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!