Day 1

Day 5

Day 5

Day 6

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Day 8

Day 9

I have bought Bunches flowers for friends and relatives before several times, and I shall continue to do so, because the quality is exceptional. The added touches are really nice, including the complimentary box of (proper) chocolate and the personalised message. The prices are really reasonable and the delivery time is as good as it's word, so you can be fairly certain that they will arrive when you expect.

My bunch is from the Autumn collection and is called Auburn Fall. It costs £19.99 delivered and you can accrue 'posy points' for free flowers or money off your next order.

Bunches start from only £11.99 including free UK delivery by first class post. All Flowers are delivered with your personal message, flower food, flower care instructions and a free box of milk chocolates!

This is a real fun game that can be played in all kinds of different ways, so is suitable for anyone age 3+ really. The pre-schooler uses it as a jigsaw and just tries to fit as many pieces in as possible. My partner and I like to play the two-player game and actually it can get a bit heated....


The instructions and reference sheets are in a gorgeous book, that is made with really good quality materials, so should last very well. This is great because it is necessary for the game.


It is a 'Tetris' type game where you fit wooden blocks into a playing space which you can vary in size, thereby altering the difficulty. This makes it possible for a 3 year old to take turns playing against their parent on different levels during the same game.


Above is the easiest setting at 3 rows and below 2 levels harder. With each level of difficulty you add another playing piece as shown in the handbook and move the wooden divider across. It sounds complicated, but like a lot of games makes total sense as soon as you play.


Once you reach the later levels it's really hard and the teenagers use it competitively and time each other.

For the 2 player game you place the wooden divider in the middle and take it in turns to pick out playing pieces until you both have 5 plus some small blocks and then race to see who completes their side first.





We've had a really good time playing Katamino and playing with Katamino. It's excellent fun, especially for me the 2 player competitive game, which is so simple and quick, but great.

Katamino is a gorgeous game, the booklet and big wooden pieces are very well made and it's a real quality product. The design is brilliantly executed and this does mean it's not a cheap game in any way. This is a beautiful thing that will come out of the cupboard regularly on games nights and in 30 years time will still be in the same condition as it is now. I imagine playing this with my Grandchildren.

My 15 year old clearly spotted another challenge in making a perfect cube with the blocks...

Katamino retails at around £25, which is not cheap, but you are paying for quality and classic timeless beauty, and a game that will last you a lifetime, that all ages can play together.

This is the sort of blurry shot I'd never usually post, but his little face! He was so excited....

What's happening? The green screen really confused the boys.

A brilliant souvenir of the event.

A monkey in a tree

A green balloon

The film was good. It had a very convoluted plotline and unlike the first film where we had one basic imaginary theory (food is made from water), this one made no sense, but it still worked somehow. I don't have any idea how they manged to explain away the food becoming live, or in fact a host of other things in the film, but that didn't seem to matter at the time and it certainly doesn't matter to either of my boys.

The characters are really likeable and not annoying at all. I can forsee a copy of this being played non-stop for a month or so, and it certainly won't annoy me as much as most films.

Just like the first film it was brilliantly executed, lovely to watch with masses going on in the background at all times and many side jokes for the adults in a 'Police Squad' style as well as slapstick and other jokes for everyone. We felt that actually there were possibly too many references to 'apple' and 'jobs'. Maybe we read too much into that, who can say?

We all enjoyed it, my 5 year old especially so - he loved every minute of it. The 3 year old didn't demand the toilet once and stayed in his seat almost every second of the film, so that's a definite thumbs up from him. It had plenty to entertain the adults, although the plotline really was too tricky for small children to follow and too bizarre for adults to contemplate. 3.75/5 (it's not quite a 4).

Oxo asked me what I wanted to review, what kitchen tools did I want?  I REALLY wanted a set of tongs and an ice cream scoop that actually works, but I couldn't think of a recipe I can do that would show them off. I intended to use the tongs with my veggie burger recipe, but it wasn't to be as the burgers were too soft, so this is a bit tenuous, but I'm sure it's admissable, and I have no doubt that we'll see both of these gorgeous tools many times again...

5 Minute Cinnamon Whirls

These are incredibly simple, stupendously quick to make and will please even the most difficult of guests. I make them a lot around Christmas and I even make them at parties as they're best eaten straight out of the oven and they impress almost everyone.

Ingredients



For the whirls
Puff Pastry - I used ready rolled because it was on offer!
1oz/25g Butter, softened
3 tablespoons ordinary Granulated Sugar
1  tablespoon Ground Cinnamon
Raisins/Sultanas/Currants (optional)

Egg or Milk to brush over

For the glaze

1/2oz/15g Butter, melted
1oz/25g Icing Sugar
1oz Milk

 Method
















 



 
 I had a little help from the following Oxo tools ~

12" Tongs With Silicone Heads
These have a stainless steel body and silicone heads, so they're safe for non-stick cookware and heat resistant to 600F/315C. Perfect for a multitude of jobs...




 Beak Ice Cream Scoop
The thin tip breaks into hard ice cream and the flat back accomodates round and square ice cream containers. It rolls perfect scoops and has the soft touch no-slip handle to absorb pressure as you scoop. It's got a great 'ejector button' which is really large, so pushes out the entire scoop without mashing the shape.

Ozeri make gorgeous kitchen equipment that is also highly functional. We've previously reviewed the glass digital kitchen scales and the double-walled glass tumblers and we're really enchanted with their products. On this occasion we've been sent the 20cm Green Earth Textured Ceramic Non-Stick Frying Pan to review.


At 20cm it's small, but ideal for a couple or individual, and when you are preparing foodstuffs to add to recipes - you just don't need a huge pan to soften some onions. It's really quite deep, so if you are doing a stir fry for example, you can actually cook quite a lot of food in the one pan.


It has a a magnetized induction stove safe base which heats up and transfers heat really quickly, so it's ready as soon as you like.


This is a really healthy alternative to a regular frying pan. The non-stick textured ceramic coating means that you only need around half the oil you'd usually use, so your cooking can be much healthier and your clean up is easier. The coating is GREBLON ceramic - an ultra-safe ceramic coating from Germany which is 100% PTFE and PFOA free (no heavy metals or chemicals).


I tested mine with 2 items that can be hellish - home made veggie burgers and oil-less fried eggs. It performed very well. The burgers did not stick at all, and the egg was almost entirely free of the pan without any lifting with a spatula.


The green colour is lovely too, I'm all for interesting cooking equipment and this is definitely a very attractive addition to any kitchen.

The Ozeri 20cm Green Earth Textured Ceramic Non-Stick Frying Pan has an RRP of £39.95 and is currently available from Amazon for £24.95.