Get Ready For School With Nadiya's Lunch Box Hacks

With back to school just around the corner, BBC Good Food Show star, Nadiya Hussain, has shared her favourite lunchbox hacks.

Nadiya says:

"In between waking and dressing my three, lively children, preparing breakfast for the family, finishing emails and doing laundry, making up pack lunches in the morning is often a rather rushed job. I’m not a fan of filling their boxes, or their stomachs with junk food. I will not lie, there have been times where I have just given the kids the easiest option, a packet of crisps, a small bar of chocolate, a biscuit (or two) and I still do every now and again but these treats are saved for the weekend.

The reason being, I noticed when at home that the kids were like yoyos. After school they would slumped, tired and exhausted from the day on the sofa. As I would rush around preparing the dinner they had a quick sweet treat and would instantly become high as kites and excitable. This excitement would last for 30 minutes or so, and be quickly followed by a huge sugar crash. It then dawned on me that the same would be happening to them whilst at school and of course I didn’t want my food choices for them to affect their concentration and behaviour at school.

To save me time, I always have a few snacks ready in the fridge that I can to pop in, ensuring that they eat well whilst away from home. I also have some great suggestions for quick and easy bites that can be made in the morning.

Here is a list of a few of our favourites:

1. Hummus Celery Sticks – cut slices of celery sticks about 2 inches long. Fill the inside with hummus and wrap with cling film.

2. Summer fruit spring rolls – take a circle of rice paper and soak for a few seconds till soft. Squeeze off any excess water and place down. Add any fruit, the more colourful the better and warp like a spring roll. Wrap in tin foil for the perfect lunch box surprise.

3. It might sounds obvious but I sometimes pop in a hardboiled egg – I like to keep boiled eggs in the fridge during the week. They are quick, simple and nutritious and very easy to eat. Wrap in kitchen roll to ensure the kids have something to peel the shell on to.

4. Turkey ham wrapped cheese sticks – take a small stick of cheese and wrap around a slice of turkey ham! Simple and delicious

5. Apple and Peanut Rings – core and horizontally slice a green apple, spread the tops with smooth peanut butter and pop into a mini Tupperware box.

Nadiya Hussein

6. Mini omelettes – whisk up some eggs and add onion, cheese, chives and chopped peppers. Grease and pour the mix into a 12 muffin cupcake tin and bake in the oven until cooked. Once cooled these be stored for a week and my kids love them!"

These are really simple and look much better alternatives than biscuits when the kids come home from school starving.  You can find more lunchbox tips here.

Nadiya will be cooking live at the BBC Good Food Show London – Olympia 11-13 November and Birmingham – NEC 24-27 November. Tickets on sale now: https://www.bbcgoodfoodshow.com

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The Bad Mother's 21 Point Guide To Knowing When To Send The Kids Back To School

1.  It says term starts on a day in September somewhere on a piece of paper that has been in the bottom of your bag since July.  You will obviously have to check this rumour with all the other mums via Facebook.

2. Vast swathes of Valencia filtered holiday photos featuring happy children in water parks have started to appear in your Instagram feed.  Each photo is accompanied by a minimum of 20 hastags #OhPants.

3. You have watched every single episode of Horrid Henry and Mr Bean and now wince when you hear the opening music.

4. You cannot face another kids' meal containing battered cod or chicken.

5.  You have resorted to making rude faces with the sweets that come with the kids' ice cream - in the kids' ice cream.

6.  The kids have actually just read a book voluntarily

7.  You've put on 10 pounds from snacking with the kids - elevenses, three'ses and that strange half hour before tea where you know you shouldn't feed them but CAN'T TAKE THE MOANING ANY MORE.

8.  Having failed to deliver on 90% of the promises you made before the holiday started (yes we will canter through white capped waves at dawn before frying our own breakfast on a camping stove), you cave in and agree to take them to the local cinema for the latest kiddy flick and a £15 bag of pick 'n' mix.

9.  You are happily referring to red wine as "mummy's special squash".

10.  The bottom of your handbag is a sticky morass of spilt brown sugar from coffee shop packets which have combined to create a caramel so strong you could stick yourself to the ceiling with it.

This makes finding the bit of paper with the term dates on even more tricky [see point 1]

11.  Rather than Mary Poppins, you now resemble a woman on the edge after 6 weeks of terrible PMS and the only thing that is cheering you up is the fact that you'll soon be able to spend more time with adults somewhere that doesn't have a ball pit or carry the risk of deafness simply by entering the building.

12.  Reading weepy posts from mothers missing their children before 9 am on the first day back is making you question whether you accidentally took someone else's children home from the hospital.

13.  Your book "30 minutes to a cleaner home" is now buried under a pile of school shoe boxes, crisp packets and guarded by Shopkins.

14.  Shopkins are everywhere.

15.  They are starting to look at you with their little evil eyes, particularly Linda Layercake which was apparently named after you.

16.  You develop an unholy terror of Claire's Accessories.

17.  Along with your terrible case of "Lego Foot".

18. You start to feel uncharacteristically wistful and even tearful at the thought of sending the kids back to school.

19.  Combined with an unearthly sense of jubilation that you have survived!

20.  You unearth your Ugg-alikes just to see the horror on our husband's face and you practise the 'mum bun' for the right degree of dishevelment.

21.  Weirdly,  you feel compelled to work out how many days until half term because, if you're honest, you don't mind the kids really, plus having them home is an excuse to eat crisps.

Celebrate your maternal feelings I say!  Have a great new term.

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Review: Wicked Uncle Toys - Devilishly Easy To Use

When I was young, shopping for toys involved perusing the shelves in your local department store throughout the year or, come Christmas, dragging your parents around the overheated, fake snow and glitter filled grottos for Santa.

It's the heat I remember mostly.  There was always a pensioner having a fit of the vapours parked precariously on a chair just outside whilst the staff fanned them with a towel.  Air conditioning was just a distant dream.

As my sister Sarah and I got older, our relatives just gave up trying to guess what we liked and gave us vouchers.  Now fond as I am of a voucher, it's just not the same as being given a present which tugs at the heart strings because it's just what you wanted and it's right for your age.

Today, more than ever, matching the toy to the child's age requires a mathematical equation not dissimilar to getting the Hadron Particle Collider to work which is probably easier sometimes than finding a child's gift what will keep them entertained for more than 2 minutes.

So I was intrigued when the devilishly named Wicked Uncle wrote to me and suggested a solution. They have a website filled with an amazing mix of gifts for children of all ages, sorted by age, category or gender.

This is not only useful for buying presents for your own and other kids in the family but a very useful solution to that bane of parents' term-time lives - deciding what gift to give at a children's party, what budget is right (without being considered mean) and whether that gift is suitable for their age.

I frequently ask Caitlin and Ieuan "but what does so-and-so like?" to be greeted either by a shrug of the shoulders or 'Shopkins' (the modern day equivalent of the Tribble from Star Trek).

Wicked Uncle kindly gave us a budget of £40 to road-test their site and so Caitlin and Ieuan were given £20 to choose their own gift.

There was, in fact, so much choice that Ieuan was quite overwhelmed with it all and I had to choose for him.

The website is really simple to use -

Simply select the relevant criteria for the child you're buying for to be taking to an appropriate selection of gifts.

Then choose the category of gift you think they might like.  I particularly liked that the girls' gifts included as many science / maths / experiment gifts as the boys'.  Whilst there are enough 'traditionally girly' gifts to delight your average pony / kitten/ pink loving girl, there are equally plenty of gifts to stimulate their minds and help with the school curriculum.

Caitlin chose Shadow, a Lavish Lanky Cat  (£12.95) which is a gorgeously soft, floppy toy cat with baleful green eyes.

She also chose the My Very Own Fairy & Unicorn Torch & Projector (£6.95).

The latter is a fun torch that projects images of fairies and unicorns around your room. It has 24 colour images to project on to your walls and ceilings including fairies, unicorns and their magical homes.

The images project up to one metre wide and come on three slide discs you simply slot in. You can also use it as a normal torch without the slides in place and is useful for keeping on bedside tables to give comfort to children during the night.

I chose for Ieuan and got him the Night Goggles Spy Gear (£19.95).  These have tinted blue lenses to enhance night vision and a switch on full mode which gives directional beams of bright LED light, leaving both hands free to explore.

You can also flip out the scope with it's 2x magnifying lens to spot targets from greater distances.

Needless to say we have had to promise to take him to the woods at dusk so he can scare the living daylights out of any dog walker out for a pleasant evening stroll.

Our gifts arrived really quickly (within 48 hours) of ordering and were securely packaged.  There is even a rather cute postcard included in the box addressed to the gift-giver.

And, as for the acid test, both kids are still playing with their toys 3 days later and Ieuan has not managed to break his Night Goggles yet.



I was impressed by Wicked Uncle and I think their site will be a godsend this Christmas for choosing presents for kids which will pique their imagination without emptying your purse.

You can find out more at www.wickeduncle.co.uk.

*We were given £40 to spend at Wicked Uncle for the purposes of this review.

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Review: Necta Perfecta Beautifying Mask By Bee Good

When I was much younger, we used to holiday in Dolgellau, mid Wales and the gift shops used to be full of gorgeous smelling creams and lotions made from local honey.  I can still smell that wonderful warm and comforting honeyed scent now.

Fast forward a few (cough) years and I haven't managed to find anything that captured the same home-grown, organic, good for you, honey-scented luxury cosmetic feel until now.

In fact, I discovered Bee Good's Necta Perfecta via a review by one of my favourite bloggers, Rachel Montague-Ebbs (LadyM) and Bee Good were kind enough to send me a sample to try for myself.

Necta Perfecta is a 4-in-1 face and body enzyme mask which you can use

- as a weekly scalp treatment to promote overall hair and scalp hydration

- as a facial complexion booster to refine, hydrate and visibly improve skin suppleness whilst actively targeting the signs of ageing

- as a hand rescue remedy to moisturise and restore vitality to hands and cuticles

- as an SOS mask for sore, dry or challenged skin on areas such as elbows, knees and feet to soften and gently remove dead skin cells.

It's made by awarding winning company Bee Good who launched their range in 2013 inspired by Simon, their expert beekeeper.  They are encouraging everyone to plant a meadow, even if it's a few bee friendly flowers - and my package contained a bee-mix seedball containing seeeds of Birdsfoot Trefoil, Red Clover, Wild Marjoram and Echium.

There was also a little package of very cute bee chocolates which did indeed taste of honey.

Necta Perfecta contains:-

* natural alpha hydroxyl acids from 5 fruit enzymes
* wheatgerm oil, rich in Vitamin E
* a blend of British honey and beeswax with three natural waxes, jojoba, mimosa and sunflower
* British Propolis and the wonder ingredient Bisabolol which is naturally found in Chamomile

I tried the product as a facial mask and left it on for 20 minutes.  I was expecting it to smell divine (it does) and to soften my skin (certainly does), but I was surprised to find that it left my skin firmer, clearer and had removed the dry skin from the two annoying small patches that have been troubling me around my mouth.

This is one of those products which, though luxurious, is the kind of go-to you can rely on when all else fails. I am rubbish at sticking to a consistent skincare routine (I have two kids, did I mention that?) but it's good to know that there are products you can turn to that will work.

I also love that Bee Good has a great ethos without being preachy and it's British - the beeswax, propolis and honey used in all their products comes from British bees.

I'll certainly be trying Necta Perfecta on my feet and hands and I may even try it on my scalp.  Lots of the 'performance' shampoos seem to be incredibly drying.

Plus,  I'll be doing my bit for the bees. Bee Good actively supports our British bees with charitable donations and by a support programme which includes the education of young beekeepers, supporting apprentice bee farmers and the planting of wildflower meadows across the UK.

Find out more at www.beegood.co.uk

*A PR sample for received for the purpose of this post.

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Be Good To Yourself With Begu Teas & A Giveaway Worth £125

I don't know about you but having had the kids at home for the last six weeks has seen a corresponding increase in my weight.  It's so difficult to resist joining in with snacking and so easy to say yes to that restaurant dessert or the extra glass of wine (or two!).

I also find that my exercise decreases dramatically since we usually walk back and forth to school so, come September, I'm usually feeling in need of some sort of healthy eating and exercise plan.

You may have noticed that teas are gaining in popularity as a way of supplementing your weight loss / dietary programme and they are arguably better for you than the other popular option of juice diets since they don't contain loads of sugar and are kinder to your teeth.

I was recently sent a selection of teas from Begu Tea to try.  Begu Teas are a range of speciality teas designed to help you with your weight loss and healthy lifestyle goals.

There are currently six teas in the range, each formulated with carefully selected ingredients from around the World and blended by Begu's master blender.

The herbs contained in the individual teas have been used traditionally throughout centuries for their varied health and lifestyle promoting benefits and each of the 6 teas has a specific target to help you achieve your goals at specific times of the day in a completely natural way.

There is:-

Appetite - £24.99 for 28 bags

Appetite is full of herbal fillers and appetite suppressants to keep your portion size down. It contains Chinese Green Tea, Cinnamon, Fennel, Liquorice, Peppermint, Hawthorn Leaves, Psyllium seeds and apple pieces.

Crave - £24.99 for 28 bags

Crave is a blend designed to kill those pesky cravings that hit through the day (mine are usually for biscuits!).  It's a sweet blend and is strangely filling.  It contains Sri Lankan black tea, Cinnamon, Coconut, Fenugreek, Yerba Mate, Caraway, Gymnema, Stevia and Sunflower and Calendula petals.

Calm - £24.99 for 28 bags

Calm is designed to bring you inner calm and help you to resist those urges to binge.  This blend contains Rooibos, Peppermint, Chamomile, Gotu Kola, Lemon Balm, Lime Flowers, Passionflower and Calendula petals.

Morning Buzz - £19.99 for 28 bags

This blend is formulated to get your mind and body going in the morning so that you make the best choices to support your body and cut calories.  It contains Chinese Green Tea, Yerba Mate, Ginger, Siberian Ginseng, Lemongrass, Gingko Biloba and Lemon Peel.

nightea night - £19.99 for 28 bags

Nightea night is caffeine free and designed to help you get a restful night's sleep so that your body can repair itself.  This blend contains Cinnamon, Ginger, Hibiscus, Apple pieces, Rosehip, Hawthorn leaves, Orange peel, Cardamom, Valerian root and Hops.

System Cleanse - £10.99 for 14 bags

This is a naturally purifying blend which contains a natural laxative - ideal for those who have a low fibre diet. The blend contains Rooibos, Senna leaves, Dandelion leaves, Hawthorn leaves, Psyllium seeds, Lavender and Vanilla pieces.

Packaged in resealeable packs of 28 teabags, with the exception of the System Cleanse which has 14 bags, these are high quality, beautifully packaged teas which make tea-toxing a lot more glamorous than the days of those fruity herbal teas which could fill an entire office block floor with the smell of blackcurrant.

I am a big tea drinker and it was no hardship at all to substitute a Begu teabag for one of my normal tea bags (Yorkshire Tea or Glengettie, I love a strong brew).

Although the Begu teas aren't cheap, there are a variety of subscription offers available so that you can defray the cost if you buy more than one type at a time (up to 40%).  There is also 20% off your first order - details here.

You'll also find lots of helpful diet and nutrition tips.  My teas came with a selection of fact sheets which contained all sorts of useful advice - for example a structure for a healthy day's eating and exercise (there's also a fitness section on the website which contains a selection of basic exercise videos that show you exactly how they should be done.   I now know what a burpee is!)

There's a guide to identifying the triggers that make you eat (anger, boredom) and ways to manage your appetite (plan your dessert in advance, only serve what you intend to eat).

In fact, Begu teas are designed to be part of a more conscious approach to health, fitness and nutrition and on that basis I can see that their programme would be quite effective if followed diligently.

I personally enjoyed all the teas and will be continuing with the programme over the next few weeks to get my eating and exercise back on an even keel.

If you would like to give their system a try I have a giveaway of one pack of each type of the 6 Begu teabags worth over £125 in total for one lucky winner.

Entry is via the Rafflecopter widget and the giveaway is open to UK entrants only.  Full terms and conditions can be found on my Competitions Page.  The giveaway ends at 11:59 pm on Friday 16th September.



a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck!

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Working From Home During School Holidays

We're nearly at the end of the school holidays and it's been a bit of a moveable feast.  We had a great holiday, although we only went away for a week and the kids have been taken out and about most days, but it’s been tough juggling the needs of the blog with childcare.

Just the phrase 'childcare' makes it sound as if the kids are someone else's responsibility rather than my own little, um, treasures and there's the problem.

Men, to generalise, seem to be able to compartmentalise the various bits of their lives whilst we women find it a lot harder. This may be, of course, because we are juggling more of the housework, the shopping, the cleaning and the myriad of other chores that crop up and have to be dealt with on the spot, even though the Husband will declare them to be hardly a matter of life and death and things which could be dealt with later.

Mat often says that I spend far longer at my PC than he does and that I am rubbish at switching off.  I suspect most bloggers are the same.  I have had a couple of people ask me lately how to go about setting up a blog and it's only when you stop to think about how you do this that you realise how much work is involved and how many skills a blogger needs to develop - writing, social media promotion, coding, photography, design, marketing, budgeting.

But it is really hard to justify to yourself why you are writing a piece for your blog or scheduling some social media posts whilst the kids are kicking around bored or slumped on the sofa with their iPads.

I do explain to them that, for us, blogging defrays some of the household costs and gives us the odd treat but even so it's hard to escape the feeling that sometimes we bloggers are 'pimping our children out'.  Some kids have their lives more instagrammed than Kim Kardashian's.

These are my 5 biggest challenges when the kids are home:-

The Kids

Obviously.  With my two it's usually peace and love or all out war and it can change between the two in minutes.  If they're not fighting each other, they're ganging up on me and have got negotiation skills which, frankly, the Met should be making use of in hostage situations.  Currently, their favourite thing is to sit in separate rooms playing Minecraft in a shared world and bellowing at each other if one dares to destroy the other's building.

Bored of Coco Pops The Kids Took Matters Into Their Own Hands

They like to appear like spectres in the early morning demanding 'urgent software updates' and breakfast. Have they slept in at all this holiday?  Don't be silly.  Combine this with late bedtimes, shouting at each other across the corridor from their bedrooms about Minecraft designs and I predict a massive slump to coincide with the first week of school.

Food

I am rubbish at meal planning at the best of times, whereas the Husband will happily knock up something tasty from whatever is festering in the fridge in about 20 minutes flat.  Not for nothing does he call me "The Queen of the Reheat".  I do mean to come up with exciting meals but frequently it's the usual fall-backs of fish fingers or pizza.  No excuse I know but despite having a wall of cookery books, cooking from most of them involves a supermarket trip and at least a small basket of ingredients I'll probably use once and then find them again 2 years later when I get round to tidying up the food cupboards. Asking myself "what would Mary Berry do?" doesn't help.

Cleaning

It doesn't matter how many times I vacuum, two minutes later it needs doing again.  Kids rarely put things in the bin unless reminded so I am always picking up yoghurt lids, plastic wrapping and wiping sticky fingers off bathroom mirrors and windows.  I can't concentrate on writing if the dishwasher's full or I have a batch of laundry to hang out.  I could happily spend hours picking fluff off carpets.

Social Media

If there is one thing that can suck you into a vortex where time ceases to exist, it's social media.  I've read all the advice about only answering email twice a day, turning your notifications off, writing your blog post first thing, getting up earlier to write before the family get up..... and so on .....  but I can't quite resist the lure of the instant message nor the suspicion that something exciting surely must have happened in Dinas Powys that I have to read about.

Health

I say health, actually health anxiety is closer to the mark.  I'm usually obsessing about my teeth, my glasses, my hearing, my tinnitus - and on the back of that all the things I'm supposed not to be doing to keep my health on an even keel. The daily glass of wine is probably one of the things that should go but when the kids are off, the chances of that going are zero.

I keep reading about bloggers who dutifully say they don't switch on their PC until the kids are in bed and then blog from 9 pm until the small hours but I would be totally knackered if I did that.

If they do, then they have my heartfelt admiration but I suspect they are an urban myth and like many of us have got into the terrible habit of parenting with one eye on a smartphone and one hand on a keyboard.

Let's not talk about the mum guilt.  It never goes away does it? I am earning money for the family and using some of the skills I worked so hard and for so long to acquire.  Hopefully I'm also teaching them that there are always ways to contribute, even if you aren't in formal employment.

I know that working from home and looking after the kids is a privilege but I think I am going to have to come up with a better routine when the next holiday comes around or I'll be blogging about my kids childhood rather than participating in it.

And that's a price no blog is worth.

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New Releases, Free & Bargain Books Link-up 26 August 2016

How are you all this week?  I can't believe our holiday has come and gone already and we're on the downward slope to "back to school".

It's been a great reminder that we all need to make more of an effort to switch off and put the iPads down occasionally!  We've even managed to get Ieuan to read some books for the local library's summer reading challenge.  Caitlin is already an avid reader.

I hope you've managed to carve out some 'me time' for a bit of R & R (relaxation and reading of course).

As ever, there are some great books to choose from on this week's linky.

Sharing the Love of Books
Enjoy our selection of New Releases / Free & Bargain Books this week

Authors please feel free to add your own books
Readers please free to add your own finds
(any genre except erotica welcome)

This weekly link up is hosted by Beck Valley Books & these awesome book loving blogs...
Monday
 Life as Leels | IrishdaisylovesRomance | Book Babble | All Romance Reader
Tuesday
It's My Side of Life | Celticlady's Reviews | First Time Mommy Adventures 
Wednesday
Beck Valley Books | Cinnamon Hollow Reviews
Thursday
Miki's Hope | Nicki's Nook
Friday
Ebook Addicts | I Love Romance | Mother Distracted | Colorimetry | The Ultimate Fan Blog
Saturday
Totally Addicted to Reading | 3 Partners in Shopping | Angie's Angle | I Create Purty Thangs | Wishful Endings
Sunday
Lynchburg Mama | LibriAmoriMiei | Ali - The Dragon Slayer | Wondermom Wannabe | Deal Sharing Aunt | Rambling Reviews 

For Pre-orders post - PRE-ORDER / genre / title /author

For New Releases post - NEW / genre / title / author

For Free Books post - FREE / genre / title / author / end date 

For Bargain Books post - SALE / price / genre / title / author / end date
(Strictly no Erotica please.  Steamy romance is fine but watch those covers people, incase any underage child is viewing it!)

Click here for this weeks awesome selection!

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