I’m not sure if you are aware but Special K have changed their recipe after 30 years to include an extra type of grain which makes it even healthier, I have always loved the cereal although to be honest I can’t say I ate it 30 years ago! But I love it today and had noticed a slight difference; the flakes seem lighter and the texture is slightly different and it actually seems sweeter, but some things stay the same – it’s still ever so yummy. My absolute favourite is Special K with red berries, my children all eat it too, before they head off to school.

Luckily for me I have changed (hopefully for the better). In 1983 I was about to start secondary school (now that really does give my age away!). I was on the larger side of average, and to top that I am afraid I succumbed to having my beautiful long hair cut into a Lady Di style, which was all the rage, except mine went horribly wrong.  Let’s just say that wasn’t a change for the better as my hair went frizzy and nothing would tame it. It took quite a bit of growing out, to get it to a length that didn’t look like I had been pulled through a hedge backwards.  I don’t have many photos of me at this point as I felt I had unfairly been well and truly ‘hit with the ugly stick’, now my children are coming up to a similar age I really do feel for them!

But like Special K I changed for the better (I hope), I am now a confident, outgoing mum of 4 who married a boy I met at secondary school (so I can’t have looked that bad can I!)

This is my entry for the BritMums/Special K “How I’ve changed Linky Challenge“

My boys currently have a very ‘unloved’ bedroom, it needs everything doing to it, from painting to having new curtains. The Little Greene Blog are running a fun competition to win £200 to spend on Little Greene products. They make great child safe paints, which would look just fabulous in the boys finished bedroom. So I asked my 7 year old what he would like his bedroom to look like, the result was amazing.

He loves grafitti, and black and red (if you hadn’t guessed!) and fire patterns, the wall behind his bed is blank and would look great with a painted mural on it. We also talked about what he would like and he thought the idea of hanging his Nerf guns from the wall would be a great idea as they could form a great display. He also wanted some more storage under his bed as he has a mid-sleeper. The items on the left of his bed are his desk and computer, he thought they could be updated too so he could sit next to his older brother (I am not sure he would agree!)

Below is their current room, which is still decorated with stickers from when our eldest was a baby (ahhhem, 12 years ago!)

“This is my entry into Little Greene’s child safe paint competition. Find out more at: http://www.littlegreene.com/blog/news/child-safe-paint/”

Oh how I love a good wedding, and as a photographer I have been to quite a few, which was why, given the challenge I thought I might try my hand at designing a cut price bridesmaids outfit for Spring wedding. This is a bloggers challenge and of course is judged on its cost, suitability and inspiration. Anyone who knows me knows that I love 40′s and 50′s vintage styles, so when I saw this dress at ASOS I fell in love with it, the cut is 1950′s, and at £85 it’s not too over budget either!

Now when it comes to shows I am usually hopeless, but I think lime green would really work with this dress. I found these shoes online which were reduced to only £42.70 in the sale, the colour is great!

So that’s the outfit and shoes done! I love flowers but I am hopeless at remembering their names, as we are styling with a vintage theme I would suggest some traditionally English plants. When I took a look I fell in love with some from Abercorn & Co, they make wedding bouquets with foam flowers and pearls. As a busy bride having flowers which can be collected before the day of the wedding, andthat don’t expire on the day and is a big relief. Mine were artificial and looked beautiful on my wedding day, so I would choose these as they provide a lovely keepsake after the wedding too. Cost £39.95.

I have also found a lovely cheap option for a hair accessory too, for just £3.79 you can buy a green orchid hair clip. To make it a bit more substantial I might clip two together for a more dramatic effect, so the total cost is under £10. So that makes the total cost of the outfit to £177.65 leaving a bit for a nice hair dressing session to get the hair put up for the day. I have tried to keep the cost low with the dress and shoes with both being very wearable again and again, rather than something you would hang in the wardrobe and never wear again. The bouquet is a nice keepsake from the event and could be used as a centrepiece on a table. I love lime green and think it’s a great Spring colour.

Everyone knows that I love a bargain and I love my clothes. I am certainly NOT a label girl, I love shopping for quirky outfits that people talk about rather than buying whats currently in the shops. I thought I would have a try at the new ‘Style is…’ competition where us bloggers have to show our sustainable fashion to the world. I was a bit spoilt for choice but I decided to go with the outfit I wore at a friends babies christening.

I found it in my local charity shop for just £9.99, the shoes were in the same shop for £3.99 and my glasses were just £1! I regually shop on eBay, but you do have to watch the total price once postage is added as it can often be dearer than buying locally.  I also lurk at the local jumble sales, grabbing bargains and turning old tops into new ones for my girls.

Below I am photographed with my two daughters.

So all of my outfit is sustainable and sourced from a local charity shop (apart from the undies!) and for less than £20 too. I find charity shops superb for buying outfits I would otherwise not buy full price. Go and take a look and surprise yourself, there are lots of bargains to be found, alongside lots of junk!

We love cooking in this house, I don’t claim to be good at it but the children do enjoy those moments when I call them through and say ‘let’s cook something’. Now, I decided to venture slightly outside my comfort zone with today’s recipe; I thought I would try a pastry dish (yes, I did say pastry), but I did cheat ever-so slightly by using pre-made pastry. For this recipe my helper is 5 year old Eleanor, she managed the recipe quite well and did most of the prep work for me!

Luxury Raspberry and Chocolate Tart

• 340g premade shortcrust pastry (or if you’re feeling brave make it yourself!)
• 225g fresh raspberries
• 250g good plain chocolate (70% solids)
• 250ml double cream

We greased the heart shaped silicone dish first, I have never baked with silicone so I am unsure if you need to do this, but we did it anyway rather getting the pastry stuck to the dish, we laid the pastry into the dish and flattened the edges with a fork, then we filled the dish with pasta to stop the pastry from rising in the dish while we baked it blind. We baked blind at 180®C for 15 minutes until the pastry looked cooked. It did shrink slightly, if we did it again I think I would leave the pastryuncut in the dish and cut it once it was cooked.

Eleanor cooked the cream on the hob until it boiled and then I removed it from the heat, while it cooled we broke the chocolate into small pieces and added to the hot cream. Eleanor then filled the pastry with raspberries which looked delicious.

She poured the warm chocolate and cream mix over the strawberries and grates a small piece of chocolate we had spare for the topping of the tart. We saved a few raspberries for decoration too.

Here is the finished heart shaped tart, we had it for tea and it was delicious served with creme fraîche. Ok so my pastry is far from perfect, but like I said I am not a great cook (a lot of what I do is trial and error), but this recipe was really nice and easy to do with the children helping and it made an impressive dessert too. I would give this 5/5 rating for simplicity and 5/5 for taste. All in all a really nice treat for all of us and an hour’s worth of entertainment for the children over the half-term too!

I love my sunnies, and I love glasses, I often wear them and I don’t even have a prescription! But my reason for posting is there is a fabulous competition being run by Valley Optics and D&G. They want you to pin a board for an event worth up to £1000 from their Then and Now range.  I managed this quite easily, I decided to make mine around the premise of going out for the day on our 20th wedding anniversary (Thelma and Louise style!)

I just love the horn rimmed sun glasses, so have styled accordingly, red is a stunning shade and looks great with black hair (which I have). I could really see myself in this outfit and I would simple adore the glasses. My total outfit comes to a shade under £1000.

What a great competition, and a superb prize of some sun glasses too.

123.reg are hosting a fabulous competition about remembering your first website you created, they are offering some fabulous prizes too. If you can why not enter too, it closes on the 15^th April so get scribbling!

I laughed when I saw what the competition was about as I have a story attached to mine. It would have been around 1995 when I first developed my website and bought a domain name from 123.reg. I was running a business at the time and I had been amazed at the uptake of people looking online for photographers, so I decided to have a go myself. My hubby is a software engineer so I thought maybe he would know what to do, I also had a freelance photographer who was quite IT savvy so I also asked his advice. They both suggested starting with a blank page and attempting to write the code, I was a little stunned but I took myself off to a bookshop and bought myself a guide to writing HTML from scratch, I think it may have been a ‘dummies guide’.

Well, it was hard to say the least, having never done anything like it before. I made error after error, several month and lots of hair pulling later (mine not the husband’s) a friend asked me how I was getting on. I told him I was still on the first page and having real issues and he shook his head, and asked me why I wasn’t using MS ‘FrontPage’ to develop it as it had HTML (if you preferred writing in code) and also a graphical preview. I loaded it onto the computer and it was a synch, so straightforward and easy, I couldn’t believe the time I had wasted writing a few lines of code when this was so very easy to use. I did have a word with my hubby but he stands by what he said as I had asked ‘what was the best way’ rather than the ‘easiest way’, mmm!

I did the website in a matter of days and got it all working and looking good, I had quite a few comments on the site as it was very easy to navigate and use (it had to be for me to develop it!) I am still proud of my first attempt at doing this and feel that doing the small bit of HTML coding gave me valuable experience of understanding some of the basics of programming. Computers have come on a bit since those days too, I remember it being slow to upload photos to the site as we were using a phone modem that made the characteristic squeals when it transmitted data, I also remember our power supply going pop, and instead of buying a new box for it (they were mega expensive), we used an old cereal box!

About two years ago in 2011 I updated my site; it was looking a little old and a bit tired compared to some other photographers out there so I thought it was time. This time I used a template I bought which made it a quicker process altogether. I still haven’t gone down the wizzy graphics route, as some sites are very slow to work on mobiles, so I stuck to keeping it easy to navigate around which seems to be important in getting people to move around your site. I still get plenty of good comments on my site, but not as many as I had on my original site, I think because back in the day what I had somehow managed to come up with was ahead of many. But I am pleased with my current effort which brings in quite a few jobs!

This is my entry into the 123-reg ‘My first website’ competition.

Oh how I would love to win 60,000 Nectar points to spend. Well, Confused.com is offering just that…all they want bloggers to tell them is how they would spend 1 million Nectar points – this is equal to about £5,000 if my calculations are correct. They have asked us to do a pinterest board with our ideas on, my pinterest board is here.

My destination is very relevant to me because in 2010 I traced my dad. I last saw him when I was 2 months old (38 long years ago). Anyway, to cut a long story short, I made contact with my half-sister, and she got us together on the phone, within a few days I had booked our flights out there to meet them all (that was back in 2010). We had a lovely emotional reunion, and I also met my step-mum and my 6 half-brothers and sisters too.
I am not sure where the time has gone but my sister is now expecting her 3rd child in May, and I would just love the opportunity to travel out there and meet the new baby and see all my family again. For me the idea of Western Australia is an obvious one, last time my step-mum was kind enough to put us (me and hubby and our four children) up in her house. Last time we went it cost us £3,500 in flights, it has gone up slightly since then but I think we could get the 6 of us there within budget.

So, now we have accommodation sorted out for next to nothing, really it’s down to where to visit.

The Pinnacles – cost $11 per vehicle

I would love to see the Pinnacles which are near the Nambung National park, North of Perth, these are lunar-like tall limestone spires and would be great to photograph, and they are along a scenic drive too, so would make a fantastic day out . The cost of this is just $11 per vehicle

Rottnest island – cost $16.00 per adult

This is stunning, I went here last time and it is breathtaking. It’s an island just off Perth/Freemantle which has its own wildlife unique to Rottnest, it has 63 white sandy beaches, 20 beautiful bays and many coral reefs, it has no cars so is perfect to let the children just run around. This was one of my favourite places we went last time, one beach we went to was made up of tiny, tiny shells.

The Wave Rock – cost free

The Stone Wave is a natural rock formation located in Western Australia. We didn’t get this far out last time, its a few hours’ drive from Bunbury, but looks well worth the trip. There is no charge to see this as it’s a natural open attraction. It also looks very interesting as I don’t think I have ever seen anything on this scale before.

Margaret River – cost $30 per person

A beautiful river and piece of coastline, I would do the bushtucker tour which you take on a canoe, you explore the bush, walk to the ridge of a cave within the cliff-face. The Bushtucker lunch gives you the chance to taste a variety of bush tucker (includes witchetty grubs!), and learn about the medicinal properties of plants found in the area.

Boat trip with my sister dolphin watching – free 

We did this last time and ended up seeing lots of dolphins close up. I would love to brave swimming with them this time!

Albany – Meeting my dad again, priceless

My dad lives down in Albany which is right at the bottom of western Australia, I would love to spend more time down in Albany seeing the beaches and the rocks, they are amazing. This time I would like to try snorkling, the water is so clear and the fish so beautiful it would be well worth doing.

I think the Nectar points would last about 2 weeks which is a lovely length of holiday for going this far, and because of this I could have a lovely family reunion with my hubby and children, they could meet their new cousin and I could see my dad again, and drive around the local landmarks (most of which are free), there would be plenty of breathtaking scenery, walking, swimming in the rivers and Indian Ocean – and even some kangaroo watching. I would just love to win this and see everyone again. If this worked out too expensive for the points, an alternative is to pay for my Dad to come over to England, which would be lovely as so much has changed since he left England on a £10 pom boat in 1971. He could see our house and even see the children at school and generally get to know how we live here in the UK. We could accomodate him in our house and he could also see his brother who he has lost contact with. This would be a lovely reunion.

Long car journeys are always tedious especially with small children, we often joke we need a screen between the front and the back of the car! We have certainly done our fair share of long journeys, as we usually go abroad once a year. Sometimes we drive to France, but if we go further we tend to fly we hire a car. We also travel within the UK, doing regular 4-hour trips to my in-laws who live in the South-East. Tots100 are running a blog competition to discover the top tips to dealing with trip boredom.

Our usual technique would have to be whatever method of distraction you use to rotate it round the car. We use a couple of iPads, DS Lites, iPods, car games, and music. Each child has their own headphones so that they can listen to their film, or iPod without annoying the others. But, I feel the secret is to not do any of these things for too long otherwise you risk one of the children turning green and doing the unmentionable in the car (never a nice thought in the heat of summer!) It’s also worth rotating the children in the car too, so they can have a different neighbour to talk to and have a different view of the journey. I am sure all of ours have made the ‘are we there yet’ comment, but they mostly do that to wind us up now!

I think they soon come to understand time, and a long journey can be broken up well by stopping off every couple of hours just to stretch your legs and give the children a run around. Certainly when you cross over to France they seem to have lots of these places where you are able to have a toilet trip, picnic and a little park area for the children to play in.

My top tips for more traditional (non-electronic fun) would be to play a fun game. We have played a number plate game before; the children have to make a sentence with the letters from the plate, the funnier the better. The younger ones enjoy waving at the other cars; often other drivers understand and wave back. The children often run a competition to see how many waves they can get in one trip. It’s quite good fun and makes sure that they are looking out of the window at the view. A good friend recently introduced us to the yellow digger game, these are harder to spot, but usually on a long jouney you can spot a few and it gives the children much more of a challenge.