Back before Christmas I was contacted by Sally from Bottle PR to see if I would like to take part in the Poundland Weekly Essentials challenge.

How could I resist? After all I’m a bit of a fan of Poundland and love a challenge especially when it’s to do with saving money.

Poundland have recently increased their groceries range in an attempt to save families money. I consider myself to be rather a savvy shopper, so I accepted the challenge and soon received vouchers worth £15 to spend on groceries.

As I mentioned earlier, I do like Poundland anyway, but have to admit I’d not considered buying food before other than packets of biscuits or chocolates, so I was intrigued to find out exactly what they were selling.

I arrived at the large Poundland store in Coventry, once a former Woolworths. It was a  Tuesday afternoon and as usual Poundland was very busy. Before deciding what to buy I spent some time browsing the shelves to see what was on offer. I got very excited when I saw a box of Dorset cereal which I love but don’t buy due to the price. I quickly grabbed a basket and decided now was the time to start shopping!

I decided to choose carefully as I wanted to enhance my weekly shop rather than add things to it that I didn’t need. I first went for staples like pasta, rice and cereal. My kids love cereal and get through boxes of the stuff. As a result I usually buy cheaper own brands so was pleased to see a good sized box of shreddies. That should last us a day or two!

I continued to fill my basket with tea, tomato sauce, tinned salmon, olive oil and finally some treats like biscuits and heinz tinned chocolate pud! In addition to the usual ‘everything for a pound’ there were other ‘mix and match’ offers in the store. For example I bought basmati rice, 1kg of spaghetti and Loyd Grossman sauce all for £2.

One thing I will say, is that some items are not as good an offer as they may appear. For example I bought a multi bag of crisps which stated a special offer of  5 bags for the price 4. The same multi bag in supermarkets usually comes with 6 bags as standard, so it’s still important to shop wisely even if it looks like a bargain.

Once I got my booty home, I did the all important price comparison against two major supermarkets. Shopping like for like, the same products from Tesco came to £23.62 which meant I had saved £8.62. What was interesting with Tesco, was that some of the identical products had been discounted to £1 which made me wonder whether they keep an eye on Poundland and attempt to match the prices.

I then did the same online shop at Sainsbury’s where the total spend came to £30.53 which saved a whopping £15.53, double what I had spent at Poundland.

I was more than happy with what I bought from Poundland and after seeing what I could save I will definitely use it to pick up items like cereal, rice and pasta as well as traditionally more expensive items like olive oil, tinned salmon and of course…Dorset cereals!

Don’t you just love yoyo’s!

I’ve bought the boys many a yoyo over the years but they’ve never really got the hang of it! I always feel slightly excited when I get my hands on a yoyo and even though I’m not very good with them, I always imagine myself doing amazing tricks!

I have an uncle that could yoyo and when I was a kid I would spend hours watching him ‘walking the dog’ and making a ‘baby’s cradle’. I even dreamt of owning a yoyofactory but then I also used to dream about being trapped in a bakewell tart factory and having to eat my way out. Weird!

With the half term holidays upon us, I am determined to teach the boys how to yoyo…they’ll probably ask if it’s a game they can play on the Wii!!

We’re lucky enough to have a five bedroom house. Well, I say five bedroom but the fifth bedroom is just about big enough to swing a cat in! It’s strictly an office but we do house our youngest in there who up until a couple of weeks ago fitted in very nicely. But, as children do, he’s grown! Quickly and suddenly he no longer fits in his cot bed.

“I hate my bed!” he cries when I take him to bed.

Time for a shift about. My step daughter has a large bedroom at our house but as she only stays 4 nights a month we decided to put her in the little room and move youngest into the bigger room. The problem is, finding a full size bed to fit in the small space that we have.

I really wanted a day bed in there, maybe one from DayBeds.com but unfortunately they are all slightly too big.

After much searching on the internet, I came across a brilliant find at the ever wonderful Ikea. It’s basically a mattress with legs! But it fits!!!

So step-daughter and I went shopping, chose the colours, bought the bed linen, curtains and paint and we’re all ready to go. She’s happy, I’m happy and most of all no more cries of “I hate my bed!”

…come again another day!

Yes it’s raining and it’s getting boring…especially as we’re supposed to be in a drought!

It is getting to a point where staying in isn’t an option. It was OK for the first week or so but now we NEED to get out and so we did!

On May Day, I had a stall at The Earlsdon Festival in Coventry. The forecast was for heavy rain and they were right! It tipped it down….but do you know what!? We were really busy! Now, had it been sunny for a few days before and then rained, I doubt anyone would have ventured out…but…because it had rained every day leading up to the festival, people were desperate to get out!

We had a great time! We were soaking wet  and cold for most of the day, but we had great fun on our little market stall, selling all out Two Cousins Bakery wares. As you can see from the photo, we had a lovely spread set up and by the end of the day we had sold out!

After all, we do live on an island and as a result experience strange and changeable weather. What would we talk about otherwise? How hot it is or how our outdoor ceiling fan isn’t working…at least we don’t need one of those!

…..again!!

If there is one thing I hate more than really noisy kids toys, it’s the saft batteries you have to keep replacing to keep the noise going!

And if the batteries running out isn’t bad enough, it’s made worse by the kids handing me the toy and having to find the tiniest screwdriver in the world to unscrew a stack of screws.

Please someone invent rechargeable toys that can be plugged into the wall….no batteries required!

My three boys are growing up quickly…my youngest is now 4 years old and though I miss his baby ways, there are other things I really don’t miss!

Since my cousin had her baby, the memories have come flooding back. Dirty nappies, vomit, pushing a baby stroller, crawling everywhere, having eyes in the back of your head….I could go on. I do miss so much about him being a baby but there are others that I would just never go back to. Here’s to the future!

I would love it if my children were musical. Sporty yes, academic yes, but none of them are showing any signs of musical talent.

It’s not like we have nothing musical in our house. We have a guitar which was bought for me (never used it), a djembi (that’s an african drum) and even a piano that has been tuned, refined and even had new replacement piano hinges!

Nobody shows any interest in any of the above, except for middle son who went through a phase of playing the djembi. I have dreams of them becoming pop stars or session musicians or even just a chance to enter them into Britain’s Got Talent!

Well, I’ve finally taken the plunge after years of talking about it and starting my own vegetable garden!

I was going to put it off again this year, but after coming home from shopping a few weeks ago, I found hubby had dug out a patch of garden. “It’s for your vegetable garden”, he announced proudly.

I wasn’t impressed. It meant that I had to do something about it now, otherwise the lovely, freshly dug piece of land was going to turn into a great place for littlest to make his mud pies!

So today I finally planted my first veg. I had some mature strawberry plants given to me, so they went in, alongside leeks, potatoes, beetroot, broccoli, parsnips and potatoes. I have absolutely no idea what I am doing, so I’m not holding out much hope of even a seedling making an appearance! It all seems a very magical and mysterious process, one I’m definitely in the dark about.

Watch this space…as the first bits of greenery appear I’ll be posting pictures.

Following on from my earlier post about gifts for my 16-year-old, I’ve been pondering.

If only he had a hobby….something that he could collect for. I don’t mean collect beanie babies or smurfs…something like…I don’t know….drumming! That way we could just go to a music store and buy proline products to build up his range.

We have a piano but I guess once you have a piano…that’s it! You have a piano and can’t add a great deal to it! His dad is paying for a school trip to France, at least that’s what he said 6 months ago, but now the letter has arrived asking for payment, it’s all gone a bit quiet!

So it’s back to the drawing board! Anyone got any ideas?

My eldest son turns 16 in July. He’s a great kid, I couldn’t wish for a better child! Does his homework, studies, doesn’t go out much and eats everything I give him.

My dilemma is what to buy him for his birthday. I mean…what do you buy for 16-year-old boys? Girls are easy to buy for. On our recent trip to Hong Kong, I bought my step-daughter stacks of stuff and could have continued buying for her until the end of the holiday. My three boys were a lot harder and now I have this birthday to consider.

Back in my day, it was easy. A nice watch or a gold chain were an easy option and something that you treasured. My lads never wear watches and as for jewellery…ha! They’d think I had gone mad!!

To top it all, we’re at Camp Bestival on the day of his birthday, so we’re restricted by what we can take. I’m not even sure I would trust myself to take a cake without it being squashed under a ton of camping equipment.

The actual date of his birthday, 27th July, coincides with the Olympics opening ceremony so maybe I could buy him something to commemorate that….I feel some strange looks heading my way!