Lego 2012 calendar: February

Here is the picture for February:



Sooo funny. :o)

COMPETITION: Win a Sugar Poke!

Following my experience of being Sugar Poke-d (ooh er!) I am *delighted* to offer you the opportunity to win your very own Sugar Poke to send to whoever you like...perhaps even yourself? The choice will be yours!

I'm all for entering competitions, but some people do choose to make them difficult as I am sure you will agree! But I'm all for nice and easy. So here is how you can be in with the chance to win Six of One..!


(photograph used with the kind permission of Sugar Poke)

Visit Sugar Poke's website, have a look around and come back here and post a comment, telling me your favourite Sugar Poke. And if you like, who you would send to and why (but that's just because I am nosey!). That will gain you one entry.

For an additional bonus entry:

Tweet the following message:

'Would you like to @SugarPokeUK someone with a little help from @smilernpb? http://smilernpb-smilernpb.blogspot.com/2012/01/competition-win-sugar-poke.html'

If you tweet, please let me know in the comments with your Twitter name, leaving me a comment for each time you tweet. Please note that you can tweet as many times as you like, but please remember to leave a comment each time you do.

Please note: this is for UK entrants only.

You don't need to follow my blog, be a friend on Facebook, follow me on Twitter or any number of crazy things like that. Nice and simple, see?

However if you choose to follow me (@smilernpb) or @SugarPokeUK then that is your choice, but you will not gain any additional entries for doing so.

The competition will run until Midnight on Friday 10th February and I will contact the winner via email/blogger/twitter on Saturday morning. This will mean that should you wish, you could get this sent in time for Valentine's Day.

Therefore PLEASE ensure that each and every comment you leave has a way of me contacting you. I will choose a winner using random.org and I will update on this post, and also post the winner's name on Twitter once the competition has ended.

Any comment that does not tell me what your favourite Sugar Poke is, or confirm a tweet you have made will be discounted.

Happy comping. Any questions, please ask!

Dreaming of the perfect house!

Bronte and M have been busy playing with their dolls houses this evening. Bronte has the one she got for Christmas 2011 and M has the one she got for Christmas 2010 and they play happy families. It's really quite nice to see them playing together, I think Bronte is definately advanced for her age, the things she does - I don't remember B and M doing that at her age! I'm contemplating the fact that I might have another bright child on my hands..!

Anyway, the talk of dolls houses got me thinking - our house needs a lot of working doing to it. :o( It's in desperate need of a redecorate and we have a little bit of a damp problem that we need to sort out too, but we will have to sort that first before doing the redecorating. I'm not very techincal on exactly what's going on, but the main point of it is that there is water coming in because of *aherm* something that needs doing to the side of the house (?) - that's about as technical as I can get, I'm afraid. Thankfully P knows what is going on. We have spoken to someone and we are awaiting a quote back, so it's going to be a busy year here - when we can finally try and get everything sorted that is.

I love our house. I really do. I think I love it so much because it's 'ours'. The only other house that P and I lived in for a few months when we first got together had mice living in the roof, so really anything on that has to be an improvement! But as soon as I saw our house, I loved it. We originally rented off the person who owned it, and a couple of years later we brought it for our very own. And in around 19 years time it will all be ours - haha! Our house is just a plain old semi-detatched three bedroomed house. I know we won't live here forever, but if we do move, I sure will miss it.

But....well my dream house. My fantasty 'dolls house'. What would that be like? Hmmm.

I do actually day dream that I have won the lottery and have unlimited monet to spend. When I do this, I visit websites where they show you a houses for sale, and better still - a sneaky peek INSIDE! Oh yes. I love those sites.

I imagine myself living in a wonderful house with everything I could possibly want:

A double garage.
At least four bedrooms, maybe an extra one for a spare.
A library?
Better still - a UTILITY room. Oh yes.
Massive garden. Home gym room for P.
And of course a amazing kitchen for all my baking.

Oh my goodness LOOK at what I found to go in my dream kitchen - Smeg appliances - just look at the Union Jack one!

See? I have it ALL sorted. I just have to win the lottery now.

What would your dream house be like?

We finally watched each and every episode of LOST!

Back in October P and I started watching the Lost box-sets. I didn’t really tell anyone at the time because we had so many seasons to watch, and I didn’t want anyone to tell us what happened. Don't you just HATE it when people say, after you tell them you are watching something, 'oooh did you like the XXX bit?'. Erm, no BECAUSE WE HAVEN'T GOT TO THAT BIT YET! :o( So, I thought it best to keep it to ourselves, and I'm pretty pleased we did, because nothing was ruined.

Lost, incase you don't know, was a US series that spanned six season’s and aired between 2004 and 2010.

It was about the survivors of a aeroplane crash who were stuck on a desert island. I am sure you would have heard of it, even if you may not have watched it. Anyway, at the time it was on, I have no idea why - but we didn't watch it. I have no idea why…..but anyway, after working our way through the BBC1 series Hustle – we decided we needed a new box set to watch and so it came about that we would start watching Lost. Aside from the 'people stuck on the island' we knew little about it. Although I had heard that for some people, the ending was good, and for others it was disappointing. But hey, each person has their own opinion, so Lost it was!

I picked up the first box-set (second hand) on Amazon, at the beginning of October from a seller for £1.99 plus postage, and to be honest I wasn’t sure what to expect. We decided to buy them used because it would be cheaper, and it didn't make a different to us whether the DVD's had been viewed by anyone else. As long as they worked. We worked our way through each of the box-sets buying them second hand on Amazon (and saving a fortune!) as we went. We started off watching maybe one a night, sometimes two a night, and when we had a few episodes to go before the end of the series, I brought the next box set. The exception being at the end of November, when we were half way through season 4 - when I brought both series 5 and 6 at the same time, just in case we ran out just before Christmas, but as it turned out we ended up having a litle break from it. I think we just got a bit head-mashed by watching it nearly every night! For those of you who have seen it, you may recall what I mean! :o)

I won’t go into all the detail of what happened for those of you who have not as yet seen all of the seasons, and who wish to do so, however I will tell you that if you haven’t seen it – you need to watch it! It will take a lot of time and devotion on your part…but I would highly recommend it to you.

So…now we have watched all of these seasons, we find ourselves indeed, pardon the pun - a bit lost! We are now on the look out for another series to watch. I’d love it if you would take the time to share any good series' with us. We will watch pretty much anything, although we are not too fond of sci-fi kind of things (like Star Trek). Many thanks! xx

Review: Tara's Music Magic - Snuggles in Scotland DVD

Bronte and I were asked to review a music DVD aimed at children under 5 years of age. The DVD is called Tara's Music Magic - Snuggles in Scotland.

(please ignore the silly face lol)



I wasn't sure what to expect, if I'm totally honest now, because as some of you will be aware (but I neglected to tell the lovely people of Tara's Magic Music!) that kind of music that Bronte likes is the likes of Metallica and Slipknot - I kid you not! So, I was a little apprehensive at what she would think of a DVD with children's songs on it, seeing as it's not the kind of music that she usually listens to! The joys of being brought up by a Daddy on long term sickness, eh?!

Anyway, Bronte saw the DVD and she was excited to watch it, especially when I told her it had music on, that she would be able to dance to. M, who will be 7 in March, also said it looked like a good DVD, and when I explained to her that we had been asked to review it, she said that she wanted to help.

The back of the DVD states:

Developed to ensure your 0-5 year old will learn and have fun.

Children love watching children, dancing, palying and having fun. With fun new songs and some old favourites this is a DVD they will watch again and again and again.

20 songs including:
Row, row, row your boat
My dog's name is Maggie
Toast Marshmallows
Snow Angels
Old MacDonald had a farm

Some of the songs on the DVD I had not heard before, and others are favourites that every family will know. It was a nice mix of the two. I believe it is Tara who sings the songs, alongside a panda character called Snuggles.

Both Bronte and M enjoyed the DVD, they danced and sang along to the songs they knew...





and for those they didn't, well they just enjoyed watching the TV.



Each song has a different setting, including ones set indoors as well as outside, a snowy scene and a rainy day. A variety of outdoor scenes are used, and the backdrop is simply amazing. I have never been to Scotland before, but if this is how beautiful it is, I definately think it deserves a visit!

The DVD retails on Amazon for £8, which I think represents good value for money. Although Bronte will remain a die-hard Metallica fan, I do think this DVD will get watched again and again, as the synopsis indicates, because it's such a charming DVD. It's also 30 minutes long so just long enough for children to have a good dance and sing-a-long to!

Although M was slightly older than the aimed-at audience of under 5's, she really enjoyed the DVD. I wasn't sure if she would, seeing as she is a bit scared of dressed up animals (she runs from Brewster bear each time she sees him at a party!) and I wasn't sure if it would be too 'young' for her, but she really enjoyed singing along and dancing too.



So all in all, a BIG thumbs up from my girls!

If you would like more information about Tara's Music Magic please visit their website.

Disclaimer: I responded to a Twitter message requesting parents of 0-5 year old's to get in touch to review a music DVD. For the purposes of the review we were sent a complimentary Snuggles in Scotland DVD. Please note that the thoughts and opinions expressed throughout are own own, honest review of the product.

Job hopes - dashed! :o(

I've been reviewing my outlook on my job over the past week or so. For those of you that don't know, I work in a call centre - I'd rather not say where on here, on this post, but if you'd really like to know then you can always contact me direct and I will tell you (just don't want the search engines to pick it up - haha!).

I don't work in outbound, cold calling or anything like that. I work in inbound, where people call in because they need help or assistance or have a query. Usually it's because there is something wrong, or something they have sent in has not been processed. Oh the clues. Am trying to be as vague as possible....but it's not really working. Haha.

Anyway, I've been here now since November 2010, and since the turnover of staff is quite high, I am now considered one of the more experienced members of staff, and I now take internal calls from other advisors who need assistance with their calls, with the more complax of queries. I act as a 'buddy' where new members of staff, during their training, will sit with me and listen to my calls, which we then discuss afterwards, to assist them with their learning and understanding of the company and the service we provide.

In certain cases I get personally involved in seeing through the person's query, long after I pass it on to the processing department. I check back on the account to make sure what should have been done, HAS been done. Then I email/call the customer back to advise them I have seen it through to the end. This has resulted in a number of emails that I have received in return. Which is nice, I like that.

Earlier on this week, I noticed a job advertisement on our online recruiting site, for an internal vacancy for a Team Leader. I have just started my training for Team Leader cover, for covering holiday weeks and things like that, however I thought this would be an ideal opportunity to express my interest in furthering my career. Yes, I do have good days and bad days at work, and well, who doesn't? I don't have any real desire to leave (it's not THAT bad!) but I would have preferred something with either more money, or better hours (I currently work Sundays 9.30-5.50 and Monday to Thursday 10-6). So, I sort of got all exicted, and planned on updating my CV to show the experience necesary, and do you know what? I felt quite confident about putting in my application.

However, the job application did not state the hours - the shift that would be required to work. It just stated that the call centre was open from 8am-8pm Monday to Friday and 9.30am-5.30pm Saturday and Sunday. So I thought it best, before putting in my application, to see if anyone knew what the shift pattern would be. I was informed it was 'more than likely' a weekend compressed shift - a compressed shift being a short 8 hour day (working 7.5 hours) - this would be the weekend day due to the opening hours and three long 11 hour days (working 10 hours), per week with three days off (these could be any day, and at least two would be together). I was gutted. There is NO WAY this would even be able to fit in with my family, plus the fact that I was told that it was 'more than likely' going to be a Saturday shift. The ONLY day I couldn't work in any job, due to P's personal commitments.

I spent some time reflecting this, and I felt quite angry. Yes, a lot (I wouldn't say the majority, though) of the shifts in the call centre are compressed shifts, which probably suits them, but for a working mum-of-three would be completely unsuitable. I decided that although it would be beneficial for the experience of applying for an interview, that I would be wasting everyone's time applying for a job that, in the event I got it, I wouldn't even be able to take up!

So, I shall stay where I am for the time being, and continue to do what I do, and see what other jobs come up. However, this could mean that I might have to start looking elsewhere for jobs if all the jobs higher than my current one offer a similiar shift pattern.

So...what are your thoughts? Did I do the right thing? have you, or anyone you know, had a similiar situation? Thanks for letting me vent! xx

Car Trouble (Part 2): Is it a car.....? No! It's a....

And so you've probably guessed by now, that the old car was gotten rid of, however I shall tell you the rest of the story.

P called me last week at work, and said he was taking the car to his friend, who is a retired mechanic, and that he needed the log book. I did think that was a bit odd, but he said that his friend needed to see the engine number, and stuff like that, and it'd be easier for him to get it off the log book as opposed to the car. That sounded plausible as I know when ordering parts for cars in the past, P has taken the details from the log book as opposed to the vehicle itself.

Anyway, on the same day P took the Picasso over to his friends garage to have a repair to the exhaust (which was thankfully, still under warranty). He picked me up from work in a little van, which he said his friend had let him borrow as the Picasso wouldn't be ready until the next day. Half way home, I asked how his friend had got on with the car. 'Oh,' he said, 'I didn't take it to Peter's, I scrapped it!'. Cue lots of squeals from me, about how I was going to get to work, and stuff like that, before he continued, 'oh yeah, and I brought this van off Rob!'. Damn him being so matter of fact! A van?!



It's a little van, which used to be a parts van for one of the garages, so basically has only been used to carry spare parts. Conveniently, P informed me the van was also suitable for carrying all of his drum equipment to and from band practice.

Admittedly I was in a little bit of shock. I haven't ever driven a van before - large or small and I because it's a diesel I have to remember to put the right fuel in it (I am so hoping that I do, or it could be a VERY expensive mistake!).

So yes, I now have a van!

Although I think part of me will always wonder WHAT exactly the issue with the car was! P says I am not to think about it, seeing as it nearly drove him insane for so many months. Ooops.