Review: Hotel Chocolat - The H-Box Summer Selection

On Friday, I received a H-Box Summer Selection from Hotel Chocolat. I know! Posh and everything.

Hotel Chocolat sell themselves as an innovative, authentic, and ethical company. You can get more information from their website. I don't know if any of this is true, but what I do know is that the chocolates they sent were bloody lush. 

In the box were 14 chocolates. This is a status update on all of the chocolates.....

The Caramel Cheesecake - all gone.

The Eton Mess - mmmmm, tasted of Eton Mess. All gone.

Sour Cherry Truffle - all gone

Custard Tart - The Dad ate that one. All gone.

Raspberry Pannacotta - tasted of raspberries. And chocolate. And yes, it's all gone.

Coffee and Walnut Torte - I don't like coffee. I don't usually like coffee flavoured sweets, but this one was pretty nice actually. All gone. Both of them.

Trillionaires Shortbread - both of them gone. It's a mystery.

Blueberry Cheesecake - The Dad ate this one too. He didn't share it. All gone.

Berrythyme Truffle - Lush. All gone.

Summer Berry - a truffle tasting of berries. Gone.

Chocolate Trifle - Yummy. And all gone.

I don't know where they all went so quickly. I meant to put them in the fridge and have them last all week, but something happened and now they're not there. It's an enigma. Wrapped in a mystery.

I have made a jingle up for the mysteriously vanished chocolates. You can make your own tune up, but these are the words....

Hotel Chocolat, yummy yummy yummy

Hotel Chocolat, in my tummy

Hotel Chocolat, nom nom nom

Hotel Chocolate, ooops, all gone

What do you think? I can see a Grammy heading my way very soon.

This box retails at £12.00 and you can visit the Hotel Chocolat website here.

Disclosure - we were sent the box free of charge for the purposes of this review. And very nice they were too.

Fish, balls, garden decorations, The Queen, tantrums, and potty training. The usual.

This last few days have been a bit hectic at Trouble Towers. We have been really busy doing lots of different things. There's things I could write an entire blog post about on their own, but I just haven't got the time, so this is a run down of each thing here in one big post. Hope that's ok with you. Anyway.....

We have spent a bit of time playing in the garden. The weather has been quite nice, and we've been cooped up too long. The Dad is constructing a guinea pig run. We've decided, after the death of our long-termer Alice, to get some new guinea pigs. So we're making a great big one which will house more than one, hopefully, and provide a permanent spot for them. 

We have been playing with our nice new ball. Well, technically it belongs to the twins, and they have been fighting over it more than they have actually been playing with it. 

The ball came from our neighbours - the ones we don't really talk to, mainly because we just don't see them as often as the others. The twins got a ball each for their birthday. They each got a different Hello Kitty ball, and loved them. After a few days The Dad kicked it over in to the neighbour's garden. I'd warned him a few minutes before when I predicted what would happen, but no-one ever listens to me, and over the fence it went. We figured we see them sooner or later and we'd ask them to put it back over. But we didn't.

That was weeks ago, and we'd given up on it. It's only a ball and we have plenty of things to play with. The twins had forgotten about it long since. But on Monday, the neighbour came round, which was a bit odd. The last time he came round was to negotiate the positioning of the new climbing frame as it was getting a bit over-bearing, so it was pretty awkward.

He apologised profusely. He explained that his dog had got hold of the ball and the ball was no more. Assuming it must have been our ball -  being the only family with young girls around - he'd gone to the shop and bought us a brand new one. He really didn't have to. I almost burst in to tears there and then. The twins love the new ball, which is good. Sort of. Now this ball is the favourite one. For both twins. Never mind. They'll work it out.

We've also made this. Totally stolen off Pinterest (where it was made with a hula-hoop), I made a triangular frame from an old bamboo cut in to three, and tied on ribbon. The twins 'helped' me to do this and they are very proud. It brightens up the garden a bit.

Trouble One and Trouble Two got a letter each from The Queen. They made her some birthday cards, which we took with us on our London trip. Then I totally left them at the hotel room when we went to Buckingham Palace. Bad mummy.

So when we got home, we posted them instead. Before I sealed them up, I hastily scribbled on our address. I don't know why I did this, but something told me to do it. Anyway, this week they each got a letter with a Buckingham Palace postmark, and written and signed by The Queen's lady-in-waiting. T1 was gutted that it wasn't from The Queen herself but I explained that this was as good as it got, and now she's happy. They showed them in assembly at school.

On Saturday we went to The Deep for a BlogsUpNorth event run by Tired Mummy of Two. It was good to meet other Northern bloggers including MummyOfTwo and JuggleMum. The Deep is one of our favourite places, and the twins loved it as usual.

Then on Sunday, I took all four girls to a local museum, where the older two spent most of the time kicking each other in some battle for supremacy, and the twins just ran round and round bashing things and having tantrums every few minutes. Joy. 

On a more positive note, it's been a few days that the twins have been without nappies during the day. They've had a couple of accidents, but not very many and I am very impressed. We're going to save a small fortune! Huzzah.

Here's to just as busy a time next week.

Review: Ravensburger Aquarelle Watercolour painting set

We have been sent a Ravensburger Aquarelle Watercolour painting set to try out. There are several sets to choose from. We have the fairy set.

As the girls are getting older, they are moving on to more sophisticated art. This watercolour painting set is aimed at children aged from 8 to 13 years old.

You are provided with three different pictures, a paint mixer with pipette and a brush, and a set of watercolour paints.

The enclosed booklet helps you to mix the paints with each other and the right amount of water to get the exact shade you need. You also get a little practice card so you can check your colour before you use it on the main picture.

The pictures have raised lines to help the paint keep in the right place. I was very impressed with this feature. I left the girls (aged 5 and 8) to it, and they had great results with no supervision.

The 5 year-old decided to 'add' to the artistic quality by cutting the edges of the picture off. Each to their own and all that.

They are currently arguing over the third picture. Nice.

Overall, we really liked this set as it helped the girls understand colour mixing and encouraged careful, grown-up painting instead of the usual slapdash.

Well recommended for budding artists.

Disclosure - we were sent a free Aquarelle for the purposes of this review. Opinion is all our own.

Things we're loving right now

The weather has finally gotten a bit nicer and we are getting out and about a whole lot more than we were last month. 

The twins have finally got to try out their bubble BBQ they got for Christmas. Easy for little hands to make bubbles with. It gets very messy, as you can imagine, but it's easy to clean. There is a fan in the centre of the BBQ to save little ones having to blow their own bubbles, and a selection of 'tools'. 

Our new bike trailer. We got it three days ago from a local seller on EBay and have been to the supermarket in town twice already. The twins love it. It's a lot more fun than jumping in the car and gives me some much-needed exercise too. You can get a little bit of shopping in the 'boot' behind the seats. We go on the back roads and are not in a rush. Today, we stopped and fed some ducks in the canal en route. I can see a little bike ride being a daily event.

My slippers from Gifted Goodies. Made of wool and fitted with a slipper sock, they are keeping my feet lovely and toasty. After all, it's not summer yet, we don't want to get too carried away. They fit lovely, have little non-slip dots on the soles, and a cute flower on the top. They are available from the Gifted Goodies website. 

Scoobies - WTF are they? They are all over my house. Apparently, the children at the girls' school are mad on them. What do they do? What is their purpose? They appear to be breeding IN MY HOUSE!!

Disclosure - Yup, blatant affiliate links on the stuff we're loving right now