Juneathon 2014 - Day 6

Well what a scorcher it's been today, I made the most of it by parking the furthest away from the hospital and had a nice meander through the grounds on route to my UVB appointment. I was apprehensive about going because it's getting hotter and hotter in that cabinet, I feel like I should wrap myself up in tin foil and sell myself as an oven ready chick!

Anyway I persevered and  a minute and half later was back out getting dressed and deciding what to do with myself.

I took my son to playgroup and spent the rest of the morning listening to Michael Jackson on repeat. Squiggle has taken a shine to Thriller and Bad and just wants to listen and dance to them all the time.
This afternoon he decided he was well enough to go to nursery so I spent the afternoon in the garden putting a few more plants in! Before I knew it, it was 4 pm and time to pick Squiggle up.

Tonight we were very naughty and had tea at McDonald's but on the plus side thanks to their app we got 2 free frappacinos!

Peach & Passion fruit or Chocolate Chip

The chocolate one was by far the better of the two, possibly because it contained chocolate, chocolate chips, chocolate sauce and whipped cream, whereas the other was just fruit!

Hopefully tomorrow will be a more exercise worthy day - I'm off to the Ideal Home Show at Manchester, so will be spending all day on my feet walking around and hopefully getting inspiration to sort my house out!

Juneathon 2014 - Day 4

Oh dear, another day of not really doing much. I thought this was meant to be British Summer time, oh hang on it is, British Summer mainly consists of wet and windy days doesn't it? I refuse to go out in the rain at the best of times and I'm coming down with Squiggle's cold so I'd rather stay in and keep warm.

There was a moment of blue sky which didn't last long but was long enough for the magpie's to create havoc in the garden, I couldn't see which poor pussy cat they were squawking at but they weren't half telling him/her off!

It soon became clear why, they were sitting on my washing line picking the flies off the cobwebs and didn't want anything else feasting with them!

Feasting time!

Keeping a lookout

Two's company

Juneathon 2014 - Day 3

Oh dear, I'm getting off to a good start again this year *rolls eyes sarcastically* I did no notable exercise today but in my defence I shopped! I spent a good 2 hours aimlessly wandering around a shopping centre, peering in through windows at all sorts of lovely delights and then moving on, because I can't afford to buy anything this week. Well that's a bit of a fib, I did actually end up spending a whopping £7 on 3 plant tubs, a bottle of tomato feed and a bag of compost, and then spent the rest of the afternoon replanting my not so small seedlings.

This year I am aiming to grow tomatoes,

 runner beans

 and peas, and so far they're looking good

I rescued the runner beans from the sale rack at a garden centre, they were looking pretty sorry for themselves and had been reduced to 50 pence, but with a good watering and spending the night in a warm place they've doubled in size!

#Juneathon - Day 16 - BBC Good Food Show

I like to dabble in entering the odd competition here and there and I was over the moon to learn that I had won 2 tickets to the BBC Good Food Show Summer from Yorkshire Pudd.

So after packing Squiggle off to his grandma and grandad for the day, hubby and I set off down the M6 back to his native homeland of Birmingham and to the N.E.C.

For once the M6 was kind to us and with no traffic delays we arrived just a little past 10 o'clock. We parked up and headed in. My oh my, it's a food lovers paradise. Nearly every stall was set up with free samples of either food or drink, and due to arriving on an empty stomach I must admit to feeling a little tipsy by 11am!

There was cheese galore to choose from, every flavour of chutney, jam, olive oils, fudge, sausages all of which needed tasting. There were drinks of every flavour from pressed cordials and slushies to chocolate wine and gold leaf champagne.

I was spoilt for choice, but settled on buying some wine and cheese for my mum and dad and some salted caramel fudge for myself.

There was a MasterChef demonstration stage where various previous MasterChef winners took part in demonstrating their cooking skills throughout the day, all being hosted by Andi Peters.

There was also an interview stage where members of the public could ask questions to celebrity chefs - I managed to catch James Martin being interviewed and I also managed to get Paul Rankin's autograph and a a sneaky photo from afar.

James Martin

Paul Rankin

The Good Food Show was also teamed up with BBC Gardeners' World Live so the outside of the N.E.C. was transformed with the RHS Floral Marquee which was packed with nurseries selling a huge range of plants, in  the grounds there were other plant stalls and things for the garden along with the show gardens.There were also stands inside the exhibition hall which were selling bird feeders, chicken coops, gazebos all sorts for your garden. They also held interviews with celebrity gardeners and we managed to catch a few questions with David Domoney.

I decided to treat myself to a couple of Ladybird Poppies, 

which will look lovely next year when they flower.

It's surprising how many miles you can cover at events like this, by the time we'd got back to the car, we'd been on our feet for 6 and a half hours and had covered a whopping 9 miles!! wandering up and down the aisles looking at every stall. I just hope I burnt off as many calories as I'd consumed today!

I had such a fantastic day and would love to go to the Winter show, but I might have to buy tickets for every day because different celebrities do different days and I'd quite like to see all of them!