Unfortunately that ad isn’t available to embed, but this one takes my breath away and is worth a click, I think it makes perfect background music to this post:

I’m a Northern lass, I’ll always have an affliltation with Yorkshire.  I was born in Yorkshire, although I’ve never lived there. When I was 18 something pulled me back,  I went to Uni in Hull. I had an awesome time.  More recently I had the most amazing holiday near Malham Tarn with my parents shortly after L was born.  I went camping with my friends from Uni in Scarborough when I was pregnant with G. Last year we took our caravan to North Yorkshire. I love the mix of sea, hills and interesting stuff to do, it makes holidaying with kids so easy.

So when I was asked if we would review a trip to Sand Le Mere holiday village in North Yorkshire, in a holiday home, I said yes please. I reckon their £5 million pound redevelopment with a swimming pool, kids’ club and entertainment is going to make family holidaying in Yorkshire even easier. Plus Mr A has been nostalgic for the holiday park experiences of his childhood. I’ll admit they were never part of my holiday experience growing up, but that’s part of the reason I’m keen to try it.

The new pool design at Sand le Mere Holiday Village

We’re going in August and I will be sharing how we get on.

Special offer

There are money-saving offers available at Sand Le Mere. These include 10% off breaks taken during the school holidays, between 1-9 June, 20 July to 1 September and 26 October to 2 November. To claim the saving, you need to use the offer code EB10 and book on the website www.sand-le-mere.co.uk. I also spotted a 30% discount today on the website, for holidays at other times.

The Have a Great Yorkshire ad, if you want a look, is here

Disclaimer: I will be taking a 4 night break August 2012, in return for sharing and reviewing my experiences at Sand Le Mere.  This post does not constitute a review.

I was reminded of my daughter singing A Whole New World, from Aladdin when she was 3. I dug out the video, she’s not going to thank me for this when she’s older, it’s very funny, but it is very cute. And at age 5 she sings a whole lot better than her mum can, so who knows, maybe they’ll be digging this one out to embarrass her on X factor 2025.

What do/did your kids mispronounce?

I bloomin love video.

We took around 20 lunchbox loaves to the park last week, in a rare moment of sunshine. These are mini loaves, pre packaged, in banana or fruit flavour. So like a lunch box size mini malt loaf or banana bread.  They were all polished off in seconds.  Do you like them I asked? ‘Nom, nom, nom,’ came the reply. Out of the 50 or so loaves I gave out, only one child and two adults weren’t so keen. I thought Soreen was more like Marmite, either love or hate it, so I think this represents pretty good feedback.

The great things we came up with about the loaves were: they are very light, packaged ready to go, under 100 calories, low fat, perfect size for lunch boxes, freezable, great for quick energy, great for athletes/cyclists, great for busy kids.  I’ve also suggested them as a good snack for mums to be and new mums, over at Lazy daisy antenatal site this week.

My only complaint is they are so moreish.  But that’s where the freezer comes in.  You can take JUST one out, pop it in a lunch box or bag and it keeps everything cool, but defrosts by lunchtime.

So my time as Queen of Soreen must draw to a close, it’s been a great reign.  Let them eat cake! If you’re a Soreen lover, do go and show the Soreen facebook page some love. Don’t forget the scooter competition. The good people at MumPanel have a fab Scooter competition you can enter to win a limited edition Red Union Jack Maxi Micro Scooter worth £105.

To be in with a chance of winning this fantastic Scooter with Soreen Lunchbox loaves, just click on Mum Panel and answer a quick question.

Disclosure - I choose to blog about brands that are meaningful to my family. I am paid to express my honest opinion about Soreen. I received free samples.

He’s never really liked rules….but I think that’s finally coming into it’s own.  I think he has a future in the movement they call the YBAs (Young British Artists).  A couple of weeks back I left him in the kitchen and came back to find he’d emptied the cupboards to create this work of art smiling back at me.

A few months back it was all about making it snow inside with a bag of flour.

He’s also been creating a giant spider web with a ball of wool and has been caught wrapping the house from top to bottom in toilet roll.

Artist at work.  Do not disturb.

I’ve stayed in Youth Hostels as a student and while travelling abroad, but I haven’t stayed in a Youth Hostel as a family since I was little. I remember visiting a Snowdonia hostel as a family.  My Mum told us about her adventures youth hostelling as a teenager in the days of helping out with jobs, bringing your own bedding, lights out and making your own food. Now you can have a private en suite room with bedding provided, have meals and packed lunches prepared for you, or self cater and there’s no expectation to muck in with the chores.

YHA properties don’t claim to compete with larger chain hotels but have definitely had a facelift that resembles them. Browsing the YHA website each property has lots of images, description and information which makes choosing a hostel easy.  How welcoming is this room at Losehill Hall?

And the dining room looks fab too:

I’m most excited about having a packed lunch made up for us each day, the little things that take the stress out of a weekend away and allow you to get on with adventuring out and about with small children.  The food on the families and individuals menu is seasonal and features regional specialities.  Breakfast is a full hot and cold buffet, lunch a packed lunch and dinner 3 courses or a cafe bar style menu in city hostels. Children under 10 eat free when adults purchase a main meal in YHA restaurants, and in addition to smaller portions from the main menu there are Annabel Karmel meals.

Hostels can be an affordable way to get out into the country or to explore big cities, there are several hostels in London for example.

The Summer break offer

The YHA are offering Alexander Residence readers a very special offer which covers the majority of hostels:

Getaway with YHA this summer and stay in a family room for only £99 for 3 nights!! Simply book by 12th June for stays between 6th July and 17th September. Enter your offer code FAMSTAY-025 at the checkout or give us a call on 01629 592 700 and enjoy a well-deserved break for an incredible price.

To book a YHA family break using this Alexander Residence offer and to read the terms and conditions, you’ll need to go to this page: www.yha.org.uk/aresidence. Please note food is not included.

There’s a little legacy in this post, and I’ll leave you with a hazy shot, there’s my mum back in the mid 80s, in the blue trousers, outside a Snowdonia youth hostel.  Mum was a Woodcraft Folk leader and we went hostelling with lots of other familes. Hostels are a great way for large groups to get together.  I have a good friend locally who hires out an entire hostel once a year for a reunion with her friends from University and their expanding families. She says it works perfectly.

I will report back on our visit later in the month!

I’m exhausted from concentrating and high on glue fumes after today, but it’s been awesome.  Along with 14 other local bloggers I helped to make one of the Windows in Exxopolis the next Luminarium. A Luminarium looks like this:

I’d been harping on to people about sticking together a PVC stained glass window for a giant inflatable sculpture, but it doesn’t hit you quite what that means.  That the window design is based on intricate Islamic geometric patterns. That if you don’t stick a seam properly and the right way up, then the air can seep out, or the rain seep in.  That one side of the PVC is shiny and the other dull, but only in some lights. That it’s going to tour the world, be seen by thousands of people and have to survive in extremes of heat and cold. It’s a HUGE responsibility.

It definitely revealed a great deal about the thinking styles of the bloggers present.

Hello its Gemma, Mammasaurus and Catherine got stuck in, Gemma kept the chat flowing…

Emma from Mummy Musings and her Mini Musing, who was an absolute angel, chatted to Becky from Baby Budgeting.

We welcomed Annie from Mammasaurus on her tour of the UK to raise awareness for Save the Children with #blogitforbabies.Becky from Baby Budgeting claimed it was too hard and she’d only cope for an hour, but ended up sticking til the end.Gemma, still not actually sticking, but she also brought amazing lemon drizzle cake.Lovely Louise from My Gorgeous Boys brought gorgeous cakes, here she is putting together a section of the windowCharlotte from The Crumby Mummy brought awesome chocolate cupcakesRuth from Mini Break Mummy made a really awesome AudioBoo about making our Luminarium window Annie has a croaky voice poor thing and you can hear me too. It’s the first AudioBoo I have listened too and it’s really impressive, I am hooked.
I met Lucy from LishConcepts for the first time, and she was a really lovely person to sit next to and very supportive when I got repeatedly stuck.Here’s Ruth, Lucy and me getting stuck in.And a pre lunch celebrationCharlotte was unstoppable and here she is celebrating a pretty star section with Kim from Architects of Air
And this is me celebrating graduating from 3 piece sections, to a whopping 7 piece section. Seriously it’s that complicated.

@FireflyPhil really got his head round the bigger picture, here he is piecing our smaller sections together. Too much for my not so geometric or logical brain.Charlotte modelling her massive section

Jen from Love Chic Living so had the right kind of brain for this, all this and she just popped in for an hour after work. It took the rest of us an hour to glue two diamonds together…

Here’s one we made earlier! Rosie Scribble, me, Becky, Jen, Annie and Phil holding up the final two segments
It was really lovley to meet up as a local group of bloggers, we had lots to talk about, tips to share and ideas for the future.  It was lovely to get a visit from SuperLucky Di, who gave us good insights into running competitions, which she will be talking about at Cybher, and Di the amazing lady behind Buggy Tug, Teddy Tug and Toddler Tug buggy straps.

We’re all really excited about Wheee! Children’s festival at Lakeside Arts, Nottingham 2-9 June 2012.

Huge thanks to Andrea, Kim and Emily from Architects of Air for their patience and guidance and to Lakeside Arts for their fab hospitality. Thanks to all the amazing bloggers involved, who made Nottingham rock.  And look out for us in the Nottingham Post Saturday magazine.

It’s not too late to reward our efforts, you can text donate in aid of Save The Children #blogitforbabies Text XVRL71£1 to 70070, more info on the Blog it for Babies blog.

I may come back and add some link love and proof read, for now I need to rest my weary head.

I’ll leave you with Amanda (and Becky) in a section of the Luminarium we previewed at a press launch last month.  Somehow she dodged my camera.

Penny

x

It turns out Soreen is much more than just malt loaf these days.  There’s a even a Soreen Toastie loaf and perfectly portioned lunch box loaves. I confess initially I didn’t mention my son to Mum Panel as I had a feeling he wouldn’t like malt loaf, but how wrong was I?  Look at Mr G taking on the Soreen Toastie loaf:

The Soreen Toastie loaf was a really clever take on malt loaf, lighter and really yummy straight out the toaster, buttered and warm.  It’s a lovely mix of chewy and crunchy and it’s low in saturated fat. Here’s my more grown up version of Toastie loaf indulgence.

Next week I’ll have more on Lunchbox loaves and Miss L will get a look in.

Meanwhile the good people at MumPanel have a fab Scooter competition you can enter to win a limited edition Red Union Jack Maxi Micro Scooter worth £105.

To be in with a chance of winning this fantastic Scooter with Soreen Lunchbox loaves, just click on Mum Panel and answer a quick question.

And if all this talk of Soreen has your mouth watering, here’s a handy guide to where you can buy Soreen products and here’s the Soreen facebook page.

Disclosure – I choose to blog about brands that are meaningful to my family. I am paid to express my honest opinion about Soreen. I received free samples.

If you have even the slightest flutter of Britmums Live Butterflies, don’t fear.  Something rather lovely is planning its first solo flight at Britmums Live this Summer, look!

More on the butterfly project here

Edited by me.

For those who haven’t set foot in a Luminarium before, they are beautiful exploratory inflatable sculptures which tour the world, here’s my sneak preview of EXXOPOLIS.

Here’s me, Becky, from Baby Budgeting and Amanda from The Ana Mum Diary in front of an example of the kind of window we’ll be making happen.

As we prepare something totally huge for the Wheee! Children’s festival it seems fitting that we raise some funds for children in poverty. We’re giving our time to stick and glue this huge window that thousands of children and their grown ups around the world will enjoy, and we’re hoping in return our lovely readers might text donate a pound to Mammasaurus’s Just Giving page and/or retweet and share our exploits on the day. Text XVRL71 £1 to 70070,

Penny, a section of window and EXXOPOLIS

It’s going to be a great opportunity to network with some fabulous East Midlands based bloggers (Alexander Residence, Ana Mum Diary, Baby Budgeting, Hello its Gemma, Rosie Scribble, A Mummy Too, Love Chic Living, Mini Break Mummy, My Gorgeous Boys to name a few) You can also find out more about Lakeside Arts, Whee! and Architects of Air and it sounds like the BBC are popping in. There’s always room for more bloggers on the team, contact Penny.

Our work will have it’s world premiere in Nottingham at the Wheee! Children’s theatre and dance festival from 2-9th June. Wheee! culminates in a family weekend on the 9 and 10 June, with free craft, art, spontaneous performance and fun in the parkland around the arts centre, plus even more shows to choose from. Book shows now, the weekend attracted over 4,000 visitors last year.