MummyBarrow loves this month — May

MummyBarrow loves this month

Another round up of things I have come across in the past month that I think you might like to try out.  Or add to your wish list.   Some things I have been sent to talk about, others I have bought because I love them and want you to know about them too.

So this month MummyB is loving:

First up, a bit of an unusual one.   I bought this basket at Ascot last month.  For two reasons.  Firstly, I love a basket.   Who doesn’t?  There is no storage solution that cannot be fixed by a nice basket.  Secondly the minute the chap said “they are made in Ghana” I was sold.   I had to have one.   He explained that they are now working directly with the community that makes them, ensuring more of the money paid goes directly to them and not to shady middle men.    So I may have bored him with my tales of Ghana and Comic Relief.

They are old by Butternut Baskets who do sell online.  Please check them out if you are after a basket.  Or two.

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Next up is the Cambridge Satchel Company.  You know the one, the one featured in the Google Chrome advert.  I have coveted these for months.  Months and months.   And finally relented this month and treated myself to one.  Completely impractical in bright red but I just fell in love with it and had to have it.

I love everything about this company, from how they came about to their ongoing PR to their great product

Who doesn’t love a bit of a colour?  It is beautifully made, and whilst close to £100 it is going to last forever.

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I always love getting messages on Twitter that say “would you like to try us?” and when I got just such a message recently from the Foodies Larder I squealed.   They send our foodie boxes monthly with lots of great foods shipped directly from Spain.  The boxes are beautifully packaged and crammed with goodies.  I should probably have read the packaging a bit more carefully before grabbing the biscuits that I thought were almond biscotti.  They weren’t.  They were goats cheese.   Fabulous but not what I was expecting with my midnight cup of tea!  Other delights included some basil infused extra virgin olive oil, palm honey and some chorizo flavoured sea salt.   The goats cheese really caught Mr B’s attention.

We thought this was great idea if you have foodies in the family as a gift subscription.   The hampers are available for £30 a month (which includes delivery!) Or the gift subscriptions can be done for either three or six months starting from £90.

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Chocolates next.  Always has to be some chocolate!  I came across Chocolat Chez Moi recently and discovered they were only down the road so met up with Mike to chat about his chocolately goodies.  They use high quality chocolate to make all their products, by hand, from home.   And personalised, too.  These are the ones that Mike made for me:

Mini Oreos inside really high quality chocolate, with a white chocolate disc on the top.   Mike does boxes of these, either with photographs or logos on top, or how about a message to say “thank you” or “good luck”?

I think they are such a fantastic idea.   What could be better than a personalised chocolate from a great company, run by a couple that really care about their product?  Though eating my own face (sort of) was a strange experience!

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I was asked by Silent Night to look at their Sleep study and see if a lavender scented body lotion and shower gel might help me in my quest for a good night’s sleep.   They sent me a little kit from Crabtree and Evelyn with lots of scented goodies and asked me to report back.

My problem is that I can fall asleep at the drop of a hat, even if I am bored i can kill an hour or two with a quick snooze.  I can’t stay asleep though.  I wake up a lot during the night and then I can’t get back to sleep so my first waking thought is often “can I have an early night? Or could I squeeze in an afternoon nap later on?   Not that ever do have an afternoon nap but I like the idea that I could if I wanted to.

Opening the little bottle of lavender body lotion on putting some on the back of my hand in the middle night, and inhaling it slowing, really did make a difference.   Previously I was in that 23% of the survey that said they turned to Twitter or social networks.   Which I don’t think helps.   I think it is much harder to switch off when you have been plugged into technology.

 And I definitely have “Side of the bed syndrome”.   I couldn’t imgaine going to sleep on the other side of the bed.

Can you?

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Lastly, in the aftermath of my blog post on Friday about Samantha Brick saying that fat women are failures, I came across a website called Body Gossip.  Set up to give body confidence to teenagers by a lady called Natasha Devon who did battle with Samantha Brick on This Morning last week.   If you know anybody struggling with body confidence or self esteem, do point them in the direction of the website.  I think it is a fantastic idea.

That’s it for this month.

Know something you would like to see here?  Do give me a shout.