Mew the cat is being exhibited!

I thought you might like to know that Mew our handsome cat has had his portrait painted by Jan Keenan of http://www.jankeenandesigns.co.uk/ and the portrait has been accepted for the Summer Exhibition at The Public in West Bromwich.

Even better his picture has been chosen to grace the invite that are being sent out!

We have also submitted a photograph of Mew to the RNLI in the hope that he will be included in this year's cat calendar but we don't know whethger he has been sucessful yet - I will keep you posted!

Susan

Who ate all the pies????????????

The name of our blog is quite apt for this review!  Take a gander at http://www.simplesimonspies.co.uk/ and you could be in for a treat!

I like pies, which if you read yesterdays review - about the new bathroom scales, you'll know I like pies...... 

I'm not one for raving over a product just for effect, and I hope you know that my reviews are always unbiased, if these pies were mediocre...I'd say so.

BUT....  you have to taste one to believe just how good they are!  These are quite the most scrumptious pies I have ever tasted.  I wished there was a way for you to lick the screen you're reading just to try one little flavour, as words will not describe them adequately.

We tried a little selection.  Butter Bean and Brie - which hubby had to try and I have a strong dislike of cheese.  He said he would happily buy that again as it was lovely.  We had a Salmon and Broccoli, which was OK - hubby again liked it a lot but I would say "Hmmmm....quite pleasant".

I tried a Chicken and Tarragon - which quite frankly was delicious, and I am not happy to be writing about it so close to lunchtime today as its making me want another....(and we've run out now).    We also had an Aberdeen Angus and Mushroom - which was a delight - all the meat is just so tender!

But the absolute pinnacle of tastebud tingling gorgeousness was the Honeyed Venison Collops!  Oh my!! What a tender taste explosion!  I have no idea what a 'collop' is, but I knew what Venison was so banned any thoughts of Bambi whilst eating...

Each pie is made from a light pastry, enough for one person.  They have a little bed of potato at the bottom, which soaks up all the juices, and each pie is full to the brim of tender, high quality meat or veggies depending on the flavour chosen.

The only downside to the pies is the price, they're not cheap.  But you get what you pay for.  Quite frankly if they were cheap pies I would be living on them on a daily basis, as they taste so good, and I would weigh the same as a small elephant.  So to save me from this fate, they are a tad on the expensive side so they are kept for high days and holidays!!    As an example the Honey Venison Collop pie is one of the dearest at £5.30 - which is not a huge amount but then when I looked on the site they delivery charge was over £9 - so you'd need a big order to make the delivery worthwhile .... maybe club together with the neighbours!

The site http://www.simplesimonspies.co.uk/ is simple and easy to use, and introduces you to the lovely team that have made your tea!!

A weighty issue...

I've been sent some Homedics bathroom scales to try.  We like them.....hubby likes them a lot - cos not only do they say he's slightly lighter than our old bathroom scales (so they had a brownie point from day one!) but they are a gadget too.

All men love gadgets don't they? The Homedics Scales are not exception - usually weighing, sighing, trying to stretch jeans to fit then more weighing is strictly my domain - but now there is a gadget in the bathroom....

It quietly calls all the men of the household....'try me, try me' in soft alluring tones.

So try they have.  Hubby is now trying to diet and Little One is seeing how much he can eat to make the scales change.  It's only a matter of time before he sees through my tissue of lies - that eating cabbage, broccoli or sprouts will make the scales change more....  but it's all good so far.

The scales cost £74.99 and as you can see from the photo have rather a Wii look about them.  We like the glass look top and chrome styling.  Although the chrome (which you have to stand on to get the scales to do all the gadgety stuff) is really rather chilly of a morning!!!  A heated set would be nice! :-)

So what do they do for seventy-five pounds?  Well, they measure your weight, as you would expect, but also - BMR, BMI, muscle, fat, water.  It's really very interesting!  You become a little diet obsessed - for instance, last nights BBQ made my water content dip and my fat content rise....you do find your self taking note of what you eat and looking at the graphs to see what effect it had - which really can only be a good thing!

You can add in up to 6 users, each of which are passworded - so if you don't want the whole family knowing you've raided the sweetie jar, you can always lock them out with a password!

It was easy to set up and begin using straight away - although we have 'lost' user one - for some reason!!  It just closes down the application, some sort of bug in that one we can't get rid of - but we just ignore user one and it happily gets weighing and telling us all our info...The scales come with a memory stick, shown below, which you connect to a USB port on the scales - then connect to your laptop...for instant graph gratification!  For anyone who loves stats and graphs its the dream gadget!

I'll post how the diet is going in a few weeks.... so far my weight is hovering around 10st 8lbs but swaps up and down 2 or 3 pounds on a daily basis, hourly basis sometimes .....

Continuing with the Munchies....

Yesterday we had the munchies on a bag of nuts.  Todays feast is Kettle Chips - yummmmm.....

The picture shown is Sweet Red Pepper Salsa but we tried the Sour Cream and Onion Variety.  I love Kettle Chips and enjoyed these immensely - the flavour however was really very subtle.  I think my other half was a bit disappointed if I'm honest, he tried the BBQ flavour and wanted more of a kcik to them.

I, on the other hand really liked my Sour Cream ones, and would buy them again!

They're available in Tesco and we find a rather nice solution to the munchies in front of the TV !!

Funny Flavoured Nuts anyone?

Peanuts and Cashewnuts with

Levi Roots Reggae Reggae Sauce on them.

An aquired taste but rather moorish...  We saw ol' Levi when he appeared on Dragons Den - as ever you can't recall whether or not he won..... who knows - but certainly he's the winner now, I#m always spotting the sauce in its little bottles in Tesco here!

I've not tried the sauce but know people who love it.  Now his new product is nuts in the Reggae Reggae Sauce - I must admit I like a honey roasted nut personally.  These just didn't have the sweet kick for me.  The taste represenented the sauce well (I am told) and was a spicy take on a normal roast nut.  I'd prefer a little sweetness with the taste personally though.

We've had a little munch on Levi's nuts now and would happily try other stuff from the range too - I think I will pop and get the sauce to try when I am in Tesco next.

EZ Comb gets me off to work on time...

 I have long hair, I like my long hair but it is often inconveient too.  Because it's so fine it takes an age to dry, so I need to plan my getting up in the morning time accordingly ...  I tried my exercise DVD the other morning and nearly ended up late for work!!

So the reason for my ambling today is the EZ Comb from JML.  On paper it looks like a great way to make up all sorts of fanciful hairstyles and it sort of is!  They say practise makes perfect and this is true.

I've had a few goes and do love the EZ Comb- but I can't quite manage the really prfessional look just yet - I will!! 

It great for a lazy time in bed though - I can snooze away for an extra 20 minutes, then get up, wash and dry my hair and pop in an EZ Comb and it looks fine enough for work!

Each pack has two EZ Combs - mine has a golden and brown one and also a silvery white one too.  I must admit both look nice in light brown hair.

An EZ Comb is an odd little being, it's like the plastic combs we all had in the 80's for our hair - it has two of those attached to each other with elastic that criss crosses from comb to comb, the elastic has sparkly beads on it.  Sounds complicated but it's not really!

I've added a few pics of the styles you can do - which once you master them, they look fabulous!!

Note:  Use with a friend, it's easier to do each others!!  You can make a fab job in seconds, but a little practise alone should see you styling away happily in a few days I would say.

See this link - as the video will help you loads!

Standing all day makes my legs ache!

As I said in my last post I spend my Sundays on the promenade at Llandudno selling souveniers for the RNLI.

It is hard work as we begin at 9am by fetching everything out of the little caravan that you can see in the picture. We then set up the tables and fill them with the souvenirs and sell until about 5.30pm when we have to put eveything away ready for the caravan to be collected.

As you can imagine I am on my feet almost constantly and my legs begin to ache and get very tired as the afternoon progresses.

I needed something to give me a bit of a lift and I found a product called Antistax which is available as a cream, a gel or in tablet form. I am not keen on taking any morre tablets as I am a diabetic and already take a dozen or so each day so I opted for the gel which cost me £5.50 for 125ml.

The gel comes in a sturdy tube which is very easy to open and use (even one handed!) The gel iteslf is a translucent red in colour and was quickly absorbed into my skin as soon I began to rub it onto my calves. It has a light citrus fragrance and feels really cool and refreshing. Incidentally you can even keep it itn the fridge to make it even cooler!

As far as I am concerned there wasn't a dramatic difference although to be fair it was a cool, blustery day last Sunday so I would imagine that this will feel really refreshing on a hot day - hopefully this Sunday? I did feel that my legs felt a bit lighter and less tired but I couldn't decide if this was due to power of suggestion or whether I could put it down to the gel.

I will try it again this Sunday and let you know how I get on!

Happy Father's Day Dad

Our dad died in July 2005, so this time of year is always difficult for both me and my sister.  Our usual plan is to avoid card shops, but now I've met my partner it's a little more difficult.... as we both need to enter card shops to look for birthday cards, as my 'new step-little one' has his birthday in June - plus he's too young for Father's Day card shopping alone just yet, so I have to go and help out.

It's hard.

I thought I'd put together some nice photos to mark the occasion this year and to say Happy Father's Day for next week dad. 

Wedding Day on December 4th

Holidaying by the sea, dad always made the best sandcastles and dams to block the sea and make pools, even when he was a pensioner he still loved the beach.

Again on the beach - at Whistling Sands, always smiling !

This is me learning to be a golf pro....that never really happened - but we alwyas loved the crazy golf, I think mum used to sit and do her knitting and watch...

I hope you're enjoyed my pictures.

Helen

A little pot of paint...

There’s some painting going on at the D household. We’re about to paint the lounge actually and redo the hall... bless my other half, I don’t generally have to nag to get things done. He’s only just finished my new kitchen though so letting him have a rest for a bit.

I had a nice PR get in touch with me about paints from Wilko (Wilkinson’s) and did I want to try them...so of course I said yes please!

The lovely lady sent me a paint brush, which is almost too nice to use, it’s the softest brush I’ve ever encountered! Anyway, that’s by the by really...

She also sent me a host of baby match-pots so I could try them out. I usually go for Dulux or Crown paints, simply because they do the funky colours. The likes of Wilko traditionally tend to stick to tamer colours – until now...

Wilko are now producing Colour Blast and Statement selections, with bright blues, deep purples, soft roses and zesty greens – really fabulous for an accent wall or two.

I can’t yet show the finished room, as we’re not quite there, but I have done a canvas here as a little colour chart for you!

Each 2.5ltr tin is £12.97 and it covers really well, in fact I would say on the canvas it covered better than the Dulux I had in a darker colour.

There's a colour chart on the website - here

Pizza fun for the World Cup!

In Honour of the World Cup the Gourmet Chocolate Pizza Company has made a football chocolate pizza! It really is rather fun.

We’ve got one for the father-in-law’s Fathers Day present. I did order it thinking it would actually be full sized pizza, so was a little disappointed to find it quite small, but nonetheless still inviting. You can get lots of different sizes though – just look on http://www.gourmetchocolatepizza.co.uk/

Pete’s dad is a chocoholic so will find this really rather yummy we think! It has sprinkles, red Smarties and even a large football in the middle, a chocolate lovers dream!

There are all sorts of different flavours and themes on the website - our mini football one was £2.85 and the prices go up with each size of course.  As you can see, they each come in a special pizza box, which makes them more fun and quirky to give as gifts!

The website is easy to use and very inviting, we nearly ended up ordering a whole lot more!

I like a bit of sausage of a weekend!

Take a look at www.puddledub.co.uk – they truly are in the middle of nowhere! It’s a pork farm and we ordered a delivery from there recently. Our box arrived, a rather large polystyrene box at that – with ‘perishable’ written on the side. We unpacked with a certain amount of excitement and found inside some bacon, chorizo sausages, normal pork sausages and a gammon joint.

Sunday breakfast was some oak smoked bacon sandwiches – pictured. They were truly delicious! Two sandwiches kept us going then until teatime. I don’t usually enjoy a smoked taste but these were divine. When cooking them no water came out, unlike my usual Tesco rashers! These kept their size and shape all through to the sandwich!

Monday tea has been chorizo sausages, which again are really delicious! They were mildly spicy, not too much though and a beautiful reddish orange colour. They were yummy. I’d normally get some tomato ketchup out to dip sausages in – but it would have been sacrilege to do that!!

This evening I have also cooked the gammon joint, in coca-cola a la Nigella Lawson – I’ve done this recipe before so hope it will take to this little gammon joint very well, it certainly looks nice waiting and cooling on the cooker top. Ready for slicing and then eating with salad tomorrow!

Puddledub prices seem quite reasonable, the Chorizo Sausages for instance are £8 a kilo, all the other sausages were cheaper than that, at about £5-6 a kilo. Much the same as our local butchers really.

If you look on the website it tells you where they are – in the middle of nowhere!! Where they sell – farmers markets, mail order, local deliveries etc. There’s some good recipes on the site too, if you’re stuck what to make for tea.

Funny things for my feet...

When you’re a blogger, you sometimes get sent some weird and wonderful items to road test. This week saw a couple of parcels come through the door – one was ‘Patch It – for Total Wellness’ and the other was a rather large parcel marked “Perishable” on the outside....but more of that one later in the week.

The Original Patch It for Total Wellness is branded as the Spa in a Patch, so I wondered what was to come. My box had six patches in it, enough for three nights.

Each patch has sort of a fabric/tissue kind of feel to it and is sticky on one side, they are about 3x2 inches. The patch is intended to stick, one on the base of each foot, whilst you sleep.

The funny little patches contain essence extracted from Mandarin trees, which grow on a volcanic island full of fertile soil. The essence is distilled then matured, a bit like wine until its ready to use in the patches. Using the patches full of Mandarin tree goodness was meant to ensure I awoke and began the day with a spring in my step!

The first night I placed a patch on the base of each foot and snuggled down to sleep. Now, I suffer from permanently cold feet – this was the way I knew they were doing something, I had a night spent with the toastiest feet ever. My god they were warm! I loved it but I fear they may have been uncomfortable for some people.

I had a restless night, but it was my first night with them so I persevered. Night two was better and night three was lovely! I felt very rested and ready for the day ahead.

Spookily, when you remove the patches in the morning, they are all brown and sticky!! Some packs say that all my toxins have been drawn out into the patch, via my feet. I am dubious to this grand claim, but have to admit that ‘something’ was coming out there!! They looked most weird!  This particular make just says it is moisture that causes it though, so make no grand claims - which is good.

Pulling the patches off each morning was odd too – I don’t have particularly ticklish feet but I really had to grit my teeth and pull the patch off in one go, otherwise there was a tickly moment!

The Patch It’s are by http://www.patch-it.info/   and you can Google them to find your nearest stockist if you want to give them a go!

Call the lifeboats ...............

I thought it was about time that you heard from the other sister!!

Apart from my husband and my gorgeous cat, Mew, the great love of my life is lifeboats. This passion began when I was a little girl and I collected used postage stamps for a Blue Peter appeal to buy inshore lifeboats.  As always they did various items on the show about the appeal and it was there that I learned that lifeboatmen were all volunteers. As a little girl I was amazed and overawed that there were people who were so selfless that they would risk their own lives to help others and there my lifetime love of the RNLI began.

If you want more information about the RNLI the website address is http://www.rnlishop.org.uk/

Whilst I lived in the Midlands I could do very little apart from be a member of Shoreline, the non sea going arm of the membership, but when I moved to Llandudno in 2002 I joined the local guild along with my husband and we were soon involved in fundraising.

I soon became Box Secretary for the guild which means that I am responsible for emptying the collecting boxes in our local shops and hotels and then paying the money into the bank.

Now that I am no longer a full time carer to our parents I take a much more active role in the fundraising.

We do not have a lifeboat shop here in Llandudno but we do have a stall on the promenade every Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday. The souvenirs are kept in a little caravan which is delivered to the prom at 9am and we then put up about 8 tables and cover them with souvenirs which we then sell until 6pm and then repack the caravan ready for it to be collected. I also spend Friday afternoon helping to price the souvenirs ready for sale the following Sunday!

It is hard work but very good fun and last year we raised over £50,000 during ther season from May to September.

We have a website at http://www.llandudnolifeboat.org.uk/ so you can take a look at our boat, our crew and even us! There are plenty of photos of the guild in action on the stall!

So there you are - a bit about my love for the lifeboats - and remember that the RNLI is financed entirely by voluntary contributions (we get nothing from the government) so if you see a collecting box anywhere pop a coin in it and if you are ever in Llandudno on a Sunday in the summer pop along to the prom and say hello!

Love
Susan