Making our house a home....my coffee table wishlist.

 Our sitting room is a strange one. In a former life it was a dining room, it's a long rectangular shape and this bothers me.  I feel like it's like it's always going to look like a room designed to house a table and I can't seem to get away from that idea.  When we decorated we tried really hard to make it seem less rectangular, I wanted to give the room a focus, but I was determined that the focus would NOT be the television (a pet hate) so we bought a fire in the hope that it would draw the eye.  To a certain extent that worked, then we tried adding rug to make it feel cosy, but it's still not cutting it.

I decided that the answer was a coffee table, we always used to have one, but it seems to be an item that disappeared when Biscuit was small as we were always concerned she'd bump herself on it.  She's grown up enough to be careful now and thankfully Wiggles is heading in that direction too.  To me a coffee table makes a room into a Sitting Room.

John Lewis is always my go to website.  Our wedding list was held there so it's always the place I visit first.  And, rather handily, John Lewis have a wide range of coffee tables on offer.  So here is my coffee table wish list:

1 - I've always adored Ercol furniture so I'd love to have this table.  My Grandparents had Ercol everywhere, its so beautifully made, it reminds me of being a little girl.

2 -  This table was made in India and you can tell, I love the authentic feel it has and the dark wood.  The shape of the legs is just beautiful and it looks sturdy enough to be around my children, plus it's reasonably priced.

3.  I love the retro feel of this table, how cool are those angled legs?  Plus being able to hide more unsightly items in the closed section underneath - like remote controls (Wiggles' favourite toy) would be perfect for us.

4 - This table is gorgeous, I think it looks antique, without being too fussy. I love the contrasting colours of the wood around the drawers.  I can picture Wiggles having a lot of fun opening and closing them all.

5 - A very stylish table, the glass top would mean it wouldn't look too obtrusive.  I think this would be a great table to have if space was limited.

6 - I think this has to be my favourite table of all.  The two top panels slide apart so you can use the space underneath for storage. Our sitting room is constantly stuffed full of small toys and this would be the perfect place to hide them when the girls have gone to bed to make the transition back to an adult room.

Do you have a coffee table? Which is your favourite?  

This is a sponsored post

Matcha May

Have I ever told you that I'm a massive, MASSIVE fan of teapigs. I first tried their tea quite by accident at a coffee morning, it was the pure peppermint and it was amazing. So much mintier (is that a word) than any other mint tea I'd ever tried before and I was smitten from then onwards.

So when I happened to spot on twitter that teapigs were promoting something called Matcha May I chucked myself headlong on board.  The only slight disadvantage was that I had no clue what matcha actually was or what it meant. Ahhhh....

A few days later an exciting envelope plopped through my door, great (I thought) time to get supping on some new exciting tea.  I was not expecting what I discovered; green tea.  Yep! Green. Tea.  My arch enemy.   In all honesty I've never had a good one, never encountered one that didn't taste like pond slime.  Lesson learnt; do your research woman.  But I'd committed to this and I'm not the type if girl to go back on my word, so I would carry this one through.  Take one for the team. But I wont like it.  Can't make me.....

At this point (a little late admittedly) I started to do my research. I could carp on for ages about matcha and its history, but to be honest that's probably a story better told by teapigs themselves so I'd suggest clicking here if you'd like more information. I discovered online that teapigs matcha is pretty flippin good for you boasting 70 x the antioxidants of orange juice and claiming to raise energy levels for 4 - 6 hours.  It even won best slimming and fitness product in 2011.  Impressive.  Although, in my mind this did nothing to help distract from the idea that it would taste foul.....I usually find that if something is really jolly healthy it tastes revolting.

Nevertheless I was going to give it a go.  My package contained a little sachet of ground green tea leaves.  100% natural, organic green tea leaves in fact.....so obviously I looked at them suspiciously:

There was also a handy little recipe card giving me some suggestions on what to do with it.  The first idea I spotted was to make a matcha latte.  I could cope with that I thought, so off I set.  Half a teaspoon of powder went into my cup, it looked, erm, very green...

In went the milk and I gave it a blast with the impressive steamer on my Dad's posh coffee machine.  Now, I've never used been allowed to use the posh coffee machine before and perhaps I was doing it wrong, but I could not get rid of the great green lumps of powder that were floating in my cup however much I steamed that milky little tinker.

So how did it turn out? Lumpy green milk.  Lovely.  As you can imagine  I was really looking forward to drinking it.

Mmmm, yummers... I decided to have a go at straining out the lumps, with some success.  As you can see I really wasn't keen on my matcha latte.  It wasn't the taste.  In fact the taste surprised me, it was actually really quite pleasant and fresh tasting, it was those darn lumps.  By straining them I'd just made them smaller, rather than got rid of them.  By like I say, that's probably down to my inadequate steaming skills.

I'm not a lass that admits defeat easily, another day another matcha!.  This time I decided to mix it with apple juice and drink it like a shot.  I'm good at shots, I've had practice.  Here's the before and the after.  As you can see it goes a really lovely vibrant shade of green.  I'd learnt a lesson from the latte and made a paste with a little apple juice and powder first and then squished the lumps out with a teaspoon.

You will be pleased to hear my friends, that it tasted GOOD.  You could have knocked me down with a feather.  A very drinkable morning drink!  I thought I'd found the method for me.  Apple juice and matcha is a definitely winner. Even though I am very experience at necking back small drinks I found it was perfectly pleasant to sip it as well and would happily do either.

I thought that was it, I thought I'd found favourite way of drinking matcha.  Until I came across....dum, dum, dummmmm.....  THE MATCHA MARTINI!

Anyone who knows me will tell you how much I LOVE cocktails. I love them a lot!  So I was very, very excited to crack out my trusty vodka bottle (there's always some stashed away for emergencies) and get cracking on a matcha martini...

The recipe can be found here, but essentially it's matcha, sugar syrup, vodka and a wee bit of (green) fruit to decorate. I know its pedantic, but I wanted my fruit to match my matcha (see what I've done there?). Plus they were all things that I already had lurking in cupboards, fabulous!  And this is what the end product looked like: 

Cocktail time in the kitchen, wooo, woooo!  Ladies snd Gentleman matcha martini is AMAZING!  Not only did I get to treat myself to a cheeky cocktail on a week night, but I also felt very smug about the fact that this particular sneaky martini was actually good for me!  

Bottoms up!

In conclusion I was very pleasantly surprised by teapigs matcha green tea and I would definitely try it again.  I'd really like to try out a box so I could drink it over a longer period and check out the health benefits.  As a lovely treat teapigs are very kindly offering bloggers a 15% discount with the following code:

When I opened the packet I genuinely never thought I'd actually like this product but I've been really impressed with it and it has definitely lived up to teapigs reputation for making really delicious high quality teas.

Let me know if you've tried teapigs teas or their matcha green tea, I'd love to hear about it if you have.....

Love, love,

I was sent this free sample by teapigs for the purpose of this review, all words, photographs and opinions are my own.

Wheezing like an old man, barking like a seal pup....

Before Christmas the scary lady Doctor diagnosed "This Baby" with croup. Until that point the only time I'd heard croup mentioned was by school mum's in connection with ambulances and late night A&E visits.

The scary lady Doctor's scary medical term for croup was laryngotracheobronchitis. Say what? Yes, I had to google the spelling, I'm not ashamed. I was quickly told that only 2% of cases become severe enough to require hospital treatment. I was also told that croup is a viral infection, and therefore doesn't respond to antibiotics. Doesn't do much to make a worried Mum feel better does it?

My poor tot had been wheezing like an old
man during the day, but at night, dear lord at night she mutated into a coughing cross between a dog and a seal pup. It was awful to hear. The worst thing was not being able to do anything of any great note to make her nights easier.

Scary lady Doctor rather charmingly told me that it might be "inconvenient" to be kept awake at night, but that her illness would pass. That annoyed me. I wasn't there because of my lack of sleep, I was there because she needed her help. I, like any mother, would happily never sleep again, or saw off my left foot and hop for the rest of my days if it mean my child was safely out of harms way. Inconvenience was not an issue here.

We left, medicine-less, to sit it out. Shortly after our appointment, two friends separately recommended that we try a Vicks Warm Mist Humidifier in This Baby's bedroom at night. I stored the idea in the back of my mind for future reference and thought no more about it.

Until the other night. I could hear that rotten seal pup creeping back and the thought filled me with dread. No more thought! This time I'm going to do everything I can in terms of prevention. So first thing the following morning I got footed it to Argos and came out with a shiny new Vicks V-610E Warm Mist Humidifier.

It's basically a slow boiling kettle with a large tank of water that you pop into their bedroom overnight so they can breathe in the vapour. It was easy to set up, just fill, plug in and go. There is a small round nightlight on the front, a little well for medicine such as Olbas oil and a choice of two settings.

I had worried that it might fill the room with condensation (This Baby's bedroom is by no means massive) but that didn't happen. It plodded away all night with minimal noise and turned the air into something similar to a tropical rainforest. Only a soothing one.

The difference it made to This Baby's breathing and sleeping was almost immediate. At a cost of £38 it was already worth it's weight! She slept peacefully all night, now if course this could have been coincidence, but the humidifier was the only factor that was different to any other night. So I am quite convinced that this was what made the difference.

Apparently they are also good for colds or congestion as the steam breathed in loosens mucus in the chest. I'm also told the make a difference to sufferers of eczema, but I haven't tested this theory.

All in all I could say that if you or your child suffer from coughs or croup then this would make an excellent purchase. We've had it going every night since buying it and I've been so grateful for having it. As a parent there's not much you can do to help a poorly child, but with this in my arsenal I feel like I'm doing all I can. And I'd pay for that feeling alone!




* I am not paid or sponsored to review products. I only choose to do so in the hope someone else may find my experience useful.

My First ever Graze box

I am not all that keen on spending a lot of money whilst I'm at work.  The temptation of being in a big town draws me to the shops and I end up buying things I don't need.  I try to restrict myself to the Charity Shops, the cake shop and the Curry stall, but unless there is something that we genuinely really need that's where I try to draw the line.  The only problem is that I'm a shameless glutton and I am terrible at making sandwiches!  I make them for That Baby to take for her packed lunch, but I just find them dull and unappetising.  I have to be clever if I'm going to avoid venturing out for lunch so I thought I'd try out something a bit healthy to go together with Cake Wednesday.  This week I took delivery of my first ever Graze Box.  Graze are a London-based company apparently started up by seven friends.  They deliver carefully chosen, healthy snacks in a neat little box through your letter box.  Their online site allows you to rate their snacks so your boxes are tailor made for you and only contain things that you'll enjoy nibbling.  Brilliant!  I love a friendly, personable company and they really are.  Quirky too.

I wanted to make sure I could take my box to work with me so I ordered it to arrive a day early.  I didn't want to have to wait for the postman, he's an unpredictable chap!  Rather handily everything is neatly packaged up in a very good looking cardboard box that is just the right size to fit through a letter box.   They're jolly clever really because they also ensure that nothing within the box needs to be refrigerated.  Sensible.  My first box was free, I'd been sent a voucher code by a friend.   You can cancel at any time so I thought I might as well give my freebie a go.  My box contained four plastic pots.  Inside were a honeycomb flapjack, black pepper pistachios, a selection of nibbly little breadsticks and a pot of dried fruit.  Now, I am not usually a big fan a dried fruit, but this was delicious!  Dried pineapple, so yummy, I'd no idea!  In fact it was all good.  My particular favourite from this box was the "British Barbecue" selection, with basil baguettes, rosemary crostini and smoked almonds and seeds, I hoovered them up!

It was so good in fact that I have decided to order more, and actually even pay for them!  If you're in the UK and would like to give a Graze box a go give me a shout and I'll give you a code for a free box :)

Over and out!