I was on the hunt for a children’s radio station to have on in the background while my daughter was playing. I don’t want to shelter her from the rest of the world but find some of the current news is a bit graphic for a 7 year old and many topics I’m not quite ready to discuss. You just have to look at a few of the current Headlines ‘8 Dead in Florida House Shooting’, ‘Islamic State Plots to Behead’ and ‘Suspect Murdered his Wife’ to see what I mean.
I don’t tend to pay attention to a lot of lyrics in songs and happily sing along not having a clue what it’s about and I’m sure my daughter is the same, but I’d rather not have her singing things like “stay up all night to get lucky” and “I know you want it”. Call me old fashioned!
After a quick Google search I came across Fun Kids, which seems perfect, good selection of tunes old and new and slightly censored news. They have iphone and ipad apps but as I have a Sonos Stereo I simply searched for it using the Sonos Software and then added it to my favourites, so my daughter can easily access it via an iPad.
As many of you know I have recently turned 40 and I look a bit worse for wear. In an attempt, to stay looking younger, I’ve tried quite a few things from sticking 100s of tiny pins into my face to a mild chemical peal! However, I’m not willing to go under the knife…..yet!
A few months ago, prior to my first Radio Frequency treatment; which is a non-invasive treatment where a device is used to heat up the skin to 42 degrees to stimulate collagen growth, thus reducing wrinkles, I announced on Twitter that I was having Radio Therapy which is a whole different kettle of fish. I do apologise if I caused any alarm.
I haven’t done a ‘Cilla Black’ and they didn’t need to freeze my face first. It’s virtually painless. You get the odd ting when the frequency bounces off a bone, a rather odd sensation but not painful in the least and at times it may get a bit warm. The procedure takes about 45 minutes and I nearly fell asleep as I was so relaxed. Following the treatment, Carolina from the Anti-Ageing Clinic, who has the skin of a 30 year old but is my age (b*tch), put a cooling mask on my face. There was a rather technical name for it but in short it’s full of water.
Then she uses a red light, which again stimulates collagen growth. Apparently, you can buy one of these and use them at home but personally can’t see myself doing that as I’m lucky if I remember to take my make up off before hitting my silk pillow.
As I’ve said I’ve tried a few other things and honestly, this is the only one that I have instantly noticed a difference. I have had two treatments (£75 each) my crow’s feet and laugh lines are by no means gone, but are now a lot better.
Apparently, our next adventure is the Dermaroller Pen! I’ll let you know how we get on!
Disclosure: the treatments were compliments of the Anti-Ageing Clinic
One perk of being a parent blogger is sometimes I get invited to do some interesting things. The lovely Nick Coffer from Weekend Kitchen on BBC 3 Counties radio invited me into his show this weekend. Each week he has a panel of 3 experts; a chef, a wine expert and an enthusiastic home cook. I’m not really sure how I sneaked on the panel.
It was quite amusing that I was invited in as I’m not known for my cooking prowess, but I’m a slow cooker fanatic and have been called the slow cooker queen on a couple of occasions.
Between the 3 of us we had quite a feast complimented by some very tasty wines. The theme was Guy Fawkes Night. We had Welsh rarebit (I panicked slightly as I thought they said rabbit), a sausage casserole, a bean casserole with squeaky cheese, blueberry crème brûlée and my now infamous Sticky Toffee Pudding Cake or should I say ‘stiffy’ Toffee Pudding…..yes, I did say stiffy on the radio and here’s proof!
When I was first asked to some on the show, I knew I had to make a main dish, which wasn’t a problem but when the lovely producer Emma emailed me and asked which pudding I would be doing, I panicked. As a family, we don’t really eat puddings as we don’t have sweet teeth and I’ve never made a ‘proper’ cake before. However, I rallied to the challenge, hit Google and came up with a recipe.
Too cut a long story short, it took three attempts to get a cake that was vaguely acceptable. The first one went straight into the bin, it didn’t rise and at one point there was smoke billowing out of the cooker. I thought the second one was a bit overdone and the apple slices on top had sunk like the Titanic.
As, I’m a huge fan of slow cooking someone suggested doing one in the slow cooker, so, at 10.30 pm the night before I had a go. However, as it was done in foil and once it is finished you had to turn it upside down on a plate, we had no idea until right before the show whether it worked or not and to say the least….it didn’t. The only way I can describe it is that it resembled ‘dog food that just slid out of the tin’ in both texture and colour.
Thank goodness I had decided to take cake number two in as a back up and in the end it was quite nice. It was a Spiced Toffee Apple Cake, which I found on the BBC Good Food Website. I should have quit while I was ahead.
Thanks to Nick and Emma for a great day and fabulous experience. One I will never forget.
I was on the hunt for a children’s radio station to have on in the background while my daughter was playing. I don’t want to shelter her from the rest of the world but find some of the current news is a bit graphic for a 7 year old and many topics I’m not quite ready to discuss. You just have to look at a few of the current Headlines ‘8 Dead in Florida House Shooting’, ‘Islamic State Plots to Behead’ and ‘Suspect Murdered his Wife’ to see what I mean.
