Silent Sunday 07/08/2011

Let @LoveZoflora into your lives . A Zoflora hamper giveaway.

Zoflora has given me the opportunity to giveaway one of their super hamper.  I shall of course not be entering this and neither will Mr T though it would have saved me the £72 I spent on three cleaners for two hours !!!


Another cleaning disaster for me was when I spilt that brand of white paint that turns form pink to white onto a beige carpet . I also managed to spill the paint on to Mr T's computer ! I was not popular. You see I had not put the paint lid on properly after using the paint from the other day. I tripped as I was carrying it up the stairs , paint went everywhere and onto Mr 's computer that was on the landing . I had put his computer and other things on the landing out of the room I was painting. And I also broke my IPhone that was in my pocket as I tripped up the stairs and crushed it !


This is one of my cleaning horror stories! What's yours?.  Tell me and you can win this fabulous cleaning hamper below to aid your on your way to domestic heaven!

Zoflora are also running a  brilliant competition themselves such as this one to win £250 worth of garden centre vouchers.


You can find Zoflora on Facebook  and also on Twitter so please visit them.This fabulous hamper will include

Zoflora Luxury home making hamper

The luxury homemaker hamper will include:

·      A years supply of Zoflora products as follows:

o     Concentrated Antibacterial Disinfectant Liquid:

·      12 x 56ml bottles (including Lilac, Sweetpea, Rose and Hyacinth)

·      24 x 120ml bottles (including Bouquet, Lavender, Springtime, Cool & Fresh and Hyacinth)

·       4 x 250 ml bottles Citrus Fresh

·      4 x 250 ml bottles Lily Fresh

·      2 x Zoflora Solutions Bin Fresh sprays

·     4 x Ready to Use Disinfectant sprays. 

·     Complementary products including:

·       Vileda (dish cloth, multi purpose cloth and two types of scourers)

·       Addis (tile and grout brush, hand brush and flexible duster)

·      Sarah Smith (fair trade tea towel, cloths and flower power scourer)

·      Dishmatic (fill and clean dish brush and pack of refills)

·      Plenty ( kitchen towels)

·      Bentley Brushware (hourglass range dish brush and dustpan and brush)

·      Crabtree and Evelyn ( Hand therapy treatment kit)

·      Stylish colourful rubber gloves and apron.  

So the rules are as follow.

1. You must subscribe to my blog.

2. You must Leave a comment below with details of your cleaning horror story, with your Twitter name or an email address 

3. For an extra entry, comment on another of my blog posts, and leave a separate comment to tell me which one

4. For another extra entry ,tweet about this competition and a link to this page. Leave a separate comment with your twitter name to let me know you've done this. 

Competition Rules

1. This is open to UK residents only.

2. Only three entries per person. Multiple, automated or bulk entries will be disqualified.

3. An independent judge will choose the cleaning horror story from the random entries.

4. The judge's decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.

5. The winner's name will be published on this blog and I will contact the winner via Twitter or email. 

6. The competition will end on the 6th September 11.59pm

Mr Stink a day at the Lowry a Dirt Devil review

I was lucky enough to be chosen by Dirt Devil to go and have a play with their new vacuum cleaners as well as go and See Mr Stink at the Lowey along with J. Boys and stink just go together now don't they!. Myself and J were happy to go anything to avoid the brain drain of the summer holidays... this was very handy for me as I have a very fluffy cat that well fluffs everywhere. It would to have to be a high quality hand held vacuum so Mr T didn't have to go to work looking like a fluffy Om pa Lumpa.  I wouldn't want that  now? (Mr T is quite short think Richard Hammond and you've got it!)

Getting to Manchester was easy enough and then there was the Metro link, well after asking the lady at the coffee shop( She sounded like a James Bond villain, The gentleman at the information desk who had no Information what so ever and finally the other railway gentleman who was scurrying to go on his break who finally did help us.

I have never been one for that feng shui stuff. You'd probably look at my house and think I've got six feral children running around . You'd probably think I run a zoo , I only actually own one child, a husband and two cats.( One of which did try and kill me). I admit I should spend less time on the computer, I am going to do that this summer,balance family life with blogging etc. My mantle piece did  look like a freaky stalking duck shrine sadly no picture you get the idea). Well it does no longer look like that after I sneaked those three cleaners in!.


So here we have the Dirt Devil blogging event .

The talk given by the informative gentleman from Dirt devil  about their company background,  also their new products with Mircoban.

So after  Mr T saying  I really can't hire another cleaner( Boo Mr T) I was jolly glad that Dirt Devil let me take home to keep (and to lovingly caress )  a handheld vacuum cleaner.

We are a firm believer in this household if you make the mess you clean it up. So I got Rollie to clean up all his cat fluff and I think he made a superb job of it , don't you?

The hand held Devil Devil DRC001 

• It is Wall mounted so you can keep it charged for optimum performance.

• It is Dirt Devil's most powerful handheld.

• The attachments that are included are the Motorised Intense Turbo Brush ( be sure to keep long hair tied up if you are using this attachment) Also a dusting attachment and crevice tool.

• The Motorised Intense Turbo Brush is particularly useful for picking up pet hair as Rollie the cat can vouch for.

• It is the only handheld vacuum in the UK that comes with Mircoban to help kill harmful bacteria in the dust canister and boasts an easy disposal system with a one-press canister removal.

• Coat £59.99 available at Argos, Tesco and all good retailers.

I think the only thing I would love to see added to this product is the crevice tool to have a dusting brush you can slide down (like on other vacuum products I have seen)

So far so good with hoovering up the cat fluff. The next mission was to hoover out the car where no man/woman or cat dares to go IE no one can be bothered to lug the heavy vacuum out to it. So this was the ideal candidate to battle the mud and dust left by the rugby,football and cricket season. Not to mention having to eat on the go because of these events. This is ideal for using in your car for keeping on top of your cleaning.

Mr Stink is based on the popular Children's book by David  Wallaims, the Little Britain Star) and is touring the UK during 2011.


Mr Stink is a wonderful heartfelt interactive fun show  ( through the scratch and sniff book you scratch at various points doing the show). Suitable for ages six and up , this show has enough  going on with it to hold an older child's interest. Full of life lessons, it would suitably fit into the class room within a teaching capacity for Junior school children. The show is engaging and beguiling full of pongy glory, the star turn came from Peter Edbrook  as 'Mr Stink ' .

There are going to be some fabulous Christmas shows coming to the Lowry such as The Snowman ( which I believe is part of a child's Christmas , it was for me ) also Scrooge. I had never been to the Lowry before this and after this exquisite show I shall be taking J and Mr T along to a show.


So go visit Dirt Devil they really are nice and have lots of tips ( sadly no fashion tips ) to match  you with the appropriate cleaning appliance for the job. 


It was an extremely well run bloggers event where you were listened too not only by the PR people but other fellow bloggers who I was honoured to meet.. The children were taken care off no request was too small.

Disclosure (Dirt Devil invited me to the event where I got to see products reviewed, see Mr Stink, have some sandwiches and a glass of wine  and oh heck I forgot to have the Fruit cake . Also I got to take home a handheld vacuum to test and review. I was also given £40 pounds towards travel costs.)

I just remembered I did have cake which I bought before the show and it was rather delicious too.


Please check out this Dirt Devil competition below if you are a blogger.

Tots100 Dirt Devil Competition

My first guest post

My friend who has a blog over at http://www.aresidence.co.uk/ asked me for some tips on her little one starting school. So I rattled off a few tips to her , a bit nerve wrecking as I had never done a guest post before. I have to admit it was rather fun and its pushing my blog in a another direction that I wish to go .

So please go visit my guest post and comment and please have a poke around in her lovely blog as well, she wouldn't bite. Though she might get a little cross if she has just stepped bare footed onto some Lego (ouch)

You will also find her twitter and is not fruitless with her tweets, she tweets with reason and a purpose and that's really how it should be.

You can find her on twitter as @Aresidence

She is rather nice and her name is Penny , I however have not asked for her political view on fairies!

She has promised to come up with some secondary school tips which I shall be reading.

Back to School Reading tips.

 Getting your child basically to read can can be like banging your head against a brick wall. Here are some simple tips that may help in that situation.


1. Find a quiet spot to read with them, squeeze in to a little play tent with them, make it an adventure. No distractions ! Ten - fifteen minutes is long enough. So if you want to start to read them the entire book of ' The Hobbit' is going to have to wait.

2. If your child doesn't pronounce the word correctly- first allow them to correct themselves. Encourage them to sound out the  word using the Alphabet sound. This is basically Phonics but don't get hung up on this it will come in time. A good place to find the frequency word is here click on Literacy then go to phonics . Go right to the bottom and you will find 100 frequency words.

http://www.communication4all.co.uk/HomePage.htm

3. If you are struggling at first choose a book without words. It doesn't matter that it doesn't have words, the things is to get them used to looking at a book reading and being comfortable.  This encourages them to talk about what they see and helps the with their comprehension and understanding of the book. Also if they say an word wrong don't say its wrong simply  ask them to read that sentence back asking them if that sentence makes sense with that word in it.

4. Tailor the book to their interests. For boys it might me snot,dirt,cars,bottom noises ()! dinosaurs, football etc. Books like  harry and his Bucket full of dinosaurs are lovely. For the girls its probably going to be cats , horses and ponies, fairies,ballet,or princesses. Of course this is a bit stereotyped and each child will  have other interests !

5. Hug your child while they  are reading , it is a wonderful thing it makes you feel loved and instill your child with pride and confidence,. one of those many quality you need for reading.

6. Why not read out side outdoor? learning is very important , why not make a story shoe box up; recreating a scene form a book you are reading perhaps change the story around a little, you could invent a different ending. Of you could even create a story setting in a tray or in your sandpit ? I am sure there is a product you can buy to encourage this , I will try and find it for you.

7. Try and remember what you enjoy reading as a child and go re visit those stories.

8. If you have any problems always go and see the teacher its what they are there for, and they are always happy you help and suggest things for you.

9. Don't fret just keep trying if they don't want to read today , go back to  it another day.

10 .  Have fun they are only young once !.

Photo is copright free(author(AKARAKINGDOMS)and is free from http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=7980535829028668483&postID=2207412596963745666


And I sure that our local library will do story times for babies and toddles. Here is one I found for those of you in the leicestershire area http://www.leics.gov.uk/libraries_wriggly_readers