Then we walked down the road to the Science Museum, where he's spent many happy hours in the past. Unfortunately his favourite area, the Garden in the basement, was closed for refurbishment, but he absolutely loves the 'Big Machine' in Launchpad where children can spent ages pouring white plastic chips in and out of tubes and lifting them up with pulleys. We must have spent an hour there before heading next door to the Natural History Museum to see our favourite areas - the dinosaurs, the blue whale and the escalator up through the centre of the Earth.

It was nearly closing time, but I just couldn't drag Harry away, he kept seeing new things which caught his eye and asking me what they were, and what each display was telling us. Eventually he began to flag, but he managed to recover enough energy for some pizza and ice cream, before a quick march back to Victoria Station and the long train journey home.

We had such a great day, and I'm so grateful to Matalan for the invite and giving me the opportunity to spend some fantastic quality time with Harry.

We visited London for the #matalanmovieclub event and we received a goody bag.