We're keeping busy this Summer and one of our busiest weekends will be the Just So Festival on 21st-23rd August near Congleton in Cheshire. An invitation to come and camp and join in the fun really was the email that made my week.


We'll be taking 3 of our children to Just So Festival - our 5 and 6 year old boys, and our 15 year old girl. None of us have been before, so we're really intrigued as to what will be there and how it will be laid out. The boys haven't had much experience of festivals, and probably none that they can really remember, but my daughter is a pro - she thoroughly tested the kid's fields at her first Glastonbury at 2 years old, and has been to a ton of other UK festivals too.

Hopefully my daughter won't want a shoulder ride this year!

The Tale Of City Sue is a really quite cute and charming story which has been commissioned by the Irish dairy company Kerrygold. It's a story about a city cow, Sue, who goes to live with the free-range country cows and discovers a whole new way of life. At first she's a bit scared of some of the crazy things they do - like eat grass - but she soon realises it's actually a pretty good way to be.


The Tale Of City Sue is actually a little deeper and more intelligent than children might realise, and it points out all of the differences between free-range and indoor factory farmed animals. We're very lucky that the majority of our large UK livestock does live outdoors, and it's something we here at The Brick Castle feel very strongly about.

If you're a parent of a 16 year old about to decide which path they'll be taking next September, how would you react if they told you they wanted to go to college to study Games, Animation and VFX Skills?

This year our 4th teenager has completed their GCSE's and is moving on to further education, and next year our 5th teenager will reach this point. But what comes next? Traditionally for students who do well at GCSE A Levels were always the next step, but this is a completely different world to the world of 1951 when A Levels were introduced, and education is beginning to change in an effort to try and keep up.


When I left school it had always been expected I'd do A Levels, and I didn't give it a second thought. University didn't seem to be an option to me when I left College as I had a house and mortgage, and I went straight into a full time job which actually required no qualifications. In the 27 years since, the vocational qualifications I have gained after I became an adult have all proven far more useful to me, and gained me more work, than my years at College studying A Levels.

Traditional learning often just isn't as relevant as it used to be. Which is a better life skill for a 16 year old in 2015 - memorising case studies and dates, or being able to separate fact from fiction when you do a Google search?

On 15th July the LEGO Creator Ferrari F40 set 10248 became available to LEGO.com VIPs and my partner's order arrived on Saturday morning. He's been looking forward to this large scale expert level model since he first saw it, and really has not been disappointed at all with the build, the size, complexity or design.


Recommended for builders aged 14+ the LEGO Ferrari F40 has an amazing 1158 elements, making a model 14cm x 27cm. This gives you an idea of just how dense this model is going to be, even with a higher percentage of smaller pieces. At £69.99 and with Ferrari branding and gorgeous design, this model (just like the 3 Speed Champions Hybrid Supercars) represents an excellent value LEGO set.

This month has been hard. We are reaching all of the milestones and events that make up our last weeks with Elspeth. Summer, like Christmas and birthdays, presents us with a million snapshots and  memories.

The exams and the revision was hard. Prom was very hard. Thinking about arranging a holiday is incredibly hard. All I can think of is the lovely holidays we had when the children were small. 5 little people bobbing around excitedly and us constantly head-counting to make sure we hadn't mislaid one. Parking near the cheapest ice cream van to save ourselves a fiver, and always looking for the nearest toilet. Dreading them deciding to rockpool because someone always fell in, or skinned their knees and had to be carried back to the van, still clutching a bucket with 15ml of water and some poor 5 legged crab who was probably already dead when they picked it up, but we hadn't the heart to tell them.
 
The hardest bit is the never going back. Never undoing, never having a second chance. But never being sure of what we could have changed if we had.

Knowing that we are about to mark our first full year is hard. It doesn't seem possible. Even with all that my ridiculous hernia has put us through, there's no way it seems like 11 months. It seems like minutes. I still expect her to come running downstairs and slip on that last step, like she always did. I still have to work out how many people we have for tea. Her little brother still mentions her casually in conversation, then suddenly pauses, and I pause, and we look at each other, but now we smile at each other and we can carry on with what we were saying.

This month I went to Britmums, and I read Dear Elspeth (you can see my croaky attempt here), and I utterly exhausted myself. I knew it would be hard, and it really was emotionally much harder than I expected, but I was so well looked after. I couldn't have done it without all of the help from my friends - they made it possible - and I came back to Manchester no worse off physically than if I'd been at home.

Another event which was harder emotionally than we expected  was acting as support team for Sim while she ran the Race For Life. We had been so busy working out the best place to park for the least walking for me, and whether we should take scooters. Really we should just have been discussing tissues. Seeing all of those people with names of loved ones who have died, or been through hell and come through the other side, really was more than we were able to deal with unexpectedly. Should have thought that one through and been more ready for it.

It's been a hard and very emotional month and I know we have hard times ahead, but we've tried to fill the next month with things to keep us busy. I am beginning to get back into household tasks and well into recovery from my Hernia operation now - something that pleases my partner greatly! The fact I'm much more well than I have been for months has removed a lot of the stress and pressure on the entire household.

We are still finding the smiles, and this last month marked an important milestone. It is exactly 2 years since my partner became ill with Meningitis. He is still here, and aside from small memory problems, a limp and leg pain, he is now just who he used to be.

Here are the smiles I've collected this month....

Bolts & Blip: Battle Of The Lunar League is released by Lionsgate Home Entertainment on 27th July - in perfect time for the Summer holidays. An animated children's adventure set in a future where the Moon is populated by robots. The robots are split into 2 types - cool and athletic BattleBots and the less cool and not at all athletic CiviBots, who really just take care of admin.
 


Bolts and Blip have a burning desire to become BattleBots, and as luck would have it, they're drafted into the Thunderbolts team - who are placed last in the Lunar League Of Robotic Sports and in need of fresh team members. They have to prove their ability and beat all of the other teams - including evil Dr Blood and the Galaxy All-Stars - to become the champions.

The Art Of Making Gelato: 50 Flavours To Make At Home is a hefty hardback book which really does have a huge range of gelato, and a few sorbets for you to make yourself. Proud of her Italian heritage, Morgan Morano shares her passion by teaching the tradition of 'True Italian Gelato'.


In the introduction we are told that Gelato (Italian Ice Cream) differs from American Ice Cream in 3 specific ways - Gelato is lower in butterfat, it is denser than American ice cream, and Gelato is served at a warmer temperature.

Yesterday we all spent a gorgeous day at Heaton Park in Manchester, the sun shone (but not enough to burn us), we even had a lovely picnic, but it wasn't just your everyday visit, we were there to support my friend Sim who was running the 5k Cancer Research UK Race For Life.


All worries about where exactly to go for the start were immediately put to one side when we arrived. Apart from the fact there were signs everywhere, there were also hundreds of other people dressed in pink and all walking the same way. The organisers had set out a huge arena with a giant screen and a stage, and there were stalls for food, drinks and information. You couldn't have missed it!

Fresh on the shelves from today is a brand new range of 12 'To Go' snack packs from the incredibly well-known healthier snack favourites Graze. We had a real treat a week ago because we were sent the whole range to review before the public release.


There are 5 savoury snack packs and 7 sweeter snacks. Care and effort has gone into the recipes to make sure they have nutritional benefits as well as being really tasty.