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May 2017

Photography

More Mundesley Photos – Sand, Sea and a lovely church

Mundesley Photos

 

I took my Nikon camera with me to Mundesley, Norfolk. It’s been ages since I used it because I’ve not needed it since getting my Samsung phone.

I do like the macro setting on it, though, so figured I’d take it to the beach and see what I could find to photograph.
I have to say, the best photo that was taken at the beach while we were on holiday was taken using a Samsung S5. The super wonderful husband took it using his phone. It’s the one in the header image above.

Unlike me, he’s able to get right down to the ground. Well, I can get down but I’d not be able to get back up again!. I think it’s an excellent photo 🙂

Mundesley photos

Mundesley photos

Mundesley photos

Mundesley photos

Mundesley photos

Mundesley photos

Mundesley photos

Mundesley photos - beach and sea

Mundesley photos - Ant

 

Family

Wonderful Week Away In Mundesley, Norfolk

Mundesley, Norfolk

It was our 12th wedding anniversary at the end of April so we decided to get away for the week, just the two of us. I found a lovely little chalet at Mundesley, Norfolk.
We had chalet 45 and I have to say that the mattress in that chalet is THE BEST I’ve ever slept on. Previously I’d have said the one at the Featherdown Farm we went to was the best but this was even better. I usually wake 4-5 times a night with back pain. Our first night there, I woke to go to the toilet and was very surprised to find that I didn’t have any pain at all. I didn’t wake again during the night and I didn’t have a bad back when I woke in the morning. This was totally unheard of for me.

I’m now scouring the internet trying to find an equivalent mattress because it’s been discontinued. Just my luck!

Tesco

Ant set our route and we took the scenic way there. We couldn’t get into the chalet until 4pm so it was nice to take our time and enjoy the drive.
We stopped at Tesco on the way and did our weekly shop.

I love doing a holiday shop at Tesco. It’s the one week where we don’t worry about the cost of things. We treat ourselves to Tesco Finest instead of Tesco value!
We have croissants and pastries for breakfast and we have real butter rather than buttery spread!

Needless to say, I’ve gained a stone in weight! I had a wonderful week, though, and I’m totally fine with it. It’ll come off again 🙂

Photos

I took loads of photos. I think it’s the busiest my Instagram has been for months!

Costa coffee

Our first stop was 2 minutes down the road. I needed a Costa coffee!

Mundesley, Norfolk

Flower shop in Mundesley

We fell in love with Mundesley. It’s such a lovely little place, so clean and everyone was really friendly.

new bee mug

I think buying myself a new mug when we go away has become a tradition. I fell in love this bee mug 🙂

new love mug

Ant bought me this love birds mug 🙂

frog ornaments

I saw these in the pound shop and had to have them to go around our wildlife pond.

books

Books

We did lots of shopping. We didn’t pass a charity shop without going in and these are just a few of the books we bought! At W. H. Smith and Jarrold  we spent my £50 book token I got the other month.

It’s really hard to ‘pay’ £7.99 for a paperback when you’re used to getting them for a pound from the charity shop! I only got them because I had the book token. I’d never have been able to use my own actual money!

Disney Twisted Tales

I did get some deals though. At W.H. Smith, they had buy 2 get 1 free on children’s books so I bought 3 Disney Twisted Tales books.
Jarrold’s also had a special offer to buy one, get one half price so it wasn’t too bad 🙂

anniversary dinner. potato dauphinoise, baked garlic mushrooms and green beans with steak

Anniversary Dinner

For our anniversary dinner, Ant made potato dauphinoise, garlic roasted green beans and mushrooms and steak.
It was all delicious. The steak was cooked to perfection and I could just eat it all again right now!

Mundesley Beach Mundesley beach Mundesley beach Mundesley beach

We spent a lovely afternoon at Mundesley beach and collected some interesting looking stones and rocks to use when I make my alpine and succulent raised bed.

Jason and the argonauts

We spent bank holiday Monday afternoon in the chalet, watching Jason and the argonauts. I missed Clash of the Titans in the morning as we went shopping but I couldn’t miss Jason!

Cream tea

On our way back from a shopping trip (can’t remember which town we’d been too) we stopped at a farm shop and picked up some homemade scones. They were gorgeous.

cross stitch teddy bear

I did a small cross stitch teddy bear when I wasn’t reading or shopping with Ant. I hadn’t done any cross stitch for years and I forgot how much I enjoyed it.

Great Yarmouth

Great Yarmouth

We went to Great Yarmouth for the day. We were very impressed and can’t wait to take the kids. I was tempted to go to the miniature village but we know the girls will love it so we decided to wait and take them, hopefully in the summer.

Great Yarmouth penny arcade Great Yarmouth penny arcade

I loved the penny arcade. To play the machines, you had to buy 12 old pennies for a pound. I tried the fortune teller and my fortune was ‘A Husband’.

Great Yarmouth penny arcade

Ant tried and his fortune was ‘A Divorce’!!

Great Yarmouth penny arcade

I had warm, freshly made doughnuts while walking on the seafront and they were delicious. It was freezing all the while we there but we still enjoyed ourselves.

All in all, it was a wonderful week with the super wonderful husband, even with everything I forgot to pack (hairbrush, slippers, pillows, towels and coat!) and with the DVD problems we had. I have to hold my hands up and say they were nearly all my fault!

DVD Problems

Every time we go away, we seem to have DVD problems. Either they don’t work or there isn’t one! This time, Ant decided to take our portable DVD player just in case.
It was a good decision because it turned out there wasn’t one.
We like to take movies and boxsets to watch in the evening because we record all our TV programmes on the TiVo so we don’t have to watch adverts.

I took our Games of Thrones seasons 1-5 boxset that we haven’t had a chance to watch together yet as well as the four Hunger Games movies and Kingdom Hospital by Stephen King.
Firstly, we couldn’t connect the DVD player to the TV because we needed a SCART adaptor.

We bought one on Monday (it cost a fiver which was very annoying because we knew we had more than one at home!) and sat down to watch Game of Thrones Monday evening.
All was going great. Disc one finished and we both agreed that we were going to enjoy GoT. I went to get disc 2 out and it wasn’t in the box.

I’d tried to watch GoT a while back and I’d left disc 2 in the DVD player in the bedroom!

Hunger Games

It was a little disappointing but there was nothing we could do (not enough data to download or watch online) so we watched the first and second Hunger Games movies on Wednesday afternoon when the weather wasn’t very good.

Ant went to put the third disc in only to find, for some reason it was a Blue-ray, not a DVD!

We had to watch Kingdom Hospital instead. Whilst it was ok, and I will watch the whole series, it wasn’t as good as I hoped it was going to be.

Next time we go away, I’m going to make sure to check and double check everything, as well as making lists so I don’t forget anything!

Books

The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time – Book Review #18

The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time

 

I really loved The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time. I read it in 3 days and when I was done, I wished it had been longer!

It’s written from the point of view of Christopher. He’s a 15-year-old boy with Aspergers. He finds his neighbour’s dog dead in her front garden. Someone had killed it using a garden fork.

Christopher wanted to find out who had killed the dog, Wellington, so he decided to do some detecting. His teacher told him it would good for him to write a book so he wrote about his detective work.
At the start of the book, we find that Christopher lives with just his dad as his mum had died of a heart attack.

He doesn’t like to be touched by anyone so when his dad wants to hug him, he holds up his right hand and spreads his fingers out in a fan. Christopher does the same with his left hand and they touch fingers and thumbs.
I thought this was really sweet.

I’ve not had much real-life experience with Aspergers so I don’t know how realistic it is. A lady commented who said she’s a mum of a boy with autism and it was a bit hard for her to read sometimes as some of it rang true but she also thought it was very funny.

I’ve had the book for months, maybe even a year and I’ve been putting off reading it. I went and read the reviews on Goodreads last week and there were some quite negative ones.
After the disaster that was 77 Shadow Street, I nearly decided not to read this book at all because of the reviews. I’m so glad I ignored them!

Goodreads reading challenge 2017


MamaMummyMum
 

Reviews & Adverts

Garden Essentials From HomeSense

Garden Essentials

 

It’s the year of the garden for us, as you may know, so we’ve been window shopping for ideas. We’ve got a plan but as we know from previous experience, plans tend to change when inspiration strikes!

We’ve seen some lovely garden furniture at HomeSense

garden furniture garden essentials

garden recliner

wooden garden chair

The girls would love this swing seat 🙂

garden swing seat

garden table and chairs

garden chair

Don’t you just love this birdhouse? We want to make our garden as wildlife friendly as possible so we’re going to be adding bug hotels, bee and butterfly friendly plants and birdhouses 🙂

bird house

I used to have lots of gnomes in the garden but when we moved we got rid of them because they weren’t looking the best. I’ve decided we’re going to have lots of fairy ornaments in this garden but I did fall in love with this little fella!

It’s not your typical garden gnome but I think that’s why I like it 🙂

red garden gnome

We want lots of lights in the garden. The pink watering can ones are my favourite.

garden lights

We’re not going to have many borders so I’m going to have lots of planters dotted around.

elephant planter

HomeSense doesn’t just stock pretty things for your garden, they also have a full range of tools.

garden tools

Hopefully we’ll get chance to get out in the garden next week and get the new raised bed finished 🙂

Photography

Birthday, Blood & Biscuit Cake – Project As & When

Birthday, Blood & Biscuit Cake

 

Aiden turned 17 last week. He didn’t want a party but he did want a birthday cake, which I forgot to buy because I was ill.
I felt awful for forgetting so the next day when I was better, we went off to Asda and bought him this custard cream biscuit cake. His favourite biscuit is the custard cream so we had to buy it when we saw it!

He loved it when he first saw it but was disappointed it didn’t taste like a custard cream biscuit!

custard cream biscuit cake

Ella wanted to bring Aiden’s cake in for him. Aiden didn’t want to be photographed for the blog!

Ella bringing Aiden's birthday cake in with candles lit

My book for the week was The Twins. I really enjoyed it and will be publishing a full review on the blog.

The Twins by Saskia Sarginson

I thought my first appointment to give blood was on Thursday. When we on the way, I was checking the letter to make sure I’d filled the form in correctly and noticed I’d missed the appointment. It was actually on Aiden’s birthday, the day I’d been ill. I wouldn’t have been able to go anyway but I feel awful that I didn’t phone to cancel. I’ve organised another appointment in June.

Blood Donation letter

Chi-Chi came to visit 🙂

Chi-Chi

I found some Smurf marshmallows at the new Home Bargains store that opened in Lincoln recently.

Smurfs marshmallows

I went to HomeSense to take photos of all the new garden stock and couldn’t resist treating myself to a new notebook. Ant bought me the matching pens 🙂

New notebook and pens

 

 

 

Reviews & Adverts

Esure Insurance

Esure Insurance

 

Esure is an insurance company based in Surrey, UK that provides car insurance, home insurance and other types of insurance coverage. It has over two million clients in the UK. 

When would you need to contact Esure? Usually, clients have questions, inquiries and other issues, but it would be a good idea to look at their website and read the FAQ section before calling. You may find the answer to your question.

Esure’s call center works Monday to Friday from 8 am to 8 pm, Saturday from 9 am to 5 pm, and Sunday from 9 am to 2 pm.

Esure is actually a phone- and Internet-based company. Its head office is in Surrey, but it also has branches in Glasgow and Manchester.

Keyboard

Peter Wood founded Esure in 2000. He also founded the Royal Bank of Scotland Direct Line insurance and the Sheilas’ Wheels brand, aimed at car insurance for women. Both enterprises have been very successful.

Esure utilizes celebrity endorsements, the most memorable being from 2002 to 2005 with Michael Winner.  

In 2007 news emerged that Esure would replace E.ON as the ITV National Weather bulletin sponsor. The deal was said to be worth £10 million. In 2010 Lloyds Banking Group sold its 185-million-pound share in Esure to Wood’s Esure Group Holdings. Esure was listed on the London Stock Exchange in the spring of 2013. This led to concerns about potential conflict of interest, as Wood donated a huge sum to the Conservative Party and the company’s IPO drew notice to the fact that legislation supporting insurance companies offered Esure expansion potential. The company was definitely put in advantageous positions by the amendments, and Wood earned around 200 million off the flotation.

Esure targets lower risk customers, offering low-cost premiums for clients with an effective no claims bonus for car insurance products.

In the fall of 2014, Esure came under fire for declining an insurance claim, leaving a client homeless. Her abusive husband had burned her house down, and Esure offered a ‘goodwill payment’ of only a few thousand pounds. The case came to trial, and the husband admitted he had tortured the client with an ax for days. Esure did not change their mind, stating that their policies covered unexpected events and accidents, but not purposeful and unlawful acts by persons destroying their property.

That same year, Esure was also criticized over potential conflicts of interest. This involved ownership of insurance comparison sites by insurance companies. According to the Financial Conduct Authority, any and all actual or potential conflicts of interest must be reported. Esure acquired the insurance comparison site Gocompare in full late that year. Earlier, it held 50% and this was indicated on the gocompare website. Eventually, it came to nothing as the FCA found no evidence such companies had profited due to potentially conflicting ownership.

Click on the link above to get more information about Esure. It would be best to contact them directly.

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