“You had me at ‘cake'” I replied.

Now I do love baking and I’m confident that I have a few cake recipes that I’m quite good at, but I am terrible at decorating cakes. Our Christmas cake for 2017 was a really, really good fruitcake that ended up just being a really, really good fruitcake as I could never face the prospect of marzipan and mixing icing and then trying to be creative and neat with said sticky stuff. The service from Intercake takes away the trauma of presentation, and also takes away the time and effort needed to actually make a cake in the first place.

What is Intercake?

Intercake is the cake printing expert. Founded in 2004 by two brothers (Colm and Hugh Nohilly), they developed and patented the technology to allow anyone to print their photos onto cake icing. Touchscreen Intercake kiosks are now in hundreds of ASDA and Morrisons stores across the UK and a number of stores in Ireland, enabling customers to easily upload photos, print and take home whole personalised cakes within minutes.

I have seen their kiosks before in the bakery aisle in ASDA near where we live, but had never actually taken the time to investigate what they actually did. Intercake is the company that drives the technology and in ASDA the service is called “Design A Cake” and “Photo Me Cake” in Morrisons.

They are really cool machines that let you upload a photo through your iPhone or USB stick or even scan in an already printed photo. One tip, if you are going to try this with an iPhone then make sure you take your ‘official’ Apple USB cable as Apple products don’t play nicely with other people’s cables and machines.

There are some ready made templates and artwork you can use if you don’t have a suitable photo with you, but a little bit of planning ahead and going prepared pays dividends. You can add frames and a personal message to your selected photo if you like and the choices are quite sweet and all in all the process of linking up my phone, choosing a photo and working through the four steps on the kiosk took no more than a few minutes (less than 5). I was genuinely impressed with how easy it was.

You have a choice of two sizes of cake with this service. A small cake costs £12 and a large cake costs £16. For the small cake (which isn’t actually all that small, more of a medium) you can choose from vanilla sponge with raspberry jam and buttercream filling or chocolate with chocolate buttercream filling. The large cake is currently only available as the vanilla sponge.

When you’re finished the machine prints out a receipt and you just pop over to find someone in the bakery section and give it to them and they will print the photo you uploaded onto icing and then decorate your chosen cake with it.

I was told it would take around ten to fifteen minutes for the cake to be ready, so keep that in mind and maybe start the order process before you dash around and get your other bits of shopping.

If you are super organised and want to use your own recipe for the body of the cake then you can use the Intercake website to upload your design and then order just the printed icing cake topper to be delivered to you. Online orders are posted the next day after ordering so allowing only two or three working days for it to arrive should suffice. I know I will be using this a few times in the future especially as the online service lets you also order your own printed cupcake toppers in batches of 15 or 24. You can also get toppers for full sized cakes in square, rectangle or circle shapes whereas the kiosks in-store only offer you a rectangle cake.

Because I was ahead of the game for once and had my mind tuned into this with a few days to spare before Mother’s Day that gave me some headspace to create an image that I know Mrs Dadness will quite like, and here it is as an original jpeg:

This was the Mother’s Day cake image that I uploaded into the kiosk service at ASDA and once I had the receipt in my hand there were only two crucial questions that needed to be answered…how good is the print quality onto the cake, and how tasty is the actual cake itself?

Here is the answer to the first question…

I added the frame with the hearts using the templates in the kiosk software and I have to say I am really, really pleased with the finished product. It looks great in the photo above and even better in real life (curse photography in a badly lit room!). The icing is finished beautifully and wrapped completely around the sides of the cake and there is a red ribbon around it also. The cake is also handed to you in its own well sealed presentation box.

Intercake, you get a very big thumbs up from me. This was a completely hassle-free experience that fitted in perfectly with a normal trip to the supermarket and now I know how easy it is I expect this will be my default in future when one of the children has a birthday party or if I am stuck for a gift idea for a friend or family member.

I really love the choice of getting everything done for you in-store or being more organised and ordering the icing topper off the website to put on a cake you make yourself. I am actually itching to give that a go and with my son turning eleven at the end of this month I will give it a whirl at the weekend and will do a short post to let you know how that went when they arrive.

Oh, and that second question that still needs answering…how does it taste? Well, I can’t update you on that until after Mother’s Day!

In the spirit of honest content creation I would like to point out that I was very kindly given a voucher by Intercake to give this Mother’s Day cake service a try and there were no conditions attached to that. The opinion shared is my own and, trust me, if the service sucked then I would have let you know…but it didn’t and I happy to recommend it to anyone. Oh, and a final useful bit of information, all sugar paper and ink ingredients used by Intercake are gluten-free and vegan-friendly.

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A close friend killed himself shortly after that as his wife had left him and shortly after that my godfather/uncle sadly passed away, followed by an auntie shortly after that.

I don’t think I’d got out of May at that point in 2011…It was all rather gloomy.

My circle of friends got smaller as you only really know who your true friends are when you have a run of bad luck or if your life gets a bit too ‘messy’ to bother with…so it was quite a lonely time too and it has left a little bit of darkness in my head that will never fully fade…but it shrinks a little more as each year passes…

I don’t think I have learned an awful lot or changed much in myself in the last seven years, so this isn’t a ‘just look at me now’ post; quite the opposite; there is no success story here and I continue to still be a complete nob from time to time who has things blow up in his stupid face with alarming regularity.

But whilst in a rather reflective mood today I did realise that every single thing that kicked so hard in the first half of 2011 came as a complete surprise (shock?) to me…and I know it is because I was too busy and wrapped up back then in trying to be ‘successful’!

So I guess what I want to share, for no real reason at all, is my retrospectively fitted new year resolutions for 2010 (yes, EIGHT years ago instead of seven)…

1. Cherish phonecalls & time with my parents (even if I have heard those stories over a hundred times)
2. Listen to my partner
3. Be available for friends
4. Visit relatives when I’m in the area

Doing those four things in 2010 wouldn’t have changed anything that happened in 2011…but I’d have had less regrets in the years thereafter…so maybe there is some advice there?

In the wise words of Bill & Ted…Be excellent to each other.

——————————————————————-
Photo by Elijah Hiett on Unsplash

Elijah Hiett

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Well, first of all you need to go into the woods with an air rifle just before dawn and shoot at least three homitys, skin them and then leave to dry for 14 days.

Ok, I jest, but the fact is that very little is known about Homity Pie. It is very much of British origins, and is sometimes called Devon Pie as there is a claim that it came from that fair county. It is also claimed that it was created during the rationing period around World War II. Whatever the background, it is a truly wholesome and amazing vegetarian dish.

I am no veggie, but I will choose this over a shepherd’s pie any day and it is perfect for autumn and winter evenings when you want a full and warm belly.

In the interested of losing some weight through the winter months I am trying to avoid the likes of bread and pastry, so this is a pastry-free homity pie recipe which actually ends up with the same sort of texture as a cottage pie.

If you really need a firm bite of pastry with your ‘homity’ then you can pretty much follow the recipe below until you get to the bit where you transfer into the oven…at that point just make sure you have some pastry prepared in a pie dish and spoon the mixture into that and then top with the cheese and bake it for longer at around 160/170°…simples!

Preparation Time: Can be 10 minutes, can be 30 minutes…depends whether you make or buy the mash!
Cooking Time: c.25/30 mins
Serves: 4 people with some other veg, or 2 pigs

Ingredients

300g Onions, chopped or diced
300g Leeks, chopped
220g Frozen Garden Peas
3 Garlic Cloves, crushed or very finely chopped
2 Eggs, beaten
120ml Vegetable Stock
350/400g Potato, mashed (buying it is sooo much easier)
280g Mature Cheddar Cheese, grated
2 tsp of Dried Thyme
2 tsp Dried Parsley
2 tsp Sea Salt
Black Pepper – season however you prefer it
Worcester Sauce

Method

• If you are making your own mashed potato, then get the spuds boiling for about 18 minutes and mash the heck out of them
• Then put the oven on, around 200°c or 180°c for a fan oven and make up the vegetable stock
• In a large saucepan, heat up some oil at a medium heat and throw in the chopped onion, leeks and frozen garden peas and stir fry for about 4 minutes
• Add the garlic and a few splashes of Worcester sauce and continue to stir for another 5 or 6 minutes or until the vegetables are softening up nicely
• Add the sea salt, thyme and parsley and stir for another couple of minutes
• Add the beaten eggs and stir really well for a couple of minutes until the egg starts to cook and binds the vegetables
• Add around half of the grated cheese and stir well then spoon in the mashed potato and mix it up big time
• Add the vegetable stock and keep mixing…it should look something like this:

• When it is nicely mixed together spoon it into a decent sized oven-proof dish (a trusty Pyrex for example)

• Cover the mix with the rest of the grated cheese and then add a few splashes of Worcester sauce on top

• Whack it in the oven and bake it for around 25/30 minutes…the cheese needs to melt and brown (a lot..good ‘n’ crusty!)

Trust me…this tastes amazing!

You can easily personalise this to suit your own taste buds…grated mozarella works really well in combination with the mature cheddar and adds a stringy texture. If you want to be all healthy or are following a Weight Watchers or Slimming World routine then changing the cheese for reduced fat cheese and using oil sprays instead of normal oil will save a whole bunch of calories. Other than the cheese there is nothing in here with any fat in it so you can have a big bowl and feel full without the bloat or guilt.

If you really want to pig out then prepare some vegetable gravy, add in a few more splashes of Worcester sauce, pour a decent glass of red wine and make a happy beast of yourself!

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If you have browsed through my blog before you may have spotted that I have a deep love for my UPPAbaby VISTA and my Babyzen YOYO…but now I have had a small opportunity to play with their forthcoming MINU…so here is my UPPAbaby MINU Compact Travel Stroller Review. Well, my first impressions at least…

…and I wants it, I needs it…my preciousssss!!

They have out-Babyzen’d Babyzen. I have a question mark over whether this will be allowed to be taken onto a plane as hand luggage as it does look a bit bigger than the YOYO stroller but that is the ONLY question mark. In every other way the MINU knocks it out of the park and this could be the hot ticket for 2018 when it comes to compact travel strollers.

The MINU has clearly been designed and engineered from scratch with a goal to create a compact stroller with as few compromises as possible. One immediate outstanding feature is the large basket, and this is something that UPPAbaby are known for. Parents need space for stuff and the basket here is very big in relation to the size of the stroller and will have no problems holding a changing bag or a bunch of shopping. It is also easy to get to from the front and the back of the pushchair.

The seat unit is a really, really generous size too. Our little one recently turned 2 years old (at the time of writing) and sadly we have already had to relegate the YOYO to very short trips as she is too big for it already and M is not a big toddler by any means. The seat on the MINU is easily big enough for a decent sized toddler and I can see this lasting until a child is 3 to 4 years old, all depending on the weight of the child and what the safety limit is on this product when it is released.

There is a very good recline on the seat and this is adjustable by tightening or loosening a strap at the back of the seat and this is easy to use. It doesn’t lie flat but reclines enough for a toddler to snooze in. There is also going to be a newborn carrycot style accessory available so this product is able to be used from birth. UPPAbaby’s signature easy to use 5-point safety harness is also present with the MINU and looks very similar to the one used on their CRUZ and VISTA strollers.

The hood is also a very generous size and another signature of UPPAbaby’s strollers is also here in the shape of the large pull out UV50+ protective sun shade. There is also a peek-a-boo window on top which is the same as you get on a VISTA or CRUZ stroller and this rolls up if you want to let air circulate through the hood and also stays closed by hidden magnets on the flap.

That’s all pretty darn good for starters, but it is not all by any way, shape or form. There’s more goodies…such as a REAL leather handlebar…

A storage pouch on the back of the seat…

And a very, very clever and simple approach to the brake pedals…green for go, red for stop!

Even the wheels are frickin’ cool too…

But I have saved the best bit until last. The fold is a one-handed affair and so easy to master. Press in the buttons on the handlebar and just gently push down and forwards and it z-folds into a very compact shape which gets automatically locked by a locking clip. There is also a very handy shoulder strap on the MINU which makes it easy to carry when folded.

Oh…and it is sooo light that I can pick it up with just one finger, and I am no He-Man!!

So, there you have it. My first impressions are very good. As well as all of the above it is really easy to push and you can do this and steer perfectly with just one hand and it has a really tight turning circle which will make life very easy when out and about, especially in a store where you need to weave around slow moving people pushing shopping trolleys. It’s super smooth to push too and has excellent suspension on all of the wheels. Oh, and car seat adaptors will be available which will work with their forthcoming MESA car seat as well as the usual suspects such as Maxi Cosi and BeSafe.

Good job UPPAbaby and a big thank you to them for letting me have a play with it so soon. It is not going to be released in the UK until Spring 2018 so at the time of writing there is still around 4 months to go before it is available in shops and the price is yet to be confirmed. I do know that it will be released in 4 colours, including this Denny red, Jake black, Jordan charcoal and Ryan teal.

The post UPPAbaby MINU Compact Travel Stroller Review – First Impressions appeared first on .

Preparation Time: c.20 mins
Cooking Time: Around 1 hour 45 minutes to 2 hours (just keep tasting it now & again)
Serves: You will get 10 to 12 small jars worth

Ingredients

Around 2kg of green tomatoes (or a mix of green, orange & red)
3 or 4 Large Onions
500g Sultanas
2 Large Cooking Apples
500g Light Muscovado Sugar
1.14 Litre of Spiced Pickling Vinegar (buy the Sarsons one from a supermarket)

You will also probably need to buy some jars…fear not, just plan a trip to Wilkinsons (Wilko) and get their own brand box of 12 round 190ml jars. You’ll find them near the baking and kitchen supplies area. They cost a fiver and are perfect. Make sure the jars you use have plastic coated lids on the inside as vinegar will eventually corrode all-metal lids.
NB: They will need to be sterilised though (see below)

Method

Roughly chop the tomatoes and onions up and place in a bowl

Remove the apple cores and chop up the apples

Pour the pickling vinegar into a large pan, add all of the sugar and turn up the heat

Stir the vinegar mix in the pan until it comes to the boil then turn down to a simmer, add the apple and cook for around 12 minutes

Add in all of the tomatoes, onion and sultanas and bring back to the boil

Simmer the green tomato chutney mix for around an hour and a half – it will eventually start to take on a stickier, thicker consistency and turn a deeper brown colour and that is when it is ready!

Make sure you give it a good stir fairly regularly to stop it sticking to the bottom of the pan as it can ruin a pan if left to its own devices for ages.

While it is cooking you need to build in some time to sterilise the jars and lids as this is important so that the finished green tomato chutney will not go manky over time…you never know what bacteria might be lurking inside those new jars even though the look so clean!

The easiest way to do this if you have a baby is to get the microwave steriliser going in the same way you would sterilise baby’s bottle. Just put the jars in the steriliser and run it as usual. REMEMBER though, if you are using a microwave steriliser then you MUST NOT put the jar lids in…microwave and metal do not play well together! For the lids just get a pan of water boiling and drop the lids in and let them dance around in the boiling water for 5 minutes.

If you don’t have a steriliser then you can wash the jars and lids in very, very hot water and let them drain then transfer them to an oven at 150 degrees centigrade for around ten minutes.

Try to time all of this so that the jars will still be warm when the chutney is finished cooking, so maybe start the process when there is around twenty minutes of cooking time left. Don’t worry about ‘over-cooking’ the chutney; you can keep it going for a little bit longer than 2 hours without it spoiling.

MAKE SURE that you transfer warm chutney to warm jars, or if you are going to leave it to cool in the pan for a while then make sure you transfer cold chutney to cold jars…do not put hot chutney in cold jars or cold chutney in hot jars as it will affect the product.

In this particular batch there wasn’t a single drop of chutney wasted as the pan became more or less completely empty when the twelth jar was full (aside from 2 more spoonfuls)…I wish I could say it was the precision of my measuring of ingredients but it was in fact complete luck!

Try and keep the rims and sides of the jars clean as you are transferring the green tomato chutney into them and be careful if you are using hot jars…make sure you wear an oven glove or wrap teatowels around the hand you are holding the jar in. This also protects you from spilling hot chutney on your hand too…which does hurt, trust me!

The finished article is a very satisfying thing to behold. Twelve shiny jars full of the fruits of your garden and your own labours. This is one of those great cooking exercises where you really do feel like you have achieved something and they are such a great thing to gift to people…just look at them

For the finishing touches, make some labels, stick them on and plan who you will give a jar to…but make sure you keep some yourself as green tomato chutney tastes best when you make it yourself.

Now, let’s hope someone hasn’t nicked all the cheese out of the fridge as I am proper hungry now!

The post Damn Fine Green Tomato Chutney Recipe appeared first on .

But when you find out for the very first time that a baby is on the way you must start looking for things…among things of which you have very little and often no frame of reference.

As a youngster I consumed the world much like any other boy of a similar age, growing up in the north west. Our shared god was football and then we had our little separate groups of interests and hobbies, such as trying to conquer heavy metal with our band in Dad’s garage.

It is through the day to day indulgences and pastimes that an awareness and then desire for products from brands builds and builds, especially through the “I NEED IT” teenage years, and even more so into the “I wish I could afford it” twenty-something age group.

I knew everything anyone needed to know about football boots, especially the ones Gary Lineker wore, and developed an encyclopaedic knowledge of drum kits, drumsticks and cymbals before I was 15 years old. Then I noticed girls, so started to believe that smelly things would attract them like moths to a flame (Fahrenheit aftershave anyone, or am I showing my age?). It wasn’t long after the 16th birthday cake candles were blown out that I knew about different beer and booze brands, with initial research being owed to older kids who could get served in the off licence on a Friday night before we hung around the park.

Once 17 came around I was legally old enough to drive and started to take notice of cars; any other cars than my unreliable Ford Fiesta which I did secretly love as it offered freedom, but wow did those Suzuki Vitara jeeps look cool, and imagine owning that Ford Cosworth Sierra!

In my early twenties, I started to notice that a suit by Jaeger or DAKS looked a damn sight better than my first one from River Island, and Ping golf clubs seemed to make people play better than the set I got from Argos.

This trend for soaking up brands and products, whether consciously or subconsciously has always been there within us, whoever you are. As a baby, there was only one brand, milk. As a young child it was Star Wars and it grows from there and as marketing gets more and more sophisticated and targeted it will only get worse through our children’s generation…but I digress slightly (largely actually)…where was I?

Oh yes, I’ll get to the point. The first time in recent memory I can recall being absolutely stumped and without any yardstick was when my first child was a looming reality.

“I’m pregnant” she said.

“Whose is it” I replied…because ladies love a joker, right?

“Sorry” I said, rubbing my cheek that still smarted from the slap.

Fast forward a few months and the growing bump that seems to get bigger and bigger everyday means that a small person is going to arrive, and therefore we need to buy things…don’t we?

But WHAT?

I think it is safe to say that most modern-day parents did not spend any time whatsoever researching baby products before they found out they were going to have one themselves.

“Coming to the pub after work?”

“No, off to Mothercare to check out pushchairs”

“But you live on your own?”

“Yeah, and…?”

And then, when you are pregnant, there is a stopwatch running for you to investigate and understand an entire new industry and all the shiny products it offers. You don’t get a couple of years to do your research; you get a few months as there is a rather historically precise time limit on pregnancy.

You know you need to buy ‘things’, and somewhere in this pile of ‘things’ are the ‘things’ you need and the ‘things’ you don’t know you need. As well as the ‘things’ you will ultimately think you needed but were just being fooled all along.

There must be over 300,000 different products available in the UK for babies, possibly more when you consider bottles, baby food, sterilising things, nappy bins, changing bags, never mind the big-ticket items such as car seats and nursery furniture. Don’t get me started either on stuff you apparently need for bathtime!

Which pushchair is better than another? Is that one that costs £899 better than the £599 one? That’s how it usually works with cars isn’t it? If I spend £1,800 on nursery furniture will it be more nursery-furniturey than the £999 set and will my baby sleep better?

Do I really need to buy a crib that straps to our bed before I move them into a cot that doesn’t strap to our bed?
Why does this pushchair include a rain cover but you must spend £40 extra with that one if you want to keep your baby dry?

It can be sooo confusing. Life before pregnancy does not prepare you for these shopping decisions. Ask any of your non-parent friends to name 8 baby product brands and see how well they do. It really is a starting point of no knowledge.

So how do you get from nought to knowing in the nick of time?

My advice is to keep a completely open mind and not to make any decisions in haste. Your biggest and best source of advice will be your friends who already have young children.

Note that I said ‘children’ not a ‘child’. There is a new and far wiser level of knowledge that comes with the second child. They have already run the gauntlet of overbuying for their first child and they will know what was completely useless and have validated that suspicion by not using it for their second child either.

Learn from their mistakes, but also learn from their experience of products that have been a lifesaver right through their parenting days, months and years. Ask them what five things they couldn’t have managed without…smiling politely when they jokingly answer wine, and then worrying a little when you realise they aren’t joking.

Be suspicious of magazines and big media parenting platforms. They generally say nice things because money is changing hands. Don’t rule them out, but look elsewhere for second opinions if you catch an article that says pushchair X is the bee’s knees.

Indulge in parenting blogs as many of them speak from the heart and tell the truth. Bloggers really can say this is garbage if the thing they are writing about is garbage. Often, they won’t write about something that has disappointed them though, but the flip of that is that they do generally write nice things about nice things that deserve such comments.

Reviews of products on online services such as Trust Pilot and online retailers such as Amazon is a useful research tool. It goes against the grain of human nature for people to write nice reviews of products, so if something is getting thumbs up online where there is absolutely nothing in it for the writer then maybe it’s one for the shortlist.

Trust your gut also and do not neglect it. You know what you like and you know yourself and your body and habits better than anyone else. Don’t be bullied into getting something you will have to use every day by someone who won’t. If you are very tall then don’t let shorty tell you pushchair Y is the only one to think about. If you suffer from a bad back then don’t let little miss athlete tell you that this baby carrier that puts all the weight on your back is a great way to bond with baby.

Do your research before hitting the stores. Make a shortlist of products you want to find out more about, and then plan some trips to different places. Yes, it’s nice to peruse the baby department in John Lewis and isn’t it all very seductive, but deep knowledge of babies and products often lies within the independent nursery stores…you know, the ones that were probably there when your own mum was pregnant. These are the stores where most of the brands and products are likely to be available and where the owner has seen products and fads come and go. These are the stores where you might be able to sit down and have space and time to think. They might even make you a cup of tea.

They do want to sell you things though as they are not drop-in centres for weary pregnant couples who need therapy. They are businesses, but they are staffed by people who usually know what they are talking about. Don’t just take one store’s word for it though – take time to visit a couple more and weigh up the collective advice.

If you do all of that then you have probably done far more than most other parents to be. You will have more than scratched the surface and that is a very respectable effort.

Good luck if you are embarking on parenthood for the first time, and for those already there…we’re doing a good job…aren’t we??

*sound of wine being poured*

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There are many joys of parenting (and a whole heap of anti-joys too) but one of them is revisiting the books I loved as a tousle-haired child with my own little ones. I do what I can to encourage my children to read and I am proud to say that they do work their way through books at a decent rate, in between watching Minecraft videos by Stampy!

All credit then to McDonald’s who are back with another Happy Readers campaign and this time it centres around some of the incredible characters that Roald Dahl dreamt up. The campaign kicked off on Roald Dahl Day earlier this month and features eight specially created books that celebrate the key players from Matilda, The BFG and the main protagonists from Charlie & The Chocolate factory.

The campaign runs over a five week period through to mid-October and McDonald’s are expecting to place over 11,000,000 books into children’s hands through this time! This exclusive series of books feature extracts from the main stories, as well as activities and stickers and are really lovely collector’s pieces for Roald Dahl fans (of any age!).

One book is included in each Happy Meal at McDonald’s until mid October.

For me, the magic of Roald Dahl was the way he managed to see a grown up world through a child’s eyes and centring the books around clever, brave, resourceful, yet kind and honest child characters helped to teach me that knowledge and courage count for a heck of a lot in life. I remember going through something of a literary graduation when I moved on from the ‘child’ stories he wrote and read his two part autobiography for the first time. These books are called ‘Boy’ and ‘Going Solo’; the former being about his childhood and the latter about his adult years with a centre on his brave (yet modestly told) actions as a WWII pilot in the RAF.

They were written in a way that is ageless and were the first autobiography books I ever read. I am not a fan of autobiographies (or biographies) and generally steer away from them but Dahl’s are incredible whether you are a child or an adult reading them and you can sense the inspiration for his great books through his own adventures.

Dahl was a modest, yet incredible man and we lost a true great when he passed away in 1990 and the world has shone a little duller since. Sure, some great authors have since produced some great children’s books (special mention to J K Rowling) but the almost fairly-tale like warmth, magic and wonder that Dahl produced with ease through his life will never be captured by anyone else.

We are fortunate then that he was so prolific in his life and that as parents today we are part of the first generations that will enjoy his work as children, parents and eventually as grandparents as we will see Dahl’s world through our own eyes and those of our children and grandchildren.

To help inspire parents to bring children into the magic of books there is a page of tips for reading with children in each of these books by the National Literacy Trust, and I will share them now as they are all excellent:

• Bring the story to life by using different voices for the characters. Try out a pompous tone for Augustus, or a high, whiny voice for Veruca.
• Make your child the author! Stop at exciting moments in the story and ask your child to invent what happens next.
• Make reading with your child a special time for you both every day.
• Children of all ages love to hear stories read aloud.
• Don’t stop reading to your children just because they can read by themselves.
• Let your child help choose the books that you’ll read together. If your child is excited by the subject, the story will hold their interest better.

Along with Penguin Random House Children’s UK, Peter Andre (great video here) and the Roald Dahl Literary Estate, the National Literacy Trust are partners with McDonald’s for this current Roald Dahl happy Readers campaign, and I particularly liked a quote I read by one of the NLT Directors, Jonathan Douglas:

“A love of reading gives children the building blocks they need to succeed at school, in work and in life. Sharing stories together as a family is a wonderful way to help children develop a love of reading, especially when you’re sharing the marvellous and magical stories of Roald Dahl! We’re thrilled to be part of this campaign which will give so many children brilliant reading material to keep. For many children this will be the first book they have ever owned. We hope the campaign will encourage children across the UK to fall in love with reading for a lifetime.”

Remember to pop out the voucher on your child’s Happy Meal box to get Roald Dahl’s ‘The Great Mouse Plot’, for £1 at WHSmith or Easons (Northern Ireland) high street stores. The eBook will also be available for you to download for free from kobo.com , using the eCode printed on the Happy Meal box.

As I said at the start of this post, it was a Roald Dahl book that made me fall in love with reading and since then I would guess that I have enjoyed over 850 books (averaging 2 books a month for the 36 years since I was a 6 year old!)…that was some gift; one that truly kept on giving.

Grab these exclusive Roald Dahl editions while you can in McDonald’s restaurants for the next few weeks and hopefully the new worlds they discover will take them on their own bookish adventures.

Find out much more over at mcdonalds.co.uk/happymeal.

NB: This is a sponsored post but all opinions and views are my own

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Such little variety is often on display in our homes considering how much variety is available. Maybe the cream rose to the top, hence the success of Monopoly et al?

Maybe the escalation of technology has killed off board games in the last twenty years as we find our entertainment through on-demand TV or social media?

Actually, that couldn’t be further from the truth as the growth of board games has started to really pick up in recent years and is gathering quite a head of steam.

Monopoly still has something of a monopoly over sales, but there is a grass roots revival that is bigger and more exciting than the continual churn of mass market titles of our youth and beyond. The independent games publishers have truly come of age and if you haven’t played some of these exciting modern classics then you probably know someone who has.

And I link this to parenting because our social wings have been clipped. The child-free days of going out whenever we fancied it have faded away. For many of us the evenings are the same. Put children to bed, finally, then watch something relatively soulless on television and head off to bed. Rinse and repeat, day after day.

I applaud those of you who manage to fill your evenings with personal goals achieved and I envy you, but how many households run on social media and Love Island after the kids go to bed? I’ll hazard a guess at bloomin’ millions!

A night on the tiles is an epic mission as a parent of young children, but staying in can be the new going out and the insertion of a new and monumentally great board game can be the making of a great evening.

It all comes down to what the Danish have called ‘hygge’ for centuries. Now, before you roll your eyes at the prospect of yet another article on hygge, this isn’t that. Buying some new cushions, throws and lighting candles instead of turning the lights on isn’t hygge. Serving meals on square wooden plates from Selfridges or pieces of slate isn’t hygge. Neither is baking your own cinnamon rolls.

Hygge doesn’t translate into English. It’s one of those great words that languages sometimes have where there is no other word for it to translate to in other tongues. Hygge, to me, is the warmth and contentment that comes from companionship and friendship, whether you have the big light on in the room or are squinting because of candlelight.

From where this very geeky dad is sitting, hygge is staying in, with friends turning up and just chatting and playing a game.

Remove the pressure of cooking for guests while the children run riot by inviting them around after the kids are in bed and brief them fully that they need to eat before they arrive…the night is drinks and gaming only. Well, maybe a tube of Pringles, or organic hand-crafted artisan root vegetable slices if you really can’t put that ‘Little Book of Hygge’ down.

So why is the game necessary? Can’t we just have friends around to visit?

Well….yes…you can, but then the potential shared experience evaporates. We talk about work, we talk about the children, we talk about what was on television and before you know it we are all sneaking peeks at our smartphones and it is just another evening.

The board game is the focal point, and the point of the gathering. Friends become opponents, looking each other in the eye across the dining room table. There are rules to concentrate on, so no time for mundane ‘how your day went’ trivialities. We’re all here to have fun with a game…it’s a serious business!!

Ha, well, that’s a notch too far. No-one likes a board game bully, but if you haven’t tried a good old-fashioned game night in a long time then I urge you to give it a go. If you must specify some rules such as no smartphones on the table then do it because the outcome is worth the strictness. Trust me.

You might be wondering which board games are guaranteed to not bore the backside of you all.

Well, there are no guarantees in life and people are different, but if my life depended on you and your friends trying a new game out and having a fab time then I’d offer the following three suggestions:

1. Ticket To Ride

A competitive board game where players collect different train car cards to try and claim railway routes between major cities. Players earn points for themselves by successfully completing routes between cities, with longer routes being more valuable (and more difficult to get!). It all sounds very simple, and it is. One of the joys of Ticket To Ride is that you can learn how to play it in just a few minutes and crack on with your first game, but don’t let the simplicity of rules fool you into thinking that it is not a complex or strategic game. A multi-award winner, Ticket To Ride made the games industry sit up and take notice when it won the coveted Spiel Des Jahres (game of the year) award in 2004 and has been opening people’s eyes and delighting players all around the world ever since. I am yet to find someone who has played this and not had a great time doing so.

2. Carcassonne

Carcassonne began life waaaayyyy back in the 2,000th year of our lord, and centres around the medieval fortified town of the same name in southern France, which is famous for its city walls. A 2001 Spiel Des Jahres (Game of the Year) award winner, Carcassonne has gone from strength to strength since its launch and has sold well over 10 million copies since then.
The basis of the Carcassonne board game is to create a landscape of farms, roads, cities and cloisters by laying down the land tiles. Players place their Meeples to take the roles of knights, thieves, monks or farmers on these tiles in a bid to score the most points at the end of the game. There are no dice, no rulers or character cards, just some attractive square tiles, little wooden followers and a score board.

Carcassonne is a very simple game executed beautifully and although simple there is more than enough strategy involved to make it an in-depth experience (without being too heavy).

3. Pandemic

Pandemic is rather fascinating in that it is a ‘co-operative’ game, which means that the players work together against the game rather than competing against each other. You and your teammates join together to play as members of a disease-fighting team who have to travel the globe fighting outbreaks of four deadly diseases in a bid to discover cures and save the world from yucky biological end times. The game board shows all the cities that are likely to be ‘attacked’ by the diseases. Initially all is peaceful in the world, but during the setup phase before you start to play you will use the freshly shuffled Infection Cards to randomly determine where the diseases have started. This will generate different levels of disease outbreak in 9 cities around the world which are indicated by the placement of Disease Cubes on the map. Suddenly things start to look ominous! The games builds slowly and ultimately goes crazy. You and your teammates are highly likely to lose the game the first time around, but you will want to play again. You can finish a game in under an hour, so a couple of goes won’t make the evening drag on too much.

I have chosen those three because the rules can be grasped quickly enough to allow you to open the box and get your first game underway within around fifteen minutes and they can all be played in around an hour, but I guarantee you will want to play another game right away.

Honourable mentions for other games to investigate go to Settlers of Catan, or Catan as it has now been repackaged as, Cash & Guns which is an incredibly fun game and one that you can easily play with young children too and if you and your buddies are Game Of Thrones fans then the epically brilliant Game Of Thrones board game by Fantasy Flight Games is unmissable, but you will need to allow around two or three hours to complete it.

Finally, for another game that works brilliantly with adults and children then look no further than the Exploding Kittens card game. A simple yet fiercely competitive little game, and if you are looking for something small to take on holiday with you then this is a must have.

Games are a great social experience and as well as being the catalyst for a different and enjoyable adult evening they can also be a compelling reason for older children to put down their tablets and consoles and be reminded that spending time together as a family is pretty good fun. Try one of the above out and be bored of board games no more…

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This game has now been successfully road-tested extensively through this year, and not just with kids as a few adult trips have flow by whilst playing it. I can take no credit for creating it and neither can I celebrate the inventor’s name as it was mentioned in a half heard conversation this summer and it seems to have leaked into my brain by osmosis. Whoever the creator is I salute you…and long may ‘My Mini’ be shouted in my car!

To play, all you need is at least one passenger but the more the merrier. Everyone also needs to be fully aware of what a Mini car looks like and they ideally also need to be au fait with classic Minis as that is where the big points lie.

The rules are simple…while driving the first person to see a Mini has to shout ‘My Mini’ and they score, as long as the sighting is verified by at least one other passenger. Points are awarded as such:

1 point for seeing a modern Mini
5 points for seeing a classic Mini
15 points for spotting a Mini dealership
…and if you travel near Oxford then the ultimate winner is the person who spots the Mini factory there first!

A point is deducted for incorrectly calling ‘My Mini’…so shouting it at what turns out to be a Fiat 500 loses you 1 point. Minus scores are possible in this game.

And that’s it…sounds too simple to be any fun, but trust me and try it. The choice of minis for the game is near enough perfect too as they tend to appear at a tension-building pace…not too many and neither is there too few to hold your interest. The pace is perfect. It wouldn’t work with Fords or BMWs.

There is also a massive sense of satisfaction by being the person who spots a classic Mini first as they are not so common any more.

Happy motoring folks…

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There were a few things we have needed this month as well as a bit of advice on a couple of future purchases and I found the advice and service to be absolutely top notch in this store.

Based on the outskirts of York, almost in the shade of a recently opened John Lewis store, Paul Stride has been offering proper and suitable nursery product advice to parents of York and the surrounding area since the late 1990s. It began life previous to that as a department store on the other side of York and sold shoes and clothes among other things before eventually becoming solely focussed on nursery.

The great service and wealth of advice offered by the team in store appears to be a draw for parents in the area – I counted over 25 people in the store on my recent Saturday afternoon visit, compared with only 4 browsing the John Lewis nursery area when I wandered over there for a headcount comparison. I am never going to knock John Lewis, but I will always favour the independent nursery stores over any major chain, especially when they have been helping parents out over many years and decades – there is a level of tacit knowledge in the independents that you just don’t get in a major chain.

When I went in through the door last time I was greeted by the sight of the owner on his hands and knees with his toolbox by his side actually fixing what looked like a wheel problem with a customer’s pushchair. There’s another difference – take a faulty pushchair back to a major chain and it will be sent off to the supplier and you might be without it for a couple of weeks. Buy from somewhere such as here and you may have it sorted out in a few minutes and be back on the road if it is a minor or common fault.

When I left the store there was a member of staff in the car park with 3 different car seats chatting to a family and showing them how they all work in their own car, and it’s just all part of their normal service. Anyway, you get the picture…I favour the independents…and shame on anyone who gets that type of demonstration, knowledge-sharing and time and then disappears to try and save £10 by buying it online somewhere else (but don’t get me started on that)!

The store is really well organised with a small area for accessories when you first walk in that then opens out into a large room dedicated to pushchairs and car seats, and it’s a real haven for wheeled goods geeks such as myself.

The range of pushchairs on offer here is very strong and wide. I was delighted to see both my favourite brands on display, UPPAbaby and BabyStyle as well as the Babyzen YOYO.

The owners appear to have a keen eye for great products and brands, although I say that because they stocked most of my favourite products that I have encountered so far, including the Nomi Highchair. I also spotted other Dadness faves such as Bababing and the Ubbi Diaper Pail.

Upstairs on a very cool mezzanine floor it’s all about the nursery itself, with a great selection of nursery furniture from beautiful brands such as Boori and Babystyle, as well as lots of choices for bedding and sleepwear.

Paul Stride in York is supported by a really nice website that makes online shopping a simple experience, but if you live in, or are visiting, the York area then a trip to the store is really worth the effort if you are in the market for some new baby products. It really is a destination shop and from my experiences here you will only be sold something you need, rather than something a shop wants to get rid off.

Great staff, lovely browsing experience, oodles of product and parenting knowledge…it all adds up to a big Dadness thumbs up

Links:

Website – www.paulstride.co.uk
Facebook – Paul Stride Page
Twitter – @paulstrideyork

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