The July Roundup. This month I have been mostly…

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Scoffing…

…fabulous bags of Warburton’s ChippidyDooDaas - yummy scrummy bags of baked pitta chips, and SnackaDoodles - little crunchy doofers which are 70% wholegrain, making them healthier and with 60% LESS fat than regular crisps, meaning, naturally, that you can have two bags with your glass of wine *cough*

Fiddling…

…with my new mad gadgets from Oxo. My faves: the fabulously named ‘mango splitter’ (it really works!)

and the little strawberry huller too. No, I really can’t live without them…

Loving…

Apples for Jam:Recipes for Life by Tessa Kiros. It’s so much more than a cookery book - it’s been by my side ever since it arrived (recommended by my friend Rachael who writes gorgeous website Tales from the Village).

There are childhood memories, lovely little stories and gorgeous recipes too.

and finally…

Squealing…

…at news of a very exciting trip coming up. I’m going to keep you in suspenders for now though. Have a fabulous August xx

English Mum’s Big Bakeoff: only 4 days left!

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So the entries have been coming in thick and fast, and if you want to take part in the Big Bakeoff, and have a chance of winning that fantastic Green and Black’s cook’s hamper, you must get your entry to me by midnight on 31st July!

Want to have a little sneak peak at the competition (chosen totally at random)? Well it’s tough, I’ll tell you that. First up (above) is Working Mum on the Verge‘s delicious jammy dodgers, then just take a look at The Glutton’s Mr Whippy Raspberry and White Chocolate Cupcakes:

Or maybe you’d prefer Paula from Battling On’s scrummy Lemon Lapiz Pudding?:

Or my friend Tums’ beautiful birthday cupcakes?:

Or how about something savoury? Here are Helen from Icklebabe’s delectable bacon and corn muffins:

So if you haven’t entered yet, get baking! Oh and remember that the lovely Green and Black’s would like to know a little about your sneaky chocolate habits. They’d especially love to hear from parents with kids aged 4-12, so if you’d be so kind as to fill in their little survey here:

Green and Black’s Survey

… they’d be very grateful.

And if you want to see all the entries in one place, check back here on 1st August. Happy baking! xx


On love, sisterhood and friendship

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I love, adore and worship my friends and family. They are the kindest, funniest, most diverse bunch of lunatics ever. They’re splodged across the country, across the world, even, but it doesn’t matter. From Canada and Slovakia, from America, Ireland, Edinburgh, the Midlands, London, Devon and just down the road, whether I saw them last Friday or last year, I cherish the fact that they care about me, that they’ve ‘got my back’, that they’d do anything for me, that I could say anything and they’d understand. They’re the best.

Once, amongst the funny, happy, silly madness that is my inbox, there was nestled a really shitty email. When I read it, it took my breath away. Not only because of the content, but it was from somebody that I know. They criticised me (and something I had written) in a really hurtful way. Not feeling as though I should have to explain myself, and also not wishing to engage in some ridiculous, protracted argument, I just replied that I was sad that the person felt they could speak to me like that, and that it was all I had to say on the matter.

Here’s the rub: why do people - in particular, women - feel that they have the right to criticise others? I see it time and time again. What makes them so fabulous that they’re worthy of telling other people what they perceive that they have done wrong? The internet seems to have made things worse - people will type things about and to other people that they just wouldn’t say to their faces. I think this is cowardly. What example are we setting our children? If we accept this behaviour, how will they treat their own friends? What happened to ‘live and let live’? What happened to sisterhood?

I’m just me. I’m not particularly thin, not particularly fabulous looking, not fantastically clever or talented, in fact not really that remarkable at all. But I don’t think I’m unkind, unpleasant or spiteful either. I don’t write nasty things. I don’t snipe, or bitch, and I should not have to - and will not - defend myself or explain myself to people who feel they are somehow qualified to criticise me. What I say, and what I think (and what I write on here - be it recipe, travel tip, review, comment or opinion) is me. If you don’t like me, don’t hang out with me. Don’t read what I have to say.

Recently, my lovely friend Lucy carried the following quote on her blog:

I’m a passionate believer that women are women’s greatest allies; women need other women – in good times and in bad. A strong girlfriend or group of girlfriends can get you through things you’d never quite manage alone, and if you mess up along the way, they’ll still be there for you afterwards. What’s more – you’ll get to laugh about it, and those laughs help keep everything in perspective.

I’ve written about sisterhood before. And here, for the record, is my own personal pledge:

If I do one thing today, it will be to tell my friends and family how fabulous they are, what I love about them and the qualities that I most admire. I will cherish the people I love, strive to make new friends, never be guilty of excluding anyone from my social circle, no matter how complete I think it is. I will be brave and strike up a conversation, I will compliment a total stranger, I will smile across a crowded room. I will take no notice of those intent on spreading cynicism and ill-feeling. I will live for today, love unconditionally and celebrate the fact that we are all, obviously, in this together.

Spread the word, sisters.

The Sun’s fantastic 2 for 1 days out challenge

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Soooo the Super Soaraway Sun (is it still called that?) are doing another of their 2 for 1 days out offers for this summer. Basically you just pick up a copy of The Sun (from this Saturday until Friday 30th), and you’ll find 2-4-1 vouchers for 800 of the UK’s best attractions to keep you busy over that long, long slog that is the school holidays.

There’s more information (and bonus vouchers) in a special 4-page pullout on Wednesday 28th’s Sun too.

As a bonus for you lovely lot, here’s a little competition for you. Get it right and you’ll be entered into a draw to win a Merlin Annual Pass giving you basically a whole year of messing about at theme parks, attractions like Tussauds and SeaLife centres, completely free!

Have a shufty at this picture and then tell me in the comments section where you think it is out of one of these attractions:

  • Thorpe Park
  • Chessington World of Adventures
  • Alton Towers
  • Legoland
  • Warwick Castle
  • Madame Tussuads
  • Lego Discovery Centre

Good luck! Oh, and if you win, remember your friends eh?

Rapeseed oil and a lemon and almond cake with lemon drizzle

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The fields around this area are, at various times of the year, the most beautiful, glowing yellow with all the oilseed rape. Driving anywhere in the car, it will only be a matter of minutes before someone shouts ‘rape!’ from the back seat (yes, yes, it’s not politically correct, but try explaining being PC to any 15 year old and then you’ll really understand the meaning of a lost cause).

Anyhoo, I’ve been hearing more and more about rapeseed oil. You’ll be impressed here because I’ve actually done my homework. It has:

  • the lowest saturated fat content of any oil (6.6g/100g, compared to 14.3g for olive oil and 54.8g for butter)
  • very high levels of Essential Fatty Acids (ten times the Omega 3 of olive oil)
  • a natural source of vitamin E*.

Then I noticed someone tweeting about substituting rapeseed oil for butter in baking recipes. I contacted her, but she bloody ignored me, so I had to have my own little experiment with a recipe very kindly sent to me last week by Borderfields who, as well as being flippin’ psychic, make cold-pressed rapeseed oil. And wow, it was a great success:

Lemon and Almond Cake

100ml rapeseed oil

225g caster sugar

3 large eggs

1 lemon, zested and juiced

250g self-raising flour

50g ground almonds

1 lemon and about 3 tbsp icing sugar for the drizzle

So first, preheat your oven to 180°C/Gas 4 and dribble a little rapeseed oil into a medium cake tin, rubbing it about with your fingers.

Put the rapeseed oil, sugar, lemon zest (JUST the zest! I got this bit wrong and put the lemon juice in as well, although it didn’t seem to make a difference) and the eggs into a bowl and mix until light and foamy.

Then add the flour, almonds and lemon juice and stir in gently.

Blob the mixture into your oiled cake tin and bake it for about 40 - 50 minutes (check whether it’s done by poking a knife into the centre - it should come out clean).

Leave the cake to cool slightly, then tip into a rack. Squeeze the second lemon and mix the juice with the icing sugar. Drizzle all over the cake.

We served it with big dollops of double cream and it was actually really delicious. As my Mum pointed out, it’s not a really light cake - it’s more like a madeira cake, but it’s moist and the drizzle top is zingy, sweet and crisp, making it yummy served warm as a dessert. Although I can also attest that it keeps quite well and is lovely just cold with a cup of tea. It would also be fabulous topped with a lemony cream cheese icing.

Oh, and I’ve also cooked with the oil quite successfully too - roasties come out well as I think it’s quite pure so it heats to high temperatures quite well, and I’ve used it to fry eggs and drizzle over salmon when grilling too. I think I might actually be a convert.

You can also make it in various different tins - take this, my new favourite - a Nordicware heart bundt tin (reduce cooking time by about ten minutes):

*a big huge thank you to Borderfields Cold-pressed Rapeseed Oil for the health facts, recipe and freebie bottle of oil! Oh and apologies for fiddling with your recipe too.

Indian spiced courgette fritters (pakoras)

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One of my favourite recipe books is a very old and slightly crusty ‘Curry Club’ book called 250 Favourite Curries and Accompaniments that my Mum bought me years ago. I was searching high and low for it earlier as I’m currently suffering from a glut of courgettes, and knew that I’d seen a recipe for spicy fritters in there. But no, it was nowhere to be seen (it’s since turned up, obviously the ‘where the f*ck has that gone?’ gremlin has finished with it now).

Anyhoo, I had a rough idea what do so, along with the help of the BBC Good Food website, which had a similar recipe for courgette fritters (not quite right, the courgettes were sliced), pretty much worked out how to do them. And here they are (with apologies to the people of Northern India, who will no doubt be shaking their heads at my terrible and not very authentic version of one of their best-loved spicy snacks.

You will need:

Several courgettes (of varying sizes and comically rude shapes, if they’re anything like mine)

1 red onion, halved and finely sliced

1 chilli, deseeded and finely chopped

Large pinch salt

2 tsp curry powder (or you can make your own mix of the usual suspects: cumin, coriander, turmeric, chilli, etc)

Chopped fresh coriander (big handful should do it)

150g self raising flour (or, to be more authentic, use half gram flour)*

Grate all the courgettes and place them in a sieve over a bowl. Sprinkle with salt and leave for an hour or two.

You’ll be amazed at how much excess water they give up. Discard the water and place the grated courgette into a bowl.

Add in the onion, chilli, salt, curry powder and coriander, break in the egg, then sprinkle over the flour. Stir it all together as much as you can.

Now slowly add cold water, about a tablespoon at a time, until you’ve got a really thick paste (you’ll probably need around 100ml or so, but judge it by eye).

Leave this to one side while you heat up a wok or large saucepan with a good couple of inches of oil (groundnut is fine). Once the oil is hot (for god’s sake be careful here) - you can test this by popping in a little bit of the batter and seeing if it sizzles - just drop in tablespoons of the batter and fry:

When the first side is a deep golden brown, flip them over in the oil and cook the other side:

Drain on kitchen paper and serve with a nice yoghurt and mint dip, or maybe some mango chutney. Noms.

*Gram flour is made from ground chickpeas and also happens to be gluten free. I didn’t have any, but I’m going to use it next time as I suspect it may give an even crisper result.

The Cosmo Blog Awards

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Oh go on, go on, go on, go on, go on….

(In the Lifestyle section please - I know I’m a fashion guru as well, but y’know, I don’t want to spread myself too thin.)

The International Travel Photographer of the Year awards 2010

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Poras Chaudhary, India

Daisy Gillardini, Switzerland

Courtney Krawec, Australia

So here’s one for my lovely photography-mad friend, Tara Cain, and her absolutely fantastic ‘Gallery‘ contributors: The 2010 International Travel Photographer of the Year awards (TPOTY) are now open for business!

The competition is open to anyone, anywhere - whether you’re a professional photographer, or just an enthusiastic amateur, and whether you’re 4 or seventy four!

There are some utterly amazing prizes to be won, from worldwide travel to software and for new and emerging photographers there’s even the chance of bursaries and representation by professional photographic agencies.

All the previous winners of the TPOTY awards can be seen in the Winners’ Galleries on www.tpoty.com, and in the ‘Journey’ series of books from Travel Photographer of the Year.

Full details of the awards categories, entry fees, bursaries and all the information about how to enter can be found on www.tpoty.com. Entries close on October 9th 2010 and the results will be announced in December. Images can be uploaded online or entrants can submit prints.

And to whet your appetite, I’ve got the latest in the Journey series of books, containing entries and winners from 2007, 2008 and 2009, worth £25.00 to give away! It’s a really beautiful, 29cm x 29cm heavyweight hardback book filled with gorgeous, glossy images. Just leave a comment to be entered into the draw.

So what are you waiting for? Grab that camera!

Summery strawberry and white chocolate cupcakes

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As I sit here, simmering in my sun-baked conservatory and squinting at the dusty screen, I’m really beginning to believe that summer’s in full swing. Here and there at farmers’ markets and farm shops, the glossy punnets of British strawberries are stacked up high, making it the perfect time to treat your loved ones to some pretty strawberry cupcakes.

I like this recipe as it perfectly demonstrates how easy it is to fling together your own recipes. Don’t listen to those people who say that baking is a science and everything needs to be exact. Fancy adding something to a recipe? Whop it in. If it turns out wrong, well, as my good friend Coastal Aussie said after her recent Kiwi Meringue Pie disaster, ‘it wouldn’t be fun if I didn’t experiment’.

Here, then, is the result of my own experimentation: a strawberry sponge as light and fluffy as a cloud, topped with a swirl of creamy white chocolate ganache. Pandering both to my sweet tooth and my eye for the pink and pretty.

For the cupcakes:

170g butter

170g caster sugar

6 or 7 fresh strawberries, washed and hulled (about 100g)

Squeeze of lemon

3 free range eggs

170g self raising flour

For the ganache:

200g white chocolate

Small tub double cream

First then, beat the butter and sugar together until it’s really pale and fluffy. Next you need to purée the strawberries with a squeeze of lemon. If you’re using a large blender (my stick blender with the handy little cup attachment blew up quite recently), it’s easier to blend the strawberries together with the three eggs as the volume is larger and you’ll get a smoother finish, but if you don’t mind the odd lump, you can just as easily mash them with a fork.

Add the strawberry/egg mixture to the butter and sugar fluff little by little, beating all the time. Don’t worry if it curdles – you can usually get it back by adding a tablespoon of the flour and beating it again. Keep adding until all the strawberry mixture is combined into the batter. Now just gently fold in the flour. The result is so deliciously light and fluffy, and smells so scrumptious, that you might have to give yourself a stern talking to in order to avoid eating it all right now. However, if you’re one of those strange people who are repulsed by raw cake mixture you should be fine. Weirdo.

And now, by some mystical baking magic, (and if you haven’t eaten it all) it will transpire that there is exactly enough mixture to fill 12 cupcake papers with exactly a tablespoon of mixture. Pop them in your preheated oven (oh I forgot that bit – gas 4/180 degrees. Sorry) and bake for a scant 20 minutes until the tops just spring up when pushed. Better to be slightly underdone than over, though, you want these sponges light and airy.

While the cupcakes are baking, make your white chocolate ganache. Melt a 200g bar of white chocolate in a bowl over some barely simmering water (turn the heat off when it’s bubbling). When it’s melted, allow to cool a little then whisk in a few tablespoons of double cream (every time I do this I curse the fact that I never remember to measure it). It will thicken up, then loosen again. You just want it the consistency of softened butter, I guess. Whisk it up to incorporate loads of air, then either pipe into thick swirls, or just speak generously over the cupcakes

and top with a strawberry.

Pink perfection in a paper case. Try saying that after you’ve been at the cooking sherry.

‘Fixed Penalty Notices’ for taking children out of school in term time.

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This morning, we had a letter from the school quoting Regulation 7 of The Education Regulations 2006 Act (it states that schools should only grant leave of absence during termtime if the school ‘considers that leave of absence should be granted due to the exceptional circumstances relating to the application ’).

The Governors, the letter continues, have therefore decided that they will not grant leave of absence for any of the following reasons:

  • Availability of cheap holidays
  • Availability of the desired accommodation
  • Poor weather experienced in school holiday periods
  • Overlap with the beginning or end of term
  • Any other reason not deemed to be ‘exceptional’.
The letter goes on to state that any holiday taken without the authorisation of the school will now be subject to a ‘fixed penalty notice’ which means you may be fined by the Education Welfare Service.

Now yes, I realise that children benefit from being in school and getting on with their lessons, and I can see fors and againsts for only taking kids out of schools during holidays - we won’t, for instance, be taking #1 out of school as he’s currently in his GCSE years - but there are several points that I think schools are missing:

1. While holiday companies continue to inflate the cost of their products during school holidays, should we be forced to spend more money in order to have time as a family?

2. I am not anti-education in any way. My kids have to be dying before they’re off sick, and I always arrange dentists/doctors appointments after school, but can’t holidays be educational too? Can’t holidays be life-enriching and give children new and different experiences? Can’t visiting other countries and experiencing other cultures be part of their all-round education and not frowned upon?

3. I hate to sound like an old fart, but I was taken out of school for my holidays for years and years. My education went perfectly well. I got decent exam results and didn’t turn out to be a total brain donor. Should taking our children out of school really warrant a fine?

What do you think?

Strawberry pavlova: step by gorgeous, squishy step

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Wow it’s hot. If you’re in Ireland, where I spent several summers bemoaning the fact that the south of England was always about 8 degrees warmer than us, then ahahahaha erm, I mean you’re probably not experiencing the epidermis-melting heat of the last few days here in England, but trust me, it’s hot.

And when it’s hot, all thoughts of chocolatey desserts go right out the window. I mean, yes, there’s ice cream, but for a proper, easy summery dessert, you can’t go wrong with a pav.

Originally named after Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova (the dessert was said to emulate her frothy white tutus/feather-light movements/believe what you like), it’s a lovely mixture of crispy, soft-centred meringue, softly whipped cream and luscious summer fruit.

You’ll need:

4 egg whites

225g caster sugar (I normally use golden, but for perfect whiteness use ordinary)

300ml whipping cream, softly whipped

1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract

1 punnet really ripe fruit - raspberries/strawberries/whatever you have

So first, whisk up the egg whites in a really clean bowl. You need to get them light, airy and… erm… peaky, so it’s best to use an electric whisk or a whisk attachment on your food processor. Remember, even a hint of egg yolk and you’ll have to throw the whole darn lot away - break each egg separately.

Now just add the sugar 1 tbsp at a time, checking the mixture by pinching it between your fingers every so often. If it’s still grainy, you need to mix it more before the next spoonful goes in. Eventually you’ll have lovely soft peaks of glossy white meringue.

Now just dollop it onto some greaseproof paper on a baking tray - if you’re really precise you can draw around a plate first in pencil so you get a perfect circle - or you can make several smaller ones if you want individual portions.

Then pop it in a low oven - gas 2/150 degrees for about 40 minutes. Open the oven door and let it cool completely. You don’t want a rock hard lump of meringue, you want it cracky on the outside and soft and squidgy in the middle.

Just before serving, softly whip the cream with the vanilla and pile it all on top of your meringue.

Bung on your fruit (artfully, or just lob it on like I do) and present your masterpiece à table (in your best French accents please).

Oh, and remember, if it breaks when you try and get it off the baking paper, you can always just stick it together with a bit of cream, or there’s always Eton Mess.

Good old Anna Pavlova eh? Over to you, then, what’s your perfect summer dessert?

Review: new Chocolate Weetabix and Jenga wars

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So it started off all a bit cloak and dagger, really… but hey, when Weetabix send you an email saying: ‘we want to tell you a secret, click on this link and you’ll learn more…’ Well, you have to, really..

So it turns out they’ve brought out new Chocolate Weetabix! And yesterday in the post we got a lovely goody box with some of the new cereal to try out, plus some fantastic toys from Hamleys, leisure vouchers, a funky Weetabix bowl (stolen instantly by #2), a lovely re-usable bag which I’ll try - and fail - to take to the supermarket when I do my shopping, and…here’s the rub - Jenga.

We love Jenga. This sparked an evening Jenga-fest of epic proportions complete with arguing, chips and dips, fist-shaking, some pretty outrageous cheating, ridiculously jubilant celebrations and some severe taunting to boot. #2 came out victorious and is he going to let us forget it? No way, José. AND he stole the bowl.

Anyhoo, I can’t, sadly recommend Jenga as a wholesome family activity, seeing as we all nearly killed each other, but I can thoroughly recommend the Weetabix, which actually doesn’t need any sugar on it (even #1 enjoyed it ‘naked’ - the cereal that is, not the boy).

I’m not completely sure if I’m supposed to be telling you about it now as it’s not actually available in Sainsbury’s until 12 July but if they complain I’ll take it down (sorry Weetabix!).

They’re not having the Jenga back though. Uh uh no way.

English Mum’s ‘cupcake class’

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So I had the chance recently to run a three week ‘cupcake course’ for a local evening college. Quite a few of my friends had signed up, bless ‘em, but then when the SeaWorld trip got cancelled because of the ash cloud, the rearranged dates overlapped with the course. I had to cancel (face it: cupcake course, or SeaWorld? It’s a no-brainer).

Lovely Tums, my adorable and glamorous friend, had been one of those booked on the course, and with her just-as-glamorous Mum’s birthday coming up, we decided to do a mini cupcake course at Tums’ house to make a beautiful cupcake tower for Tums’ Mum (what a great name). Tum’s friend Carol came along too, and we set to work on a mahoosive batch of cupcakes.

There was much laughter, and much debate about how pink a pink cupcake should really be, some slightly dodgy piping (it takes a while to get used to holding a piping bag) but the final result was just absolutely beautiful and I think Tums’ lovely Mum should be very proud that her daughter took such time and care on her birthday cakes.

Oh and I learned that I’ll never make a teacher. There was far too much giggling and not nearly enough sensible instruction. Ah well.

Happy birthday, Mrs N! xx

English Mum’s Big Bakeoff: baking on the edge.

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So we did the Cupcake Challenge a while back and it was just the biggest fun ever. I was thinking of doing another one, and I mulled over biscuits, or maybe whoopie pies (the NBT*), but then I thought no, it’s too limiting. What we need is a big, mahoosive baking competition where there are no limits - baking on the edge, as it were.

And then the lovely chaps at Green and Black’s said: ‘baking competition? But we LOVE baking!’ and offered to put up a rather stonkingly good prize in the shape of a lovely Green and Black’s hamper!

So seeing as we’re all baking rebels who embrace a challenge and laugh in the face of danger, I think we should go for it.

Rules? Ha, we snigger at them

There are no rules. Well, apart from the fact that you’ve actually got to bake something. You must travel henceforth from this place, bake me something (anything) beautiful. Be it brownie or bun, teacake or tart, take a picture and email it to me by the end of July (there are NO extra brownie points for using Green and Black’s so you can wipe all those sneaky ‘product placement’ thoughts out of your mind too, you little devils) at contactenglishmum [at] gmail [dot] com.

I’m giving you loads of time so there’s no excuse not to join. All photos must be in my inbox before the end of July. If you’re a blogger, please link back to this post.

Entries will be displayed in one enormous blog post and the winner will be hurled from the very top of the Empire State Building. No, that was a joke. The winner will be the recipient of one fantastic and utterly fabulous hamper of gorgeousness from Green and Black’s.

There will also be a special Kids’ Prize, so encourage your little ones to get baking!

While you’re at it, Green and Black’s would like to know a little about your sneaky chocolate habits. They’d especially love to hear from parents with kids aged 4-12, so if you’d be so kind as to fill in their little survey here:

Green and Black’s Survey

… they’d be very grateful. So are you up for it, then? Who’s going to knock the last competition’s winner, and this time’s judge: food blogger Eggs, Cream and Honey off the top spot?

*NBT = Next Big Thing

Review: ‘Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief’

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My kids were both huge fans of the Percy Jackson books. My oldest, the Mad Professor in particular had read, nay devoured, and loved all the books, and was adamant he wouldn’t like the film, so when we got the review copy I didn’t hold out much hope.

But do you know what? It was fabulous.

There aren’t many PG films these days packed with such adventure and excitement - there were enough scary bits to have us all hiding behind our cushions, and enough thrills and spills to keep even our resident cynic entertained (unsurpisingly, it’s from the same director as Harry Potter & The Philosopher’s Stone). Add in a cracking cross-country road trip, the odd sword fight, a trip to the underworld and some jaw-dropping special effects and you’ll see why we were so impressed.

Percy Jackson (Logan Lehrman) is a cool enough teenager to impress even my jaded teens, and his funky protector: half goat, half human Grover (played by the fabulous Brandon T Jackson) had us laughing out loud. Bring in a love interest in the form of Annabeth, daughter of Athena and kick-ass swordswoman to boot (Alexandra Daddario), and you’ve got enough to keep most kids interested. Oh and there’s Sean Bean for us big girls too!

Other highlights include a chilling performance by Uma Thurman as Medusa, and Steve Coogan as a fantastically evil Hades.

We loved it, giving it an all-round English Towers thumbs up and a pretty darned impressive 8/10.

Percy Jackson & The Lightening Thief is out today on Blu-ray and DVD.

Hadrian’s Walk

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So today, some of my loveliest blogger friends will be attempting Hadrian’s Walk in support of The Joseph Salmon Trust, a wonderful charity providing financial support for those who have lost a child.

Basically, the nutters are walking the entire length of Hadrian’s Wall, yes, that’s 84 miles across the entire width of England.

And they need our help. Check out the blog, here:

http://www.hadrianswalk.org/

Enter the raffle, here:

http://www.justgiving.com/hadriansraffle

Donate here:

http://www.justgiving.com/hadrianswalkers

And support all my wonderful blogging friends by visiting their blogs and giving them a few words of support (what? of course they’ll be checking, they’re bloggers):

http://www.insomniacmummy.com/

http://singleparentdad.blogspot.com/

http://www.jobeaufoix.com/

http://dadwhowrites.wordpress.com/

http://allthatcomeswithit.com/

and bigging the walk up on Facebook and Twitter (if you’re a fellow nerd), or just sending them happy, blister-free thoughts.

Please, please dig deep - the trust is a shining beacon in the darkness of every parent’s worst nightmare and seriously needs our support.

Thank you.

Good luck, guys!

Travel News: Thomson and First Choice launch green brand ‘Holidays Forever’

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Wouldn’t you love it if it was easier to choose a greener holiday? As a family, we love travelling, but we’re also well aware of the damage tourism can do to the environment. Let’s face it, we holidaymakers can be a thoughtless lot, using up vital resources, creating mountains of rubbish and clogging up the atmosphere with our carbon emissions (well, not personally, but you know what I mean).

And that’s when we’re actually ON holiday - what about those armfuls of holiday brochures we gather up in the travel agent, only to sling half of them practically unread, and all the packaging we take in our suitcase and end up discarding abroad? How do we teach our children to be responsible travellers?

I was really interested, then, to hear that Thomson and First Choice have unveiled a whole new holiday brand called Holidays Forever. Their plan brings all their green initiatives together under one roof, and aims to raise awareness about sustainable tourism, both at home and abroad.

Holidays Forever encompasses all sorts of commitments including the reduction of weight and carbon emissions from their airline, Thomson Airways (hopefully not by taking the seats out, a la Ryanair), recycling cans used onboard and raising £10 million for the World Care Fund.

Interestingly, Thomson and First Choice launched Holidays Forever after a customer poll found that 96% of holidaymakers cared about protecting the local environment and wildlife in the resorts they visited, and 83% welcomed advice about how to make their holidays more environmentally and socially responsible.

I’m surprised and delighted by the figures, frankly. Who knew we travellers were such a thoughtful bunch? We’ll be knitting our own hammocks on the beach next.

What do you reckon, then? Would you book a green holiday?

DWXUDM8D7TZS

In which our hero nearly brains herself and receives no sympathy

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So I’m bragging, yes, but my courgettes are huge (not a euphemism). They have taken over the entire greenhouse, with leaves so enormous you could seriously float down a river on one (yes, of course they would hold my weight - I am, after all, sylph-like in stature). The chickens have taken to making little impromptu nests under their leaves in the evening, they provide so much shade (and yes, I might have a small bindweed problem - I’m trying to ignore it):

Tuesday evening, then, out in my garden, pootling and pottering, tying stakes and watering, I was being careful to avoid treading on the giant leaves (should I later wish to do a little languid river floating), and didn’t notice the edge of the greenhouse window.

Next thing I know there was an enormous bang, several bursts of silvery stars and a fading from green to black. I staggered backwards, nearly crushing my precious courgette/triffids, and touched my hand gingerly to my forehead.

Blood.

Now as a complete and committed hysteric, my first move was obviously to utter a bloody curdling shriek and burst into tears. The important stuff out the way, I then rushed to the house, stemming the blood with my palm and envisaging a huge, open wound, stitches, hospitals and maybe even plastic surgery.

Staggering into the lounge, then, where my three men, plus Irish house guest were watching TV, I relayed my terrible story and showed them the head wound of epic proportions.

Reader, there was sniggering.

Yes, one of the sniggerers did go and get me a piece of wet toilet roll to dab at my bloody forehead, but seriously. There was barely-stifled tittering, which soon turned into not-so-stifled belly laughs. I was not a little confused and not a happy bunny.

Why? Why would they laugh when I was so obviously injured? I could have DIED.

#1, smothering his guffaws, gently led me to the bathroom and pointed me in the direction of the mirror, where it turned out that, rather than the enormous, gaping forehead I was expecting, there was actually a small and perfectly formed red dot in the middle of my forehead.

‘Mum’, he said, before they all collapsed with laughter again, ‘you look like a Hindu’.

Teenagers should come with a warning label: do not expect sympathy of ANY kind.

Tsk.