There's No Business Like Snow Business

It was a treacherous drive to school and nursery this morning, but thanks to the new Winter tyres that Ian bought 'just in case' I managed not to slip and slide.  I really recommend having them if you are, like me, a rubbish driver!  Every other year I have done 180 degree spins and end up facing the wrong way and crying!  I felt so much more confident, and even though I didn't get into anything over second gear, I managed to deliver the kids to school in one piece and untraumatised by their mother's driving skills.

The snow did not abate at all and by the time I had to pick up Freddy three hours later, there was a good three inches on my car.  I opened the door dropping a tonne of the stuff from the roof onto my car seat and had to endure a cold bottomed drive to nursery.  Freddy's nursery is off the main road, down a tiny side road with a 90 degree turn into the drive which is surrounded by high walls.  Scary stuff as the road was now impacted with icy snow.  I inched round the corner without hitting anything (I thank my new tyres again) and managed to collect him safely albeit with a wet bum.

We drove back home and I Googled school closures as the snow was getting heavier and I was worried about Ella and her one hour bus journey, only to discover that Kizzy's school had closed 15 minutes earlier.  Another trip out in the Arctic conditions to rescue her.  She was panicking thinking I wouldn't know to get her as I don't listen to the radio so didn't hear the announcement.  She had asked the school to phone me and they said they wouldn't and if necessary she'd have to walk home!!!  I'm just glad I had checked online.  It was blizzardous by now and I wouldn't have wanted her to walk home in her little school shoes on her own.

By now Ian was on his way back from Birmingham and had already witnessed two accidents on the M6.  I always worry about his commute when the weather is bad and was relieved to know that he was on his way home.  We also heard that the bus company was suspending its service from Shrewsbury and so Ella had to leave college early to catch the last bus home or risk being stranded! With everyone heading back to the safety of home I was able to at last relax and do the one positive thing that everyone loves to do in the snow...PLAY!

Now Is Good Film Review

Now Is Good is a film based on the young adult book Before I Die by Jenny Downham.  Tessa Scott is a 17 year old girl (played by Dakatoa Fanning) who is dying from Leukaemia after refusing further treatment.  She has a bucket list of things she wants to experience before she dies.  Things that 'normal' teenagers do such as losing her virginity, breaking the law and taking drugs.  However, an unexpected romance turns out to be the biggest and most exhilarating experience of all.

I was expecting a bit of a sentimental weepy movie but was surprised at how gritty, sincere and moving it actually was.  There was a realism to the story and to the characters that transcended the storytelling above the schmaltzy sad film that I was anticipating.  It reminded me a bit of 'Skins' (especially as the girl who plays Effy in Skins plays Tessa's best friend in the film).  The simple filming style has the feeling of a quality TV drama and the UK seaside setting strips it back, bringing the focus onto the scripting and the acting which are both excellent.

Tessa's dysfunctional family and the situations that arise are very true to life.  The issues of raising a teenage daughter are explored, complicated by the fact that Tessa is dying. Her family copes with the fear and grief, each in their own way, while Tessa makes the most of the time she has left. When she meets Adam, the boy next door, Tessa's life changes and although she is dying she feels alive.  Dakota Fanning and Jeremy Irvine play the bittersweet love story so well.  They give assured, mature performances and the chemistry between them is authentic.

This heartfelt and inspired adaptation had us laughing and crying as we shared the final weeks of Tessa's life. The story was beautifully told and utterly heart-wrenching.  But rather than it being depressing, it celebrated life, reminding us to live every moment and love every minute. We all cried real tears and the film stayed with us long after the credits rolled.

Now Is Good (Certificate 12) is released on DVD on January 21st 2013 from all good stockists.

What's Hot, What's Not - January Edition

What's Hot

TV  The new year heralds the start of a lot of great new TV shows and the return of many favourites that disappeared over the festive period.  American Horror Story - Asylum is one of the best things I've seen on TV for a while.  I love the bravery of the producers to use the same cast from the first series, throwing them into different roles and settings.  Genius!  It's very scary with great special effects and incredibly creepy music.  Other favourites include Pram Face, Revenge, Glee, Dancing on Ice (don't judge me) and the imminent return of series 7 of Dexter!  I know I am a bit of a telly addict but I love sitting on my sofa with the kids being entertained.  I am so easily pleased :)

My Crock Pot Slow Cooker this has been a bit of an under used product in my kitchen until recently.  I don't know why it has taken me so long to appreciate the benefit of chucking in the ingredients in the morning and having a warming dinner ready to serve up in the evening.  I guess Freddy being at nursery has made this easier as prior to that I would have a demanding toddler trying to 'help' (or attempting to wield knives and throw vegetables).  Warming stews with dumplings are the perfect antidote to this cold weather.

JooMo It may only be a face wash but it has been quite life changing!  This is the first winter that my face hasn't flared up with an attack of red, inflamed and itchy dry skin.  I put that down to using JooMo which is made of all natural ingredients.  It's all I use now and it works.

Being A Grandma I get to have cuddles and feel all the love in the world, but I have none of the responsibility.  Holding newborn Ted I wondered how I ever coped with a baby.  It suddenly felt like an enormous task to have to look after an infant.  I knew at that moment that my own baby producing days are over.  Plus I know the joy of welcoming the next generation into our family and it's wonderful.

What's Not

This Weather It's cold...but not impressively so.  It is still wet and the waterlogged fields and high rivers are not subsiding giving rise to a lingering degree of worry and concern.  We are told it will snow but then it doesn't.  A few weeks ago it was unseasonably mild and many flowers started to make a tentative appearance. They have all died.  I guess this is typical UK weather with its non-distinct seasons, where our little island is at the mercy of the weather fronts that come in from around the planet.  But it is still suckish not knowing what will happen from one week to the next.

Bugs The kids have only been back at school for 5 minutes and both Ella and Kizzy have got poorly.  Ella was off yesterday and Kizzy was sent home today.  The post Christmas spread of germs is always a problem and is a reminder of how easily serious epidemics can occur.  I don't feel right, but I just have to get on with things whilst feeling slightly sick, slightly coldy and slightly dizzy.  Oh the joys!

Sponsored NSPCC Event I am all for helping out charitable causes when I can.  Yesterday Kizzy came home really excited about the assembly she had had at school that morning.  A woman from the NSPCC had come to their school to talk about the work of the charity.  It included some very emotive material which pulled at Kizzy's heart strings.  Her school is taking part in some sponsored sporting events on behalf of the charity.  I usually sponsor her for a few pounds as do her grandparents. However, the NSPCC encourage kids to get as many sponsors as they can by offering a reward system.  A green badge for up to three sponsors, escalating to a gold medal for those who fill the whole sheet with sponsors.  The kids were told to get their parents to take the form to work to ask colleagues to sponsor them to get as many names on the form as they could to get the gold medal.  When I said to Kizzy that this wasn't happening she was disappointed. Am I just mean or is this method of fundraising just fundamentally flawed?  How much of the much needed funds are spent producing badges and medals (which will probably wind up in the bin eventually anyway)?  Why should children be made to feel like they have let the charity down if they don't get a gold medal?  Why do the children contributing need a reward at all?  This is to raise much needed cash for underprivileged and at risk children. Knowing you have contributed in any way should be reward enough.  Do we live in a society where nobody will do anything unless they are personally rewarded?  I just think it is all wrong and don't understand that in an economical situation where every penny counts why this charity is wasting our donated cash unnecessarily and turning the fundraising into a competition which causes division and disappointment.  Shame.

Luxury Byron Bay Cookies on Review

I'm In Cookie Monster Heaven With Byron Bay Cookies

I always had a fondness for the Cookie Monster as he shared a passion of mine...the consumption of cookies.  This week I have indulged this passion (as part of a calorie controlled diet of course!!) thanks to the arrival of a brilliant box of assorted Byron Bay Cookies.  

The individually wrapped cookies are very chunky and big and are studded with chunks of chocolate, fruit, nuts or fudge.  The range includes: Dotty, Triple Choc Fudge, Milk Choc Chunk, White Choc Chunk and Macadamia Nut, Sticky Date, Ginger and Walnut, Fig and Pecan and Lemon and Macadamia Shortbread.  They also stock a range of gluten free cookies so even those with intolerances can enjoy them.  They are registered with Coeliac UK.  The texture is slightly drier and crumblier than the original cookies but the flavours are just as good.

All the cookies are Vegetarian Society approved which gets a big thumbs up from me. 

I was drawn to the Sticky Date, Ginger and Walnut cookie which was the first one that I tucked into, all in the name of research of course.  It had an almost home made quality to it.  It was very chunky, chewy and really very delicious.  The dates were sticky and sweet, complimenting the slightly bitter crunchy walnuts.  It was a real grown-up cookie!

Freddy tested the Dotty cookie which was a choc chip cookie studded with candy coated chocolate drops.  It was nearly as big as his face!  He enjoyed biting off the sweeties before tackling the crumbly cookie.  It was too much for one sitting so he kept going back for cheeky nibbles!

My overall favourite has to be the Triple Choc Fudge cookie which was not only packed with choc chips. it also had chunks of real fudge. Very indulgent and perfect with a hot chocolate for a mood enhancing snack!

The big cookies can be found in good independent coffee shops, cafes and health food shops.  Gluten free mini bites (125g boxes) are available in the Free From section of larger Sainsbury's stores.  Some of the range are also available on Amazon.

More information about the full range can be found at www.byronbaycookies.co.uk
Or find them on Facebook and Twitter.

A Little Blue Teapot, an Operation and a 55" 3D TV

When we went shopping at the weekend, there were a few things we wanted to get.  On my list were new cushions to add some finishing touches to our living room.  I was really pleased to find some that totally matched my curtains which has helped tie the room together nicely.  I have now packaged up my old mix and match cushions for the charity shop.  I'm sure someone will be very grateful for my old animal print and faux fur covered cushions (Bet Lynch perhaps??)

While we were getting the cushions, Freddy spotted something he really wanted.  It wasn't a toy, or sweets or even a much coveted iPad.  No, it was a teapot.  A simple 4 cup, ceramic, blue teapot.  He really, really wanted to use some of his Christmas money to buy the teapot and no amount of persuading or offers to exchange it for something different was going to sway him.  I am someone who likes to allow their children to  be creative and individual.  I don't like to suppress ideas out of hand, so when it became clear that Freddy really wanted to buy this teapot (when he refused to swap it for a new football and a bar of chocolate) I thought it would be wrong to deny him. After all it was £4.99 and he had £5 of his own money to spend.

Freddy was over the moon with his purchase and has taken great delight in filling his teapot with squash and pouring himself and his sisters cups of juice.  I have no idea where the idea of doing this has come from. We never use a teapot at home.  I guess he must have seen something on CBeebies or Nick Jr involving a teapot.  That, or he really is an old soul inside and is indulging that part of him.

Happy With His New Purchase

I don't know whether it was because I was in such an accommodating mood that Ian decided to raise the issue of buying his new TV again.  But, his timing was spot on and I agreed to him doing his much longed for technological upgrade.  Like a small boy let loose in Hamley's, Ian hit Curry's with a vengeance.  He knew exactly what he wanted following months of research and his 55" LG passive 3D Smart TV, Panasonic surround sound system and 3D Blu-Ray player were soon his.

In the huge TV box

He set it all up and soon we were watching the Avengers Assemble in 3D.  He's been buying the 3D versions of new release films for ages waiting for the day when he could play them!  I must admit it is bloody amazing!  Ella and I were immediately whooping with amazement as Iron Man flew into our living room!  We looked pretty cool in our brightly coloured cinema style glasses, but Ian opted for an old pair of black ones he'd found in a drawer because he thought they looked more manly!  Poor Ian was a bit disappointed as he sat watching it, complaining it looked no different to him.  It didn't take a Sherlock Holmes to deduce that the glasses he was wearing were not actually 3D specs from a previous cinema trip but were actually a cheap pair of  Rayban style sunglasses that had come free on the front of a magazine!  I found him a real pair of cinema 3D glasses and soon he was as impressed as Ella and I were!  Last night I got to watch Mr Selfridge in glorious 55" HD.  I definitely approve of Ian's new toy.

Our original 47" TV is getting a bit tired due to it's overuse and the sound is getting a bit temperamental, but Ella is very happy to now have it wall mounted in her room for watching DVDs and gaming.  Remembering the pathetically small, black and white portable TV with a coat hanger aerial that I used to have, I'd say that kids today are incredibly lucky indeed.

One of the reasons for agreeing to Ian doing this now is because his operation is imminent   It is almost exactly a year ago since he had his first operation to try to repair damage he unknowingly did as a small child when he fell onto the crossbar of a BMX bike following a badly executed jump!  Over the years scar tissue has built up resulting in bladder problems and potential kidney problems.  Operation number one attempted to clear the scar tissue with a 50% success rate, but unfortunately it failed. So operation #2 is a bigger, more invasive affair, where they hope to cut the tubes, take out the damaged section and rejoin the two ends.  It will involve a hospital stay and a two week recovery time.  He can at least now lie on the sofa with our new matching cushions, wearing his 3D specs, watching some quality 3D Blu-Ray films as Freddy serves him up juice from his little blue teapot whilst he recovers from his op!

The Possession

There has been a spate of shockingly bad exorcism films released recently so I wasn't completely confident when we were sent The Possession from Lionsgate, that it would be any different.  But I love horror films and was more than willing to give it a watch.  Thankfully however, I was not disappointed.  In fact I really enjoyed it.

The film is based on a true story (although I always wonder just how much truth is actually in these sort of claims.  Surely if these cases were going on in real life we'd see them on the news...or on a Jeremy Kyle exorcism special perhaps?)

The plot revolves around  Em, who is the youngest daughter of divorced parents who share custody of their two girls.  On her dad's watch, Em finds herself drawn to an old, carved, wooden trunk at a garage sale, which he buys for her.  Very quickly Em becomes strangely attached to it and her behavior starts to change.  Initially blaming it on the divorce, it takes a while for her parents to realise that her sudden terrifying moods and the odd goings on are related to the wooden box that Em is so attached to.  It's her dad who puts two and two together first and seeks help from the Jewish community to try to save his daughter's soul from the demonic presence that has been released from the wooden box where it had been trapped.  The family, assisted by a Jewish rabbi,  enter into a terrifying battle to save Em and return the malevolent spirit to the box, culminating in a very frightening show down against the evil presence.

This film is genuinely very unnerving in parts, aided by the performance from the young actress who plays 10 year old Em.  She was very creepy and made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up on several occasions! The effects are pretty good and stay with you long after the film has finished.  There are plenty of jumps and a fair few moments that make you want to peep through your fingers. The pace of the story, the suspense and the amount of scary scenes are enough to keep you gripped and entertained.  It has all the elements of a good supernatural, horror movie that will provide 90 minutes of enjoyable scare time.  As it has a certificate 15, it stops short of being too gory or violent, relying more on being subtly disturbing keeping you on edge.

It may not be groundbreaking, but it is very entertaining, genuinely scary in parts, pretty well acted with likeable characters and has some nice creepy effects putting it above other films I have seen in the exorcism genre.  It was thoroughly enjoyed by myself, Ian and 16 year old Ella who said it was the best new release horror film she had seen in a while.

The Possession DVD from Lionsgate is due for release on January 21st 2013 and will be available from all good stockists.

Our Money Saving Day Out

Today we headed to St David's Hotel near Chester to take part in the moneysupermarket.com Super Kid Savers challenge day.  Last year I entered a blog post about teaching money skills to children and was delighted when Kizzy and I were chosen to take part in the final challenge.  I was even more pleased that Ian, Ella and Freddy were allowed to come with us, giving us an opportunity for a nice day out together.

We arrived at the venue where we met the lovely ladies Eshe and Lucy who looked after us.  It was lovely to see fellow bloggers Michelle and  Rachel who were there with their boys, eager to take part in the challenge!

The challenges were all based on saving money and budgeting.  The main part of the challenge was to shop for a list of grocery essentials where the kids had to work out the best way to spend their money using multi-buys, own brands and alternative products.  They could buy luxury items too if they wanted too.

Kizzy has obviously spent too long listening to me going on about the price of groceries in supermarkets and saving cash because she resolutely stuck to buying bargain items and refused to stray or be tempted by the chocolates and toys.  She went as far as to say she would save the change to buy a chicken so she could get free eggs from it!

Other challenges were maths based worksheets which were a lot of fun.  Deciding on a dream outfit or things to take to a desert island whilst sticking to a tight budget challenged the children (especially when us mums said they had to do it without calculators in order to polish up their maths skills!)  I was impressed with everyone's enthusiasm and ideas!

The children also designed rockets and stacked chocolate coins and solved an anagram by collecting letters, which read 'Super Kid'!  All three of the children certainly were Super Kids as they all worked really hard on their challenges winning spot prizes along the way.

As Kizzy is more of a fan of words than numbers she also wrote a lovely acrostic 'Money Saving'  poem which I thought was fabulous.  It is lovely when something inspires them to be so creative.

The funniest thing was the interview where the children were asked how much they think certain things cost along with other money related questions.  I was quite surprised by some of Kizzy's answers.  Whereas she knew the price of milk and bread, she had no idea about holidays or cars.  She thought a family car cost £100,000 and a round the world trip would cost £1000,000.  She also said you needed £6000 to be considered rich (random) and the biggest sum of money she could think of was £100 which she'd use to buy an iPad.  Bless her and how her brain works!!

Ella and Freddy had a lovely time too and enjoyed the activities that they took part in.  You are never too old or too young to stack chocolate coins or draw a space rocket!

Huge thanks to Money Supermarket for making us all so very welcome and supplying us with lots of yummy food and lots of fun activities that kept us all busy and entertained.  Thanks also for Kizzy's box of goodies that she received.  We had a lovely day!