The last two years of my life have sped past so incredibly slowly. A moment in time that I'll carry with me forever, memories that will never ever be distant, yet every minute since has dragged into an eternity and I cannot remember life before her loss.

I wish I could say that I had the confidence I found 3 months ago. My days are spent collecting the pieces of our lives and frantically trying to put them back together, carrying on in that way that I appear to manage so very well.

But it feels like a lie. I watch over my shoulder the whole time, I stuff random collections in bags, and grab what I can as quickly as possible before running away to hide again. The need to be under cover is so great when above our heads is the most huge of clouds. One of our children is not with us at the top of our mountain, cannot bear to start collecting up those pieces. And that tortures us all.

As all parents will understand, date night with your partner can end up a rare and illusive beast, especially if you are lacking in regular babysitters. Life gets in the way and before you know it the closest you've come in 2 years is the occasional 2 person meal in the kitchen, which is lacking a little in excitement and romance. Plan Our Date help to give you back that spark of unknown, and inject a little surprise and 'couple time' into your relationship.


Each month they send out a little box of treasures for you and your partner to have a date night with a difference. We've been sent the July box to review, and when I peeped inside at first I wasn't sure it was for us, but it's good for everyone to try something new, and doing it together with just your partner really does serve to help you focus on each other for one very rare evening...

Don't Rock The Boat is a fairly classic game and was one of our favourites when our older children were younger. Pieces went missing years ago, so I was delighted when I was given the chance to review the new version from University Games featuring Pirate Penguins!


Suitable for 2-4 players aged 5 and up, there are several ways to play Don't Rock The Boat, with varying difficulty. This makes it an excellent game for playing with younger children, teaching turn-taking and winning and losing, and is brilliant for promoting fine motor skills, hand-eye co-ordination and simply being careful...

It's a rare day that the entire family can pick up a book and be taken away into an amazing world of imagination and adventure, but The Gloriumptious Worlds Of Roald Dahl has that quality. Full of nostalgia and magic, this is a scrapbook of stories, characters and creations from 15 of Roald Dahl's best loved children's books, and I am delighted to have a copy to give away to one of my readers.


My full review of The Gloriumptious Worlds Of Roald Dahl is here, and we love it. Everyone in my house, from age 6 to 45 has been spotted grinning at the pages. This is a book full of all the interesting bits and pieces you didn't consider or see when you read Roald Dahl's books - tickets and receipts, posters and letters, adverts and information galore.

Roald Dahl would have been 100 this September and one of the new releases to commemorate is a fascinating book celebrating his classic and timeless children's stories. The Gloriumptious World Of Roald Dahl from Carlton Books is illustrated by Mr Dahl's long-time collaborator Quentin Blake and brought together by the children's author Stella Caldwell, and it really is an absolute treasure.


This is not a collection of Roald Dahl's stories, it's an accompaniment, and although it will mean a lot more once you know each of the tales featured, you could enjoy it in it's own right. The Gloriumptious Worlds is crammed with imagined backstory, comments and quotes, and fantastic oddities and items that set the scene for the stories.

Meccano have recently raised their game immensely, including expanding with the amazing Tech range of award-winning programmable Meccanoids. Brand new for this Autumn are 3 smaller models, the Micronoids, and we are lucky enough to be among the very first people to try one out. We've been sent Basher to review...


Basher has 139 pieces and is really quite a technical build, so is recommended for age 8+. The packaging is a mix of the simple and the annoying, but minimal and mainly recyclable.


Inside the box you have the robot head, a bag of angled joining pieces, a bag of nuts, bolts and washers, 3 bags of plastic parts, multi-purpose Meccano screwdriver and spanner, and the instruction booklet. Helpfully there is also a card with the number to ring in case of any issue or problem.

Back in the olden days, when no-one in our house had exams, and schools were allowed to appreciate the value of time away with your family, I took my older children to festivals each year. My younger boys haven't been quite so lucky, but they're not novices. As well as the music, the performances and the sheer spectacle, it also introduced your children to a wide variety of foods which they may not be so keen or likely to experience at home.


It was at Glastonbury where I discovered that frozen yogurt or ice cream is the best way to get liquid and sugar into a 4 year old who is hot and over tired - plus they'll sleep when their tummy is full of milky goodness (long overdue thank you for that Yeo Valley). It may also have been at Glastonbury I discovered this trick also works someone who is incredibly hung over....


Festival food has changed so much over the past 30 years that it has become unrecognisable from the greasy soggy chips I was eternally grateful for at Glastonbury in the 90's. Vegetarians have choice, and meat-eaters are not left torn between the eternal Hot Dog or Burger? Widespread use of  diesel generators and portable fridges and freezers has turned it around completely. Never again is there any excuse to accept a slightly mouldy sandwich, however many lemonades I drink beforehand...

Beets BLU are well known for their innovative gadgets which make use of Bluetooth connections to connect to your phone or tablet. We've previously reviewed a keyfob which alerts you to where you have left your keys, and we've now been sent their Digital Bathroom Scale with Body Composition to review.


Well packaged and with clear, simple instructions, it really is a complete doddle to set up. The quick-start basically involves downloading the app to your device, putting the batteries (included) into the scale, and stepping on.

Asterix: The Mansions Of The Gods will be coming to a cinema near you in 2D and 3D from 19th August, and we've been lucky enough to have a sneak preview screening. A computer animated adventure movie with a voice cast that includes an amazing array of popular UK comedians from different genres, it promised big things and hasn't disappointed.


My partner and I grew up reading Asterix books, but in recent years they haven't seemed so popular, and my young boys didn't know the stories at all. They do now! The cast really bring all of the characters to life and this is one of the funniest films we've watched this year.

The deadpan Jim Broadbent as Julius Caesar and Greg Davis and The Centurion work really well against Jack Whitehall as Asterix and Nick Frost as Obelix. There is slapstick humour throughout, and this is an innocent movie, no-one dies or suffers horrific injuries, they're more likely to be attacked by a fish for singing too loud.

The Folio Society have been producing gorgeous editions of timeless classic literature for almost 70 years. We were given the opportunity to review, and I chose a relatively modern book which has been read and enjoyed by almost our whole family, The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams.


As soon as your book arrives, you know this is something special. The quality is often shown in the detail, and the packaging really delighted me, I love this box!