Seasons Greetings?

Yes, yes, yes - the dreaded C word again. I'm sure if you're trying to be organised and have a horror of December shopping, you'll be getting presents bought now. The less organised of you will be leaving it a bit last minute. And in the name of helping out the second of those two groups of people, we have been madly testing something that might appeal.

A hamper.

From Interflora.

Yes, Interflora now deliver gifts as well as flowers and have recently launched their Christmas Gifts section. There are some eye popping hampers there but we got to try something slightly smaller - our hamper was appropriately named Seasons Greetings.This can be delivered next day so it's perfect for the leave-it-until-the-last-minute brigade.

The box turned up and it looks a lot smaller than I imagined a £50 hamper would. There was a nice range of products included - wine, biscuits, crisps, cake, mince pie, chocolates, jam, chutney etc. The reason for the small box soon became apparent - everything, apart from the full sized bottle of wine and the pack of chocolate covered brownies (which are actually biscuits!), seems to be smaller than you'd expect. The jam and the chutney jars are around a quarter of the size of standard jar, there are only 3 mince pies in the pack, and a 125g box of chocolates does NOT go far in this house, let me tell you.

We have been personfully testing as many of the different products over the past few days as we can. The chocolate covered brownies were the biggest hit. I liked the mini ciabattas (which are little biscuits) and the crisps and shortbread were as nice as you would expect. There wasn't anything we've disliked. There just wasn't a lot of it.

Therein lies my problem with it. As value for money, I feel it could be a lot better. You could buy full sized packs of similar quality products in the supermarket for about half the price. Yes, the basket is nice - but it can't be that much. This is definitely a product of convenience rather than value. Well, to me anyway. You might feel differently about that, especially if it means you don't have to dash round shops in December, you don't have to do the wrapping, and you don't have to deliver it to the intended recipients. It would suit a couple rather than a family. That, or you're to expect the chocolate to disappear in a flash, she typed, looking pointedly at small children and husband.

Would you send a hamper for Christmas?

(Interflora sent me a Seasons Greetings hamper to try. All opinions are my own)

A foodie round up

People like to send me stuff from time to time and y'know, it's quite nice. I like trying out new foods and all that. But really, quite often there is not a lot you can say about them so I tend to save them all up for posts such as this.

First off, the lovely people at Bear Nibbles who celebrated their 3rd birthday by launching a new YoYo snack in mango flavour. Now, I actually didn't get to try this because the children snaffled it up before I had the chance to do anything, but they assure me it was "yummy". They were also rather taken with the lunchbox they sent us.

Next, Waitrose invited me to an event trying out drinks for that time of year that is coming up. As I couldn't go, they sent me this little lot.

Hubby tried the Jaipur IPA and said it was nice if you like that sort of thing. The bottle with the label is Heston's Earl Grey and Lemon Gin which was quite nice with the tonic water although I am not a huge gin fan. The popcorn was very popular with the children, unsurprisingly. However, I cannot bring myself to try the Bloodshot which I think is vodka or a liqueur infused with Bloody Mary flavours. Ew..

Then, PeerIndex sent me a little perk just because. It was some Cravendale Epic Straws and vouchers for a month's supply of Cravendale, which actually turned into two weeks' worth as we use so much milk in this house! The straws are like those Connecta Straws that were all the rage in my childhood and the kids had a blast building with them. I don't think they have actually used them as they were intended - for drinking but they can make some very long straws!

Finally, Kellogg's sent me a couple of boxes of Special K Cracker Crisps to try. A bag of these crisps - or 21 if you buy the bigger boxes - is just 95 calories and only 3% fat. I am usually a bit dubious about diet food because they usually replace one lot of rubbish with another. However, I did like these - I was sent the sweet chilli and sour cream & chive flavours to try, and much preferred the sweet chilli flavour. They are quite moreish but what crisps aren't? I didn't like that they were potato and wheat based because those with wheat or gluten intolerances couldn't have them but they were and are a decent option if you need to have a low fat snack (although you are only saving yourself about 35 calories compared to having a packet of regular crisps, so it's your decision whether you think it is worth it or not!).

I think that's it for now! Thank you to all the above companies for sending us such lovely treats.

My Fitness Story... - Dave

This week's story is a bit different. I put out a general plea on twitter last week for more posts and Dave got in touch. He outlined the nature of his story and I was intrigued. I wasn't disappointed when Dave emailed me this post. Y'see, Dave had a serious problem with an addiction - to crisps. In his post, he tells how giving them up changed his approach to healthy living. Over now to Dave...