I'm not usually one for soppy films, but I love 4 Weddings and a Funeral. It always makes me cry though, and it's not for the story, it's for Charlotte Coleman, the lady who played Scarlett. I'd grown up with her, she was my hero. She played the girl in Wurzel Gummidge, she was Marmalade Atkins, she was the TV star of Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit and she was lead female role in 'How Do You Want Me?' which never got the viewers it deserved.

She died 7 years after filming 4 Weddings, aged only 33 and alone in her own home, from an asthma attack. Sadly she's not alone, over 1,200 people die from asthma in the UK every year. 

My ex has asthma, the father of my 3 older children, and my oldest child had mild asthma for a couple of years as a child. We were very fortunate, none of our 3 children inherited their father's asthma, and my son never had a nasty attack anywhere, including at school. Lots of children aren't so lucky.

"More than two thirds (68%) of children with asthma across the UK have had an asthma attack whilst at school"*

I've been a First Aider in a College and a Playgroup, and I was a Childminder for 7 years. I'd be mortified to be in a position where a child was seriously ill, I knew how to help and even had access to what I needed, but were legally unable to do anything.

"86% of children say they have been without their own inhaler because they have forgotten, lost, broken or run out of it"*

Asthma UK, the UK's leading asthma charity, are campaigning to have a spare asthma reliever inhaler placed in the first aid box of every school. It would be for use only in emergencies by children who have forgotten or lost their own inhaler.

At the moment it is against the law for schools to hold or oversee the dispensing of any medicine not prescribed for a specific child. An exception has been made regarding Bronchiodilaters (relievers/Ventolin/Salbutamol) for the RNLI and the Armed Forces, so it's easy to add schools to those exceptions.

I really feel that when a child has been prescribed such a common medicine that they would be in charge of themselves anyway, and which can be the difference between life and death, there can be no harm for the school staff to be allowed to take the initiative in an emergency. I would rather they did if it was my child.

The Government has opened a consultation on Inhalers In Schools and need responses from the public to gauge if we think it's important or necessary. You only have until 30th May. You can give your opinion and support the campaign by completing the short comment form here (link removed as out of date)...
UPDATE - Tuesday 15th July 2014

In today’s health questions in parliament, the Secretary of State for Health Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP confirmed that the law will change to allow schools to keep spare emergency inhalers. A statutory instrument to amend the Human Medicines Regulations 2012 will be laid later this week and the change in the law will come into force on the 1 October. 

Kay Boycott, Chief Executive of Asthma UK adds, “It is absolutely vital that every child with asthma has an asthma action plan. These help parents to understand their child’s symptoms, how to know if their child’s asthma is getting worse and what they need to do about it. Children who don’t have an action plan are four times more likely to need to go to hospital for their asthma – you can download a plan from www.asthma.org.uk”
*Asthma UK Survey of 1815 people (153 children (aged between 5 and 18 years of age) and 1662 adults) from across the UK, online between 13 and 22 January 2014

I was not paid for this post.

I have previously reviewed HealGel Intensive and HealGel Eye and I found them both to be brilliant, so I really was very keen to try HealGel Face. HealGel say:

"HealGel Face is an exceptional anti-ageing formula designed to smooth, firm and replenish to give instantly plumper, revitalised looking skin.

This step-changing complex acts like HealGel Intensive to rescue unhappy skin, but then takes its transformative effect to the next level.  Arnica and Madecassoside are suspended in liposomes with powerful peptides and biodynes to initiate a uniquely soothing and collagen boosting process.  HealGel Face also contains a unique blend of Omega Oils to replenish dehydrated skin and restore elasticity.  To this another vital dimension is added; a powerful three part hyaluronic acid complex provides a plumping and tightening effect."

I wasn't expecting the miracle transformation that I had with the HealGel Eye, but I felt sure I'd definitely be pleased with the result, and I am. After 6 weeks of use every evening and most mornings I really see and feel an improvement in my skin.


Just as with the other HealGel products, a tiny bit is all that is needed and the cream goes on really well and sinks in very quickly. It has a lovely smell and actually feels relaxing. 

In the mornings I wake up naturally around 7am. My partner gets up first and brings me a coffee at 7.30am. Around this time my 2 small boys wake up and run into my room to tell me how much they love me, before returning to their room and getting dressed. Then we go downstairs and join the teenagers at the kitchen table eating breakfast....in my TV advert dreamland...

Actually what happens is the alarm goes off at 6.45am and I swear about the fact that it can't actually be morning yet. That's on a good day. Often before my alarm goes off one of my youngest children has already come into my room with his most malevolent Donnie Darko eyes and jabbed at me until I can feel the burn, before pressing all the buttons on my phone until it lights up and informing me "see, it says it's morning time".


I use the bathroom and go downstairs. Kettle on, uniforms for the youngest laid on the sofa - because if I let them get changed in their room on a school day I don't see them until 8.25am, when they come downstairs wearing only a pyjama top and ask if I can 'put together this track' or something equally ridiculous.

I make a brew for myself and my partner, and a packed lunch for my 5 year old. I contemplate a beautiful Bento - ahhh - and make the usual ham or cheese and pickle sarnies. Upstairs my partner showers and wakes up the teenagers.

When he gets downstairs he shouts at the youngest 2 to 'get dressed' for  the first time of around 12. Our 5 year old every day without fail states he can't get dressed until he's had breakfast and comes into the kitchen to collect cereal or toast, or if he's lucky a breakfast bar and a glass of orange before staring at it for approx. 12 minutes without eating anything. Sometimes his brother joins him, but usually they operate as a tag team, taking it in turns to stare at their breakfast in an effort to cause as much frustration and delay as possible.

By 7.45am hopefully we've already seen at least 2 teenagers, and another returns from their paper round and joins in the competitive bathroom hogging contest. Occasionally this ends in all-out war, but usually someone cries before then and my partner gets to practice his loudest 'because I say so' voice.

I make sure I've at least heard everyone 'be awake' before allowing my partner to escape to work, where he spends 9 hours sleeping in a comfy chair, and occasionally browsing the internet.

I spend the next half hour trying to remain calm, whilst alternating cries of "have you got dressed yet?" and "come on, it's getting late?", whilst trying to find non-existent clean shirts and tights which should have been washed but instead have spent the last few days languishing on a bedroom floor. I pull magic black pens and protractors out of thin air and hopefully know the location of every last bit of homework down the side of a sofa or under the kitchen table.

Most of the teenagers leave somewhere between 8am and 8.35am. I have given up trying to work out exactly when they should leave, how fast they can walk to school, or whether they take lunch or eat it when they get home. They're 16, it's an important lesson for them to be hungry all day while their lunch sweats on the kitchen table.

At 8.33am I tell the 2 little boys they need to put their coats on and discover who hasn't put their socks on. Then we play 'hunt the shoe' for the next 7 minutes maximum. If we exceed this limit then I fetch the wellies.


At 8.40am I leave one teenager still in the house and, whilst ignoring the cries of "my socks aren't right" we walk to school. I carry the coats.

I get home at around 9.15am and have my 20 minutes of peace. I can't actually manage without breakfast, I always eat it, but I choose to wait. I put the kettle on and the first load of washing, tidy the table and sit down with a brew, something to eat and a sense of contentment that another morning is ticked off and we're nearer the weekend.....


I do actually eat breakfast bars, and in fact belVita are my favourite. They are really tasty and don't need a pint of water to wash them down! They're incredibly handy in your bag if you're going straight out, and a bit of a lazy treat at home. I like the Fruit And Fibre ones best, but most of the kids go for the yoghurt crunch.

And it's my first time.....and actually, as it gets closer, I am a bit scared.

It's very far out of my comfort zone.

Going to London is a big deal for me. Leaving my family to fend for themselves for a whole weekend is a big step. My partner is still recovering from his Meningitis, as I think his recent plummet from good health with Tonsilitis showed, and he gets incredibly tired.

Cheers for the help loading the dishwasher guys....

Teenagers can be great, or they can be moody and completely unhelpful. Two small boys tend to see these sort of situations as opportunities to be exploited to the fullest.....

However, once I'm on that train travelling down with Pippa RedRoseMummy and MyMummy'sPennies Jen, I'm sure I'll put all that out of my head and I'll enjoy my first weekend away in FOREVER....

I'm actually not sure at which point I'll be able to relax into it and be me - probably around about 4pm Saturday! It's going to be amazing seeing so many bloggers in one place at once. I've been to Blog On twice now, so I'm not a complete novice, but this is so much bigger and far away from home.

I seem to have answered a lot of 'about me' questions recently, so my apologies if you've heard all this before, but the questions that go with the linky seem as good an introduction as any!

With Lancashire Lass Karen, I'm the one with my eyes shut and a shiny forehead...

Name: Jenny
Blog: The Brick Castle
Twitter ID: @TheBrickCastle
Height: 5ft 2ish
Hair: Blonde and really, really curly. On a damp day by11am I look like a cloud.
Eyes: Blue/Green depending on the light.
Is this your first blogging conference?
No, it will be my 3rd, but my first big one.
Are you attending both days?
Yes. It'd be foolish to go all that way and not stay.
What are you most looking forward to at BritMums Live 2014?
I'm looking forward to meeting some more of the bloggers who I've read and spoken to online, and the sessions look incredibly interesting.
What are you wearing?
Probably similar to what I'm wearing now! I'm not incredibly adventurous I'm afraid. Once you've met me 3 times you'll start recognising me by my outfit.
What do you hope to gain from BritMums Live 2014?
I want to meet people and put faces to blogs, and learn from people who are more experienced than I.
Do you have any tips to pass on to others who may not have been before?
My tip is that you should totally go and speak to Jenny from The Brick Castle because she's never been before either! 

If you are in the Manchester area and wondering what to do with the children over half term then the Imperial War Museum North has put on a week of activities which might be of interest.....especially if your children like Amazing Animals!

We had a brilliant time there last half term visiting their Spies, Disguise and Ways To Hide exhibition, and I have no doubts that Amazing Animals will be equally as fascinating.

There are free activities every day which cater for even the youngest children, so everyone can have a great day out discovering all about the unusual roles of animals in the First World War - from horses and carrier pigeons to rescue dogs.

A mobile pigeon loft in the First World War

Lottie And Dottie Sow Carrots is our latest from the Orion Books Early Readers in the blue band. The Early Readers are available in two bands. Blue band is for children who are ready to join in reading and following words with another person, and red band is for children who are more confident to read alone.




Actually, it turns out this is possibly our favourite book so far! It has mild peril and excitement and it's written mainly in dialogue between the 2 sisters, which means reading is really exciting with all the intonation and animation in the voices.



The story is the tale of 2 sisters who sow some carrots, but it's so beautifully written and informative that it genuinely fascinated my little boys. The illustrations are lovely and the characters have very sweet expressive faces, with the little sister always looking inquisitive and a little worried until the end.


This is a great book, and afterwards your child will understand a lot more about gardening and growing plants, or they will have had that knowledge reinforced without even realising. I'd heartily recommend it.

Lottie And Dottie Sow Carrots has an RRP of £4.99 and is published by Orion Books.

All of my book reviews can be found here.

Dinosaur Roar! by Paul and Henrietta Stickland is an absolute classic of a book for young children. First published in 1994, it celebrates it's 20th birthday this year and loads of fantastic goodies have been released including an app. and a whole new Dinosaur Roar! website.




My oldest child was born in 1994, and Dinosaur Roar! is a book that's been in our collection in various forms since he was small. The illustrations are gorgeous, the dinosaurs have amazing character and depth, and the text introduces all kinds of useful concepts and new words to a younger child.

As your child grows and starts to learn to read, Dinosaur Roar! offers a brilliant opportunity to practice familiar sounds and words. The minimal text isn't intimidating to a child of any age and most of the words are easily worked out phonetically.


The text is written in a lovely rhyme that leads you through the book, but keeps gentle pace and allows for lots of great voices!






The app. has 3 sections ~ Read, Colour and Name.

Read is (as you'd expect) the book itself and has 3 different options. Read To Me is the book read by children and it's very lovely. There's lots of expression and it's very clearly spoken. It's also incredibly easy to navigate through the e-book. Read Aloud is without the audio of the children reading, and Record allows you to record yourself reading along with the illustrations and text.


Colour has all of the dinosaurs from the book for your child to colour in. they can choose their own colour scheme, or select to fill in with the colours from the book. It's really simple and you can't 'go over the lines', so it's not frustrating for a little one, but they can still play about with the colours and easily give their dinosaur blue legs and a stripey tummy with a dotty head if they wish.


Name is a Dinosaur-name generator. Type in your own name and shake the iPad, and you will be given a Dinosaur name. My boys loved this, they thought it was hilarious!


I was a little disappointed as this is designed for younger children aged 2-4 and the keyboard is in capitals. Although my 5 year old was okay with that, my 4 year old didn't know that E is e and stubbornly spent ages trying to spell his name. I easily found I could change the on screen text to lower case, but couldn't find an option to change the keyboard - which even confused my 5 year old!


The app. is fairly simple, but it's only priced at £1.99, so I think that's very fair, and a percentage of the royalties from sales go to support the work of the Natural History Museum. It's currently only available on IOS, so available from the Apple store here.


If you want to become as good at drawing as Paul Stickland, you'll need to practice. On his website Paul has free printable colouring sheets and pages from Dinosaur Roar! and Ten Terrible Dinosaurs, and he teamed up with The Guardian Newspaper to create a step-by-step guide to drawing Dinosaur Roar! which you can find here.

I've really enjoyed being part of the jury panel for the LEGO DUPLO How Do You Play competition. Next week I'll be helping to judge all of the finalists in the last round, which will decide who will win a holiday to Billund in Denmark to the original LEGOLAND.


If you haven't yet entered, you only have 2 more days to do so! It's incredibly easy, you just film your children playing with their DUPLO. We want to see imagination and creativity in action. Submit your video of no more than 30 seconds to the app. on the LEGO DUPLO Facebook page.
 

My first DUPLO Giveaway to win the Creative Picnic set still has 2 weeks to run (you can enter here), and my second DUPLO giveaway is the Creative Cakes set 6785. Suitable for children from age 2, it has 55 chunky pieces which are too big to swallow, and includes everything you need to enjoy an afternoon tea party or recreate a birthday.


Birthdays are very important to children, and they learn a lot from them. It teaches about passage of time and celebration, it allows the child to feel very special and valued. Birthdays will form some of your child's earliest permanent memories. Being able to 'play' birthdays is huge fun for children and gives them a real starting point for some fantastic imaginative play and story-telling.


The Creative Cakes set has a recommended retail price of £19.99 and is an ideal starter set for a child new to LEGO DUPLO, or a brilliant addition to bricks you already have.


As I have to pay postage the giveaway is UK only, my apologies to everyone else. Entry to the giveaway is by rafflecopter form below. The first question is mandatory and must be answered as a comment to this post. Extra entries can be gained by completing additional tasks within the rafflecopter form. Please read the additional terms and conditions at the bottom of the rafflecopter form. This giveaway will end at midnight Friday 6th June when the timer will end and no more entries will be allowed.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I like to be as 'green' as possible - for everyone's benefit - but sometimes we all need a hand, and sometimes the green option is to not throw things away. Dr Beckmann have been making cleaning products for over 30 years, and they have saved many of my items from the bin over the years.



If you have children, cook, garden, craft or do home mechanics then you know all about stains. Modern washing powers and liquids are brilliant, but even they can't get everything.


Dr Beckmann has a Stain Devil for almost anything. I always seem to need them to remove felt tip, blood and greasemarks, but the Stain Devils Survival Kit will actually deal with at least 50 different stains.

It takes seconds to dab the Stain Devil onto the material, and then it's guaranteed to start working within 3 minutes, so I find Stain Devils are an incredibly useful product to keep in stock to treat clothes before you do a wash.

Some surprising listings there....who'd have thought it - soot!

If you remove the stain and save the clothes, you save money and prevent waste - if you save your little ones favourite Star Wars t-shirt then you might just score some hero points too.


Dishwashers seem like a resource heavy item, but in fact they aren't. Using ours is saving us around £1 a week in energy and each full load uses at least half the water that my teenagers used to use to wash by hand.

In order to work properly and remain hygienic they need regular maintenance. A deep-clean once every two months (one month for a family like ours) kills off all the bugs and bacteria, and removes the residues that build up inside.


Dr Beckmann's 'Service It' Deep Clean Dishwasher Cleaner has a wipe to clean the door seals on your dishwasher, and then a sachet that you pour into your machine before running a cycle with the dishwasher empty.


My dishwasher is only a year old, so I'm still looking after it and have been using a cleaner regularly. This one didn't have a residual smell like others I've used, and my dishwasher looks great. I was very impressed with the door seal wipe too - it's an important part of the machine and not something we should forget about.


I first bought GloWhite 25 years ago for my work shirts and it's never let me down in all this time. It can really revitalise whites and bring them back from dingy to crisp. I also love the GloWhite for net curtains.


These days GloWhite can be used at really low temperatures, making it even more handy for man-made fibres, items with elastane etc. and it's better for the environment.


It's also easier to use - it comes in a handy in-wash sachet that you just bung in with the washload and throw away afterwards. GloWhite also contains UV sun protection, so your clothes will last longer.
 

Carpet Stain Remover is something we've all needed at one point or another I'm sure. Whether it's the carpet, the sofa or the inside of the car, a bottle like this makes the job far easier and avoids any wastage as you can target the area you want to clean, and don't have to mix up huge amounts with water which then get poured away.


It's also waaay easier if what you're cleaning up is red wine and you already had your first glass....

I've used Dr Beckmann Carpet Cleaner before. On carpets in my house and in a mobile home, and I was really happy with it. I haven't had chance to try my new one yet, but the little boys bedroom is being tidied up next weekend and there are bound to be plenty of areas of carpet that need attention...

Dr Beckmann products are available from a multitude of shops nationwide.

Stain Devils Survival Kit RRP £3.99 
Service It Deep Clean Dishwasher Cleaner RRP £2.99
Glowhite Super Whitener with UV Sun Protector RRP £1.89
Carpet Stain Remover RRP £3.59

Alpha and Omega 3 The Great Wolf Games is a familiar tale about underdogs who come through and beat the odds and show their true value. This is the 3rd Alpha and Omega movie, but you don't need to have seen the other 2 to appreciate it.