When I was asked whether I thought my darling offspring would be up for coming along to an Easter event I knew it wouldn’t be a hard sell. The opportunity was one I suspected that they would jump at the chance to attend. I was (as ever) right.

Along with Jaymee and Sabina we enjoyed an evening of some serious (ish) chocolate sampling. Here is a small selection of what is on offer for you this Easter at Queensgate, Peterborough

Hotel Chocolat

Hotel Chocolat is one of my most favourite shops in Queensgate at the moment. I love their seasonal ranges and Easter is no exception. Bess said she loved the Elizapeck Chocolate eggs (£6 each or 2 for £10) and I thought the Egg on Toast was a great buy (£2)

Carluccios

Ok so setting aside that I always forget that Carluccios has a shop in the restaurant (I blame baby brain – he is 3 so I will be milking this excuse until I can no longer) I was really impressed with what they have to offer! We loved the Half Dozen Chocolate Hens’ Eggs (£10.95)

Lakeland

Kids love marshmallows. I don’t know what happens to us as we grow older to make us forget how good they are but marshmallows are manna for (most) children. Lakeland have a lovely big jar for £6.

John Lewis

John Lewis can always be relied upon to deliver the goods and this Easter is no exception. I absolutely loved the hanging eggs (£2.50). So pretty! Moose adored the chick basket (£3.50) and was thrilled to be able to take it home. He has been carrying it around ever since and I know it will feature heavily on Easter Sunday.

M&S

I really love the M&S Easter range this year and was lucky enough to get a guided tour of one of their new stores – you can read about that here

My favourite is the burrowing bunny egg (£15) but I also loved the hand painted eggs and the Percy Pig egg (who doesn’t love Percy?)

What Did The Kids Think?

Bess was really impressed by the visual impact of the Butlers easter egg from John Lewis (£12.50)

Moose hasn’t left his chick basket alone yet but he also really liked the fill your own carrot crackers from John Lewis (£10). We all agreed they were a really unique idea.

I think I might be a bit addicted to the City Chocolate Caramel Bunnies from Hotel Chocolat (£6 for box of 16)

I think if this was a democracy then John Lewis would take the top spot but luckily it’s not. Hotel Chocolat are my winners for creating such cute characters as Elizapeck.

Thanks for having us Queensgate, we had an eggcellent time!

I really like Bourne town centre but as I usually stay close to home for shopping I was unaware of its charm until this week. I was invited to come along to the opening of the Burghley Shopping Centres latest addition – an M&S foodhall.

A great start

Store Manager, Isabel Meyer, marked the opening with her 50 M&S colleagues – many recruited from the local area – by cutting the ribbon at 10am and welcoming the first customers into store.

By the time we arrived the store was full of happy customers making the most of their new store.

Lisa Stevenson was the first customer through the doors and lives in Bourne. Commenting on the opening she said: “I found out about the opening and had to come down – I’m here with my daughter and the store is lovely. It’s so busy and it’s great to have an M&S Foodhall on our doorstep.”

Spend it well

I love that when you shop at M&S you are assured a great quality product. As part of our tour around the store Rory told us that wherever possible M&S always do their best to source in season produce locally.

M&S offers something for everyone from their Gastro to their Taste products to their ‘Made Without’ gluten/dairy free range. Incidentally, all M&S sausages are gluten free and most of their fresh meat is traceable.

Click and Collect

With three quarters of online M&S customers collecting in store, customers at Bourne can use M&S’s popular Click & Collect service. Really helpful to have this service now available locally. This provides the option of having M&S.com Clothing and Home orders delivered to the store the next day, free of charge

Find the store

The Bourne M&S Foodhall is located at Burghley Shopping Centre, Bourne, PE10 9EG, and opening hours are from 8am – 8pm Monday to Saturday and 10am – 4pm on Sundays.

Outside the store there is a car park offering 2 hours free parking and a bus station just a short walk away.

It’s great when your little one starts to love the characters from a TV show. In terms of development it helps them to learn about empathy and of course it is great for imaginative play long after the show has ended.

It’s not great when they develop said obsession 11 days AFTER Christmas. Moose had absolutely no interest whatsoever in PJ Masks before this but when it hit. Boy, did it hit!

For anyone who’s not in the know

PJ Masks is a series about a group of 3 six year old children. By day Amaya, Greg and Connor are normal kids but by night they don their PJ’s, activate their animal amulets and they become their superhero alter egos: Owlette, Gecko and Catboy!

This is one of the few shows which Moose loves that I quite like too. The animation is cute, the characters are pretty cool and well, it’s not Peppa or Bing.

Moose was given the special superhero assignment of taking a look at the new PJ Masks Let’s Go DVD in exchange for our honest opinion of it and we were happy to oblige!

The DVD comes in a nice presentation sleeve and includes some stickers which Moose loved! The whole thing runs at 72 mins which is enough time to write a blog post about the PJ Masks DVD or cook dinner and tidy a kitchen or just browse Pinterest (I have checked and double checked and this is accurate)

There are 6 episodes included on the DVD. I won’t say too much because, spoilers! Suffice to say, Moose was thoroughly entertained.

The episodes are called

• Gekko & the Snore-A-Saurus
• Catboy and the Shrinker
• Blame it on the train, Owlette
• Looking After Gekko
• Catboy’s Tricky Ticket
• Clumsy Catboy

Moose tells me that his favourite is Gekko & the Snore-A-Saurus. This is no great shock as we see a lot of Gecko impressions at home at the moment.

There were a couple of episodes on the DVD which I am sure we have seen on Tv but to have them all grouped together (thus avoiding adverts) is really handy. Plus, at this age children will not tire of rewatching those episodes anytime soon.

I have no doubt that Moose will enjoy PJ Masks ‘Let’s Go’ over and over and over and over and over and over again…

PJ Masks Let’s Go is available to buy now!

Persuading me to go to the Queensgate Shopping Centre in Peterborough and spend money in the January sales was never going to be a hard sell. 

As someone who has been self employed for some time, the January sales are usually something I avoid. My work making wedding cake toppers is seasonal and by January we are really feeling the pinch.

It doesn’t mean I am not in the mood to shop though! My challenge on this occasion seemed quite simple.. 

I met up with Jaymee from The Mum Diaries and we of course started our day right by going for breakfast and thinking about how we could complete our individual tasks. Nobody procrastinates like us! 

I did consider buying clothes but a) I have clothes and b) it’s not really outside my comfort zone and c) I’m hoping any day now to wake up a size 10 thus making any clothing bought now surplus to requirements. 

We thought the best approach would be to go and take a look around Queensgate to see what is on offer for those shopping the January sales. Spoiler; there is quite a lot!

During our browsing we actually found shops I didn’t even know existed especially in  Westgate arcade. I will definitely be venturing down there to visit Back To Life – the vintage clothing shop – as well as Style which sells all sorts of gift items.

I headed back to Pulse later the same day to get Bess’s ears pierced and you can read about that soon

Outside of my comfort zone

After some deliberation (call it overthinking if you like) I decided that my challenge could be a great aid to my plan for 2018. New year, new – healthier – me.

I want to learn how to cook! Currently our meals are made using pans which have been handed down to us from various Grandparents or Aunts. Definitely not something I would usually buy.

I headed to Lakeland to see whether they could help. I was in luck!

The Lakeland sales are officially my favourite! So many lovely (not to mention useful) things at massive reductions. It was quite tough to select from what was on offer because I would have used most of it but here is what I chose

1) 2.1 Litre Casserole Dish

Casserole dishes usually favour function over form, but this stainless steel stunner straddles the gap between oven and table effortlessly. With an elegant, streamlined design based on a Korean rice-making bowl, it has a large rim all the way round instead of paired handles, so it’s really easy to remove from your oven. And the construction ensures it’s not a triumph of form over function, either: with an aluminium core fused between two layers of stainless steel, it provides incredibly even heat distribution with no hot spots and great durability. Also, less washing up!

2) 3 Piece Frying Pan Set

I thought that these pans looked and felt really high in quality and they were reduced to under half price! The raised honeycomb pattern on their base elevates your food to keep it from sticking as you cook, and means it won’t absorb as much oil so it’s a bit healthier too.

3) Knife and Scissors

Swap your chopping knife and board for these one-of-a-kind kitchen scissors and change the way you prepare raw fruit, veg – or even meat – forever.

Incredibly sturdy and easy to hold, their spring-loaded soft-grip handles mean they look more like secateurs than scissors and make it possible to cut through even tougher veg like carrots and leeks with just a simple squeeze.

Featuring only one extra-sharp straight-edged, stainless steel cutting blade and a second flat-edged ‘board’ which acts as a stop for the blade to close against, their clever design allows you to chop, slice or dice with a lot less effort, away from the worktop and straight into your cooking pot or salad bowl.

4) Chef’n® Corn Stripper

Every single time I cook sweetcorn on the cob at least one person complains that they prefer it off the cob. Easy solution for them = less headaches for me! I haven’t see this gadget before but I think it’s fab!

I am really pleased with my little haul and the savings were awesome! The total cost of the things I chose should have been £104.96 but altogether they came to a grand total of £45.46 

Now I feel ready to face 2018 and get cracking with my plan to learn how to widen my culinary repertoire!