Recently my eldest two children Col & Bess were invited to get behind the wheel for an hour long driving lesson.

Yes, driving. In a real car. I was a little apprehensive – they are after all still babies really (sorry kiddos!) and both under the legal driving age in the Uk.

Still, one look at their pleading faces as well as a glance at the informative Admiral Young Driver website and I found myself agreeing to take them along.

Why Put A Child Behind A Steering Wheel Anyway?

Admiral Young Driver offers lessons to children aged 10 to 16 with experienced and specially trained instructors. According to Admiral Young Driver research shows that early driving experience cuts road accidents by 40%. That is a massive amount and anything which has that kind of effect on the safety of our young adults has to be a good thing!

Just So You Know

At the time of our experience Admiral Young Driver only used ŠKODA cars but have now moved over to Vauxhall. Young drivers will now be able to practice their driving skills in one of their brand new Vauxhall Corsas – all fitted with dual controls. All of their highly experienced instructors are DBS checked in keeping with the companies child protection policy.

The Young Driver Lesson

Admiral Young Driver has several centres in locations all over the Uk. Our nearest was in Milton Keynes.

Pupils are given a “Drive Diary” booklet on arrival at their first Admiral Young Driver lesson which serves as a record of what they’ve covered in each lesson and the progress they make. This was a lovely thing to take away to prompt and encourage our youngsters to talk about what they had learnt during their time behind the wheel.

After getting a warm greeting from their respective instructors, Bess and Col took a nervous walk over to a fleet of Skoda Citigo cars. Their nerves appeared to melt away, the instructors were great with both of my budding Stigs and you could tell.

Upon entry to their vehicles there was a quick run through of safety procedures and how to start and of course stop the car and other useful information such as when to use clutch and handbrake. Bess who is 11 steered the car at first while her instructor controlled the pedals until she built the confidence to take the reins – this was a matter of minutes. I was pleasantly surprised by how many manoeuvres were covered in the space of a single 1 hour lesson.

Waiting to spot a Bess or a Colin

During the one hour lesson we were able to stick around and watch from the semi-comfort of a grassy hill. Moose was most impressed at the opportunity to let of some steam as you can see

After the lesson we were met with 2 very happy kids. Both Bess and Col thoroughly enjoyed their driving experience. Not only does it make sense on paper to give them a chance to get as much experience as possible under their belts, it was above all fun!

Col has changed his mind about driving altogether going from someone who didn’t really intend to rush into getting his licence until much later to someone who is absolutely adamant that he needs to start lessons as soon as possible!

I have had both of my darling offspring begging me to take them back for another go and to be honest, I think we may well do it!

We received this experience in exchange for a review. All opinions are as ever our own.

Gousto is a subscription recipe box service with home delivery

Easy, tasty ingredients to make nutritious meals straight to your door. No brainer. So when they contacted me to ask if I would like to try a recipe box for myself and the family I didn’t need much persuading. 

Gousto offers 6 different subscriptions.

• 2 recipes for 2 people – £27.49 per week
• 2 recipes for 4 people – £41.99 per week
• 3 recipes for 2 people – £34.99 per week
• 3 recipes for 4 people – £51.99 per week
• 4 recipes for 2 people – £41.99 per week
• 4 recipes for 4 people – £59.99 per week

The great thing about the subscription is that although the default is set to a weekly delivery you can cancel, skip or pause deliveries at any time. 

Once you have chosen your delivery schedule you can pick from large number of meals. The menu changes weekly and contains a huge range of meat, fish or vegetarian based meals to suit most palettes. 

I love cooking. That’s why I sat this one out

Mr G and I decided that given the option we would rather try 2 meals for 2 people than 1 meal for 4 people. I do all of the cooking in our house and have done for most of the 15 years we have cohabited. 

There was 1 occasion where Mr G removed a frozen chicken pie from its metallic case and attempted to grill it but the less said about that the better. Probably. 

With this in mind we agreed that to really see if Gousto recipes are easy, Mr G should be the one to have a go at cooking them. What was the worst that could happen?

I was impressed with how the Gousto box arrived. The packaging was extraordinary –  the chicken for example was packed with ice and wrapped with plastic covered sheeps wool. 

Gousto Lemon & Pepper Chicken With Rosemary Potatoes 

This was the first meal I chose. I have to be honest and say that my expectations were not high. I had been concerned that the portion sizes might not be very generous but as you can see from the photos I had nothing to worry about! 

Curried Chicken & Sultana Rice 

This one was something MrG would never have chosen to cook in a million years. Completely out of his comfort zone (lets face it, that zone pretty much resides in the cereal cupboard) but he did seriously well. Once again, the portion sizes were spot on and the meal was absolutely delicious although Mr G did comment that the method could have been made a bit clearer to follow. 

Would We Choose Gousto Again?

Without a doubt. Ok so perhaps for us it wouldn’t be a viable option for everyday meal planning but as a replacement for a takeaway when we want a special meal I could imagine this being something we would look at. At roughly £7.50 per portion it is something we could have fun cooking together and would be cheaper than eating out. 

Besides, now I know Mr G has these hidden culinary capabilities I would be a fool not to! 

Love 

Mummy & Moose.

Disclosure: We were invited to try these meals in return for writing a review. As always, all opinions are our own.

My 2 eldest children could not be more different when it comes to School

Whereas Col doesn’t really enjoy putting pen to paper and much prefers a more physical learning experience, Bess is the opposite. Nothing makes her happier than when she has a pen in her hand or her nose in a book. 

Both of these attitudes to learning come with their own issues. Col needs help to catch up with his peers sometimes and we constantly worry that Bess doesn’t have enough to challenge her and keep her interested in learning. 

Learning At Home Is Important To Us

I believe that the best and most effective way to educate children is by parents taking an interest. That’s not to say that I push for them to constantly be doing homework – quite the opposite in fact. If you don’t know what your child is doing at school then how can you help? This was the reason I wanted to try Education Quizzes. It seems logical to me that using technology, play and my childrens ingrained competitive streak will turn a dull bit of homework into something more! 

The website is colourful, it’s clear and to be honest it’s pretty useful! I was expecting there to be a good range of quizzes (which there are) but there are also other features. 

Parent 999 is an area of the site I like especially. It is there for us parents to clue ourselves up on all kinds of subjects from understanding what your child is learning at school to how to speak to teachers. 

I really like that the quizzes for children are written by teachers and couldn’t wait for one of my little darlings to have a go!

Bess is moving onto Secondary school this year. She was more than happy to look at the 11 plus area of the website. 

After playing with the quizzes for pupils over the course of a week, she found the questions to be clear and said that the quiz did feel relevant to her school learning which is great! I can see that the Education Quizzes would be accessible to all ability levels. The cost to subscribe is £9.95 per month and for such an awesome amount of learning aid this seems to be a great price!

I really like that the quizzes are bitesize. Each subject has 10 questions which feels more than manageable and I found that it made Bess want to go ahead and complete more quizzes.

For Schools

As much as we loved using the site at home I couldn’t help thinking what a great resource this could be for schools. The Education Quizzes schools programme offers an exclusive pricing structure and I think it would a great addition to any school. 

I felt as though Bess benefitted from using Education Quizzes and most importantly, she had fun! We would definitely consider using the service in the future as I really believe it could add to her learning experience long term. Especially as she approaches the dreaded GCSE’s…

Love 

Mummy & Moose 

We received access to the website and payment in exchange for an honest review. As always all opinions are my own