Category Archives: Consumer

Isla bikes

Six years ago, I wrote about children learning to cycle. Whilst researching the piece, I spoke to someone from the CTC.

He told me about a new company that was starting up, run by someone called Isla. I rang her and we had a chat and I mentioned the company in my piece. It was so nice to actually speak to someone who ran her own company and not a PR representative of a huge cycle manufacturing chain.

My eldest was then about three and I was looking for a bike for her, so decided to buy a balance bike. I’d seen loads of the wooden versions around London but they really annoyed me for some reason and, at the time, Isla’s Rothan was much cheaper than the other metal versions around (I think she vastly underpriced her bikes in the early months).

The reason Isla bikes are so good, but also what makes them not the cheapest you can buy, is that they are made with components that are specially made for children’s bikes, not scaled down versions of adult bikes. Hence brakes are easy to apply: they’re not stiff, but have a lovely, easy, action. I think this is really important for little folk with their tiny hands. IBs also hold their value incredibly well. Look on eBay and you’ll see what I mean. And they look great. Our bike man said that my daughter’s Isla bikes were the best quality children’s bikes he’d ever seen. You can read more about what makes them so good here.

You can of course buy cheaper children’s bikes and if that’s what you want to do, go right ahead. I learned to ride on a bike far too small for me, up and down the corridor at my aunt’s house in Italy. The moment I got my own bike (I was TWELVE), I was able to ride it straight away.

Both of my girls have always had Isla bikes (it helps with the value for money thing if you can pass them down the sibling chain), from the Rothan, through the Cnoc and the Beinn. Because my children have unfeasibly long legs, I always ring up for advice before purchasing and you should too if your children have very long or short arms, of if you’re not sure of sizing. And although my eldest learned to ride on the balance bike, Rothan, she still decided she needed stabilisers on her pedal bike when she graduated to one.

Today Isla bikes launches in the US. So all of my readers in the US can also buy one.

*Disclaimer. I bought all of our bikes at full price for years, but the last two years Isla has, exceptionally, given me a discount on my children’s bikes (I think I’ve bought two with a discount) as she credits me with helping her launch her business. Of course she would have done it all by herself.

Camping mats

Filling nozzle, the right equipment for the job.

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Now that I have become quite, quite obsessed with eclairs and profiteroles, I realised quite quickly that I was lacking a vital piece of kit.

A piping nozzle that was long enough and thin enough to penetrate the choux pastry, but with the hole large enough to let the cream out.

Cheap icing/piping nozzles are a false economy because the really good ones don’t cost that much, about £4-£5 a piece. And most people don’t need that many nozzles because they don’t ice/pipe much. So you don’t need a payday loan to fund this particular habit. And if you do ice/pipe a lot then you must surely appreciate the benefit of having good tools.

Anyway, the one for this job is the Wilton Tip 230. It’s available in lots of places for £4ish. But you can also get this kit for not much more, £6.27 at time of writing, and yet you get four Wilton nozzles and some disposable icing bags. NOTE: the description says ’12 piece set’, well it is if you count the icing bags but you only get four nozzles. One of which is the filling nozzle.

So if you don’t want to slice your eclairs or profiteroles, you simply make a little hole with a skewer or some such, insert this and squeeze the cream in until it starts to come out. It is a bizarrely satisfying ritual, which probably says something more about me than I should let on.

The Tripp Trapp (high) chair. The best chair for babies and children ever in the history of the world.

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By the time my eldest was two, I had heard enough about the bloody Tripp Trapp chair. At the time, I co-ran a parenting board (it no longer exists but was fabulous) and all I heard was how AMAZING the Tripp Trapp was. On and on and on the owners would bleat. “Best chair ever,” “amazing, little Johnny can join us at the table, he’s always at the right height for eating and drawing and everything.”

SHUT UP!!! I wanted to cry. I am so contrary that the more people tell me to buy something the less I want to buy it. There are a few, choice, individuals by whom I am insanely influenced. But not many.

My daughter had two Ikea high chairs and perfectly good they were too. One was the Antilop, hugely popular and a best seller. The other was the Blames, but in oak (no longer available). The Antilop lived at my parents’ house, the Blames was at ours. They were fine.

Fine.

But when my daughter got to be two years old, she was too big for the highchairs and wanted to be more independent (actually this happened way before then but I ignored it because goddamit these were the highchairs I had committed to, what did it matter that she couldn’t get in and out of them by herself?). She could of course climb on an adult chair, and she did, but it was big for her and she was never at the right level for eating or drawing or counting her money.

It was at this point that I gave in and bought a Tripp Trapp, quietly and without telling many people because I was so ashamed. And of course, I realised what all the fuss was about. They are fabulous chairs and had I not been so pig headed or “with a head not even the pigs would eat” as we say in Italian (but we say it in Italian) then I would have had two more years wear out of it. As it is, my eldest is now nine and uses her Tripp Trapp every day, several times a day and has done for the past seven years.

The youngest was in hers from a very young age, about four/five months, when she could sit up unaided, with the babyset attachment. Tripp Trapp now does a newborn set so you can actually put then in it from birth, not that they can eat at the table from birth though, but they can join the family at the table.

So, what’s so goddamn great about this chair?

Well it grows with the child. As they get older you take off the babyset (if indeed you ever used it, obviously I didn’t first time round), you move the seat and footrest up and down according to need.

It looks great, being of northern European design of which I’m so fond.

It comes in lots of different, plain wood finishes/colours.

It’s so easy to clean, unlike some hideous highchairs I’ve seen.

So it’s not as cheap as some highchairs, from £120 new, but you can pick them up on eBay (they hold their value). Personally, I think it’s worth every penny as even adults can use it, so it need never go out of use.

Because it’s height adjustable, children are always sitting in the correct position (well, they are if you adjust it right) with their feet supported.

I think the Tripp Trapp has a smaller footprint than other highchairs. I can’t swear to this, but because of the design it doesn’t seem to have as big a footprint as others with their giant foot span. It also slides very neatly under the table, unlike almost all other highchairs that have a front to them.

My children sometimes sit on the footplate, facing the seat part and use the seat part as a table. You can’t do that with other highchairs.

There is a video in circulation that purports to show a Tripp Trapp falling backwards (the child pushes his feet against the table). Perhaps this is possible, but neither of my children have ever managed this and neither have I, I just slide when I try it. But I thought I’d mention it in case any of the Tripp Trapp haters mention it.

But the biggie for me is something quite subtle. The Tripp Trapp doesn’t come with a tray, in fact a tray goes against everything the makers, Stokke, believe in which is that a baby/child should be at the table, en famille, being part of everything. Not separate.

Anyway. I paid full price for both of mine from Back in Action. What I mean by that is that I didn’t get any special journalist offers or back handers.

I can’t recommend them highly enough. Although it’s taken me seven years to get round to writing this up. If you are thinking of a getting a highchair, don’t be an idiot like me and give in, GIVE IN NOW and buy one.

How to deal with nosebleeds and how to get rid of blood stains

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I know. Birruva shock for a Sunday morning, and not a post involving the beating together of diabetes and cardiac arrest inducing amounts of sugar and butter.

Sorry.

But I have a cold. A really bad one and the incessant blowing of my nose has made my nose bleed lots.

I’ve had nose bleeds since I was about seven. I remember my first one because it was traumatic. Let me tell you about it.

Crossroads had just started. Crossroads was a very bad soap opera based in a motel. Television could be brilliant or very poor back in those days. As the opening titles finished and Benny with his woolly hat came on, like a runaway from the children’s programme Rainbow, my nose started bleeding. And bleeding. And bleeding.

My mum rang the GP who gave us the totally wrong advice to put my head back and pinch my nose. All this did was make the blood run down my throat into my stomach. Half an hour later I still had a nose bleed but then also puked up a stomach full of blood. Which alarmed everyone. I could hear Crossroads finishing.

Still my nose bled. Eventually of course it stopped. But I learned something useful.

You don’t stop a nosebleed by putting your head back. This is how they always show it on TV. That’s about as helpful as showing women labouring on their back. I think it’s about camera angles.

If you have a nosebleed and you have no other health problems, like suffering from haemophilia then the way to stop it is to lean forward. Pinch the affected nostril hard. Not at the top of your nose, the fleshy part so you close that nostril. Wait for about three minutes, by which time your natural blood clotting soldiers will have come in and fought the battle.

What you may then find is a big clot coming out of your nose. Don’t panic. This is normal. At least, it’s normal for me and those whose nose bleeds I’ve observed.

I’m so adept at dealing with nosebleeds now I mostly get on and do other things when I have them. Unless I get a simultaneous nose bleed in both nostrils, like I did when I was pregnant and when I have colds. That’s not so fun, but the same principles apply. I’m so confident now that when my nosebleed has stopped, I gently blow it to get the clot out and carry on with my day.

Eeuww. But look this might be useful one day.

Now then: blood stains. Obviously you can’t deal with huge ones this way, well not without spending all day spitting. But this morning I got a bit of blood on my sheets as I was trying to stem the nose bleed from both nostrils. Damn I thought, I’ve only just changed the bed. Then I remembered a trick I picked up from when I used to write the Dear Annie columns.

Your saliva, apparently, has enzymes to dissolve your own blood. Or something like that. So I spat – or to put it another way, transferred saliva – onto the stain and the blood disappeared like magic. Really it’s incredible (the fresher the stain the more effective the saliva is). It only works on your own blood though, so if you’ve killed someone, you can’t get rid of evidence this way.

Anyone fancy a sleepover?

Waitrose Bottom Butter, a really good cleanser: for your face

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£2.89. Bargain.

I am a huge fan of oily cleansers. They seem counter intuitive but they work to dissolve dirt and make up and also don’t dry out the skin. My favourite such cleanser is Eve Lom‘s, but it starts at £40 for 50ml. The Eve Lom cleanser is thick and solidy but melts when in contact with your skin. It’s main ingredient is mineral oil and it also contains parabens. I can’t afford it anyway so I use Simple Cleansing Lotion, which probably also contains all sorts of things I’d rather not know about.

But now I’ve found a cleanser to rival Eve Lom’s. That delivers that same, solidy at room temperature, melts on the skin quality. That leaves skin feeling soft.

This is the balm close up, I hope you’re enjoying my photos.

It isn’t actually a cleanser at all and I didn’t actually discover it. It’s a balm for baby’s bottoms and my nine year old discovered its cleansing properties.

Waitrose Bottom Butter was in the news a few years ago as lots of people found it to be a great moisturiser for adult faces too. I don’t really like it too much as that, it’s too oily for me but my nine year old uses it as a moisturiser and in fact it was her who discovered it’s great cleansing qualities.

My eldest suffers from occasional eczema and dry skin. Like a lot of people with children with eczema, we’ve tried many things. When the seasons change from autumn to winter, her skin can get especially dry so I give her a little facial twice a day, along the lines of the great Dr Erno Laszlo’s principles (which uses hand-hot water splashing to get the blood to the skin).

One day she said she wanted to try this little cleansing regime on her own, so she did and she used the Bottom Butter as a cleanser.

This got me thinking, so I tried it. And it is indeed brilliant.

I wouldn’t use it on my eyes, but if you are a fan of cleansing with water and flannel (as many people are, and as opposed to wiping cleanser off with cotton wool, which I think is a useless way to cleanse), give this a go.

Just apply it as a cleanser, massage it in really well (which is also good for the skin as it gets the blood to it), then wipe off with a flannel dipped and wrung out in hand hot water (repeat this a few times). If you like the Laszlo method of splashing, too, you can do that. It’s brilliant in hard water areas, as it doesn’t dry your skin out. Then just carry on with your usual routine. I’d recommend using eye make up remover on your eyes.

(It’s also really helpful if you get dry skin in the shower or bath, apply a thin layer before you go in.)

All thanks to my eldest.

This bottom butter contains only only olive oil, hydrogenated olive oil, vanilla and chamomile oil. It smells lovely.

And it costs £2.89 for 125ml.

Ice grippers for your shoes

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The walk to school.

I have, once before in this blog, lamented the loss of the apres ski boots I bought when I was 14. They were by a Canadian make called Blondi (or something like that) that were the most amazing boots for the snow and the ice that I’d ever come across.

They had what seemed like a sticky rubber sole and for years I thought I had imagined this.

But I hadn’t.

There is indeed something called ‘sticky rubber’ which is used on snow boots.

Anyway, the boots are now long dead although they lasted about 20 years. But I contemplated buying a replacement until I saw that really good apres ski boots cost about £150 and for only occasional use, that seemed a bit luxurious when I had my Ecco boots and my sheepskin boots.

But my research led me to ice grips that you slip onto your boots or shoes. They are really good to keep in a bag when the weather gets like this. They slip relatively easily onto footwear, are good quality and are nice and grippy on ice. But, on normal pavements they can make you feel very unstable so if you’re walking on and off icy surfaces do be aware of this and decide whether you want to have them on or off.

I got mine in December (because I am ORGANISED) and they cost £3.19, now they’ve gone up a bit according to what size you want. Still cheap though and useful to have.

I am a size 37/4.5 and the medium fitted me perfectly.

A cake to cheer you up and natural firelighters

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A really rather superior cake.

I’ve been pretty flat thus far this month. In part because there is loads of bad news around, it’s end of year accounts time, tax is due, it’s not Christmas, all those things you put off until after Christmas can no longer be ignored, everyone is miserable, George Osborne is still chancellor and also because January just generally is the arse-end month of the calendar. The only good point in it is my mother’s birthday.

We usually book a little weekend away in Jan or Feb to cheer ourselves up. But not this year.

Anyway. Two things that cheer me up are real fires and cake and the two are connected today by: oranges.

Orange peel, left to dry a bit, makes excellent firelighters. I doubt they’d be an alternative to shop-bought, kerosene soaked firelighters, but they are a good addendum to them and also smell nice. I had two oranges that I’d studded with cloves for Christmas, you know the sort of thing. And they’d started to go off and dry up and I put them on a really roaring fire and the smell was amazing. As was the glow of the cloves..nut shells also burn well (because of the oils, same reason orange peel does). So save up all your pistachio shells to put on the fire.

Jesus, could that sentence sound more middle class.

Cake. I saw this recipe in the Waitrose magazine this month and earmarked it for the weekend (I don’t eat cake during the week). I made it last weekend and it’s a really excellent cake. The sponge is heavy with ground almonds which gives it a dense crumb but an amazing taste. I loathe icing sugar heavy icings – those that are nothing more than icing sugar and water or butter (why why why would anyone eat such things?) and have a glycaemic index of 112, and this is at least a bit better for you as it uses mostly Greek yoghurt and mascarpone.

I would link to the goddam recipe but Waitrose magazine hasn’t put it online yet the bastards.

for the cake

125g unsalted butter, softened
200g caster sugar
3 large eggs
100ml single cream
250g ground almonds
125g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
half a teaspoon of salt
zest of one orange
3 tablespoons of seville orange marmalade

for the syrup

the juice of one orange
1 tablespoon of seville orange marmalade

for the frosting

150g mascarpone
125g Greek yoghurt
4 tablespoons of icing sugar
2 tablespoons of seville orange marmalade
the zest and juice of half an orange

You need two 20cm cake tins lined in baking parchment.
Oven to 180C.

Using an electric mixer (I used the whisk attachments) beat the butter and sugar for five long, boring minutes until it’s light and fluffy or at least, til 5 mins have passed.

Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then the cream, then the almonds. Once mixed together, I took it off the whisk and did the rest by hand: folded in the flour, baking powder and salt, then the orange zest and marmalade.

Divide between the tins and bake for 20-25 mins until a skewer comes out clean. You know the drill.

The recipe says to wait til the cakes are cooled to pour on the syrup. I didn’t really. I left them for a bit then made the syrup and poured on whilst the cakes weren’t cool. Be warned however: keep the cakes in the tins whilst you pour the syrup on as there’s a lot of syrup and you want to contain everything.

So, to make the syrup you combine the two ingredients and warm gently in a saucepan until the marmalade has dissolved, then prick the two cakes and pour over evenly.

Now leave the cakes until they are completely cooled. Disrobe them from their parchment and now make the icing which you do thus:

Beat all the frosting ingredients together, reserving a sprinkle of orange zest which you’ll use for decoration. Sandwich the cakes together with it, then put some icing on the top. Sprinkle with the zest.

Delicious.

Although I haven’t tried it, I think this cake might respond well to being made with rice flour.

Laptop lunches, the best lunchboxes ever

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The Laptop Luncbox. Clockwise from top left: a popping candy chocolate lolly; grapes; fennel; ham sandwiches. Most of these inner boxes also have lids. But we never rarely feel the need to use them as the main lunch box has a lid that closes down on everything.

I need to warn you, immediately, that these lunchboxes are neither cheap, nor easy to get.

But they are worthwhile if you can get hold of one. Let me tell you about them.

Some years ago, in early 2008 to be precise, I was still co-founder, and a very active part of an excellent parenting website called I Want My Mum. It doesn’t exist anymore as we shut it down last year. But it was a great place for collective wisdom.

When my eldest was due to start school, I asked the mums and dads on there what lunchboxes they’d recommend and a few of them said Laptop Lunchboxes. Which were, then, available to buy in the UK.

LLBs consist of a main lunch box with a lid, and in this are four other boxes, some with lids, some without. The whole lot sits in an insulated, zip up bag. The beauty of it is that it helps you think outside the box (yes, yes) with what you put in the lunchbox, and also you don’t end up with loads of un-eco wrapping or loads of renegade plastic boxes. Of course, despite best intentions, our eldest still goes to school with sandwiches 99% of the time, but she also has crudites, potato salad, orange segments, grapes etc. They all fit beautifully inside and are protected from the disdain that a young child, quite rightly, treats its lunchbox. Her lunchbox (made mostly by her father) is a thing of beauty and the one I’ve photographed above is my youngest’s first lunch made in her lunch box. It was incredibly boring but she wanted something fast to take on a great cycling expedition around the garden and it’s the only photo I have. But imagine colourful wonderfulness spilling from every box and beautifully cut sandwiches that perfectly, perfectly fit the boxes and you’ll get an idea of the care taken by my partner in making his daughter’s lunch.

That first lunchbox cost about £25 as I remember. Not cheap but really good. It was so good I decided to buy us all one, but when I went to reorder, the website no longer did them and instead were offering frankly vastly inferior things that were little more than stacks of plastic boxes. I found LLBs in the States and emailed them. Good news! I could order direct from them! Bad news? With taxes and shipping it came to about £70.

It’s a good lunch box, but not that good.

My youngest is due to start school in a year’s time. My excellent friend and Godmother to one of my daughters, CC, was in American and due to come home for good. This was an excellent time to ask her if I could buy one and get it shipped to her and she could bring it back for me.

This is what happened and hence the youngest now has her own, and it cost £25-£30.

Of course, in the way of things, my eldest went through a stage of hating her lunch box and wanting one like everyone else. But now has come round to the fact that her lunch box is really cool and looks like new, after four years of continuous school service (she has a packed lunch every day, occasionally she will have soup in a food flask). This is something to remember when you buy something cheap that might not’t last. I reckon I’d have spent more than that by now on replacement boxes.

So I know this is a bit of an annoying post, but look, we live in the world of travel and have foreign friends. If you are going to America, or live there or know someone who does and can get it shipped to them and they send it on to you, this is feasible.

And these are really good lunch boxes.

The selection is a bit mind blowing, you can get just the bag, just the box etc; but the ones I got were in the Bento Kit (bag, box with compartments, knife and fork). And although the colourway we have isn’t shown at present, this is identical to ours in all but colour: this one, with the bag with shoulder strap which I think is useful for children.

I had really good service from this company. There was a problem with my payment and a real person answered my emails and tried to help.

Silk pillowcases and how they might provide good skin and hair care

Pane Amore e Cha Cha Cha

This is a blog about things I consume