Unfortunately, the week they arrived I was still recovering from a nasty cold with an evil sore throat and completely deactivated taste-buds, so in the interests of a fair taste testing this blog post has been delayed somewhat. My apologies.

If you’re anything like me (a completely brand-oblivious person who spends most of their time in the supermarket in a zombie-like state) you’ll be wondering who NÖM are. Apparently, they are an Austrian dairy who have a UK dairy based in Shropshire. They are committed to using natural ingredients in all their products and have recently launched two new product ranges to the UK market: ‘Naturally Creamy’ – a split pot yoghurt similar to Müller’s Corner, and ‘Naturally Good’ – multipack yoghurts in smooth and layered varieties.

The first thing I noticed was how sophisticated the flavours seemed to be. In the ‘Naturally Creamy’ selection I was sent Senga Strawberry, Alphonso Mango & Passionfruit, Morello Cherry, Granola and Granola with Belgian Choc Chip. I assumed I would love the Morello Cherry and I wasn’t disappointed – a lovely rich yet natural cherry topping. The Mango & Passionfruit was equally delicious – both tart and sweet at the same time.

The Granola was surprisingly extremely good – I didn’t expect to like it at all, but it was rather nice (even without the additional Belgian chocolate – that made it even nicer!) – a bit like eating a crumbled up cereal bar with yoghurt. I could happily substitute my morning bowl of cereal with one of these.

My least favourite was the Senga Strawberry. To be fair, I am not a huge fan of strawberry-flavoured food items, I find them a bit too sweet and cloying. This variety wasn’t as sweet as some strawberry yoghurts but still felt a bit like eating a spoonful of jam with my yoghurt to me. I’m sure that this reflects my personal tastes rather than on the quality of the product, though.

I was also sent the two varieties of the ‘Naturally Good’ layered yoghurts: Morello Cherry and Senga Strawberry. These appeared to be the same flavours as the ‘Naturally Creamy’ split pots, only with a slightly thinner yoghurt and the fruit flavour at the bottom. I don’t usually buy layered yoghurts – mainly because the kids actively dislike them and I never saw the point in having all the flavour at the bottom. I usually end up just mixing it all up, by which point I may as well have bought a smooth-style yoghurt!

Ultimately though, these are a high-quality range with an appealing variety of flavours. I would definitely buy from the ‘Naturally Creamy’ range again in preference to their rivals, Müller Corners. Apparently they are available from Morrisons, but hopefully more supermarkets will follow suit soon.

The media, of course, has reacted with big red headlines about the KILLER DISEASE and vastly over-inflating ‘victim’ figures to get the most public interest. People, more people died in road accidents before the news reader finished her intro. Get a grip.

Finally, I found a great article over at Junkfood Science: Flu Fears which is the most sensible overview of the actual science I’ve found so far. It covers most of the salient points and helps put things a little more into perspective. Like the fact that this is “no more serious than your average flu bug”.

To summarise, I can’t do much better than give you yesterday’s xkcd:

(Note, for the purposes of this review, I am assuming you have read the book and are wondering whether to bother seeing the film. While I will try and not be too spoilery I can’t guarantee I won’t ruin anything for you if you don’t know the basic plot – if that’s a problem for you, you may want to skip this post).

Most of the casting was excellent – while they weren’t exactly as I’d imagined, both Bella and Charlie fit the roles well and their interactions were a believable father/daughter relationship. Alice (in particular, out of all the Cullens) was awesome, as soon as I saw her I thought “she’s exactly Alice” and Esme was also sympathetically casted. I didn’t really have a clear image in my head of any of the other minor characters, and none of them grated.

There were several scenes in the book that I knew would visually translate well, and they didn’t disappoint. These were the scenes with the runaway van, the rescue from the four attackers in the alleyway, the baseball game (this scene I particularly enjoyed watching – you get a real feel for the camaraderie of the Cullens and an understanding of their abilities, plus the music is great) and the final showdown in the ballet studio.

What was not done quite so well? I am resisting the temptation to just say “everything else” and finish the post there. The audiobook ran to around 13 hours long, so it’s not totally surprising they’d have to drastically compress the plot to fit it into a 2 hour film, but even so, some of the choices of the scenes seemed a bit random. Several times, there was exposition that actually required information from the book plot to know how it tied in. Conversations were rewritten to keep the gist but had the result of losing vital information and… its soul.

Then there were the effects. While much of the vampires’ motion was in the style of The Matrix and effectively done, the makeup was atrocious. Rather than smooth porcelain-white skin, you could visibly see the thick pale foundation which made their faces rough and ugly. Their radiant glow in sunlight was interpreted as a bit of glitter and blown out highlights in camera – laughable rather than awe inspiring. Combined with over-used “arty” camera angles throughout, it had me seriously irritated.

And finally, there was Edward – the most important character in the entire story. Sadly, the quick-witted, intelligent, and immortal predator was reduced to being a sullen stalker-ish teenager who could barely string a sentence together. His attempts at smouldering were pathetic. You were really left wondering what the hell Bella saw in him at all and why she didn’t get an injunction against him. Although, to be fair, the lines they gave him were so dull compared to the actual conversations in the book, the actor really did have his work cut out for him. As a result, his performance was wooden and uninspired.

So no, I didn’t enjoy the film as much as I’d hoped. One day I’ll learn to go see the film BEFORE reading the book it was inspired by. I did buy the song from the baseball scene off of iTunes, though.

It seems to be a rather love/hate sort of book for most reviewers, those who disliked it complain that all the characters seemed to do was endless mooning over each other while for others, the author can do no wrong. However, I rather enjoy a trashy romance from time to time, so I was sure I could cope with that. Plus, it had the added bonus of vampires… got to be at least worth a try.

I was a little put off at the start of the book. While the narrator was excellent, having an “Audible Kids” bumper at the beginning made me wonder if it was going to be just too childish a read and the whole of the introduction had a loud music overlay on the speech which was very irritating. That passed though and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. More than that, I found it a totally gripping and absorbing ‘read’.

I’ve read a lot of romances, a range of the good and the embarrassingly dire. Stephenie Meyer has crafted one of the very best I have ever read – the characters are totally believable and sympathetic. The story is told through the eyes of Bella, the heroine, and through her we slowly uncover the truth behind Edward Cullen and at the same time fall in love with him as she does. It is a little awkward as a 35 year old to admit that you are besotted with a fictional character, I know, but that’s how I felt while reading it.

It’s much more than a mere romance though. It’s strong in the fantasy thriller genre too. When I wasn’t on the edge of my seat as their relationship became closer, I was completely gripped by the action – one of the few books I can genuinely say I found impossible to put down (the kids ended up playing a lot on their Nintendo DSes the last two days). Don’t let the fact that this is marketed as teen fiction put you off, while parts of the romance are very idealised (well, apart from the fact he’s a dangerous predator – that’s not usually an integral part of most romance novels I’ve read) it’s still a very well written thriller in its own right.

On the back of it, I’ve ended up buying the DVD (a little disappointing, will write more on that later), the paperback version and two of its sequels. I’ve also started immediately listening to the whole audiobook again. Good job the kids are back to school tomorrow.

If you’re currently looking blankly and wondering what a mooncup is, then I suggest you read the original post (although I should warn you, if you’re uncomfortable talking or reading about menstruation products, you may prefer not to).

On the surface, a specially designed pouch for the mooncup seems a great idea. The little drawstring bags that come with them get tatty rather quickly and never seem to really protect them from collecting all the fluff you normally find in most chaotic bedside drawers (or is that just mine?). Also, to have a pretty patterned little bag rather than a plain cream one with the mooncup logo plastered across it at least allows you to retain a small sense of feminine mystique en route to the loo.

But do they live up to expectation? The short answer is yes.

Delivery was prompt after purchase and packaged well with a promotional bookmark and a personal post-it to say thank you, which was a nice touch.

This attention to detail in presentation was carried into the actual product – they’re beautifully made, sturdily put together but at the same time feeling delicate and pretty. They’re sort of a pyramid-shape cotton pouch with a zip along one edge. This opens smoothly to reveal a red cotton lining interior which (as you would expect) a mooncup fits in perfectly. In fact, you could probably fit two mooncups in one pouch if you slid one inside the other before putting it in the pouch, but I prefer to give them a little more freedom in a pouch of their own.

There are several designs to choose from; my favourite of the two I chose is the ladybird design – the little glass ladybird bead at the end of the zip is really sweet. I was also pleased to see that they can be hand-washed or put into a gentle machine wash.

The price? A very reasonable $10 US with $2 US shipping for UK orders and $4 US shipping to anywhere else. Every mooncup owner should have at least one.

You can purchase your own from the Lovealittle shop at Etsy.com. Alternatively, Jane at Lovealittle has kindly offered to donate one of these lovely little pouches in a Prattle giveaway!

All you have to do is come up with the most unusual use for a mooncup pouch (other than keeping your mooncup in, of course) and leave it in the comments for this post.

The one that makes Jane laugh the loudest gets the prize!

Entries should be submitted by the 30th September.

Good luck!

There really is no excuse, in these days of increased globalization, to treat your non-US customers with such disdain. And it’s not just a problem with a single MMORPG. With the dollar weak, European customers are actually worth a lot more money and generate more profit per person. Yet we are often treated as second-class citizens at best – charged more coin for less functionality and content.

It is getting worse, and it will continue to get worse as long as we allow these companies to get away with it. I think it’s time to start making some noise.

It’s been great – the teaching is fantastic, they’ve invested a lot in computer hardware and software and getting to “learn” with Akra Jr sitting beside me and showing me what he can do has been absolutely fantastic. Well worth sitting through a whole heap of tutorials on things I already knew how to do and had been using for years.

It’s given me a better idea of what sort of tasks they need to be able to do, giving me the impetus to search out the mac equivalents which can complement any schoolwork at home. It’s also given me some new language – a sort of kiddy tech talk – although mostly relevant for Windows than mac: “kiss the window goodbye” to remind children to use the X to close the window, “dog in the box” to remember which icon is for text wrapping round images.

However, one thing I am finding really frustrating is the inappropriate use of Microsoft Word for desktop publishing tasks. Now, I can see why they are doing this:

• the curriculum probably insists they learn a well-known word processor, but for young children learning needs to be fun. When you’re 7 years old, fun is pictures and very little text – this implies posters, fact sheets, newsletters etc.
• in terms of licensing for school use, using Word for as many different tasks as possible will be cheaper for them than buying a separate DTP package license.
• kids are likely to have some incarnation of Microsoft Word at home so it will be familiar, but are much less likely to have a DTP program at home.

So logical, yes. Easy to learn? God, no.

Using Microsoft Word 2008 to manipulate text boxes and pictures reminded me why I love my iMac so very very much. Getting a picture and text box to stay where you wanted it required more voodoo than mouse skills. To add insult to injury, every now and then when you added a text box (seemingly if you had the cursor in the wrong place but no rhyme or reason as to why) then it would wipe out everything else you had on the screen. I was getting frustrated… Akra Jr just looked a bit bewildered and gave up trying.

It reminded me very much of my experiences of Lotus SmartSuite in my days of working in the insurance industry where colleagues would beg me to fix complicated layouts and I would be able to after a few minutes of faffing – but wouldn’t be able to tell you exactly how I did it, or repeat it in exactly the same way the next time it was needed. Voodoo and confidence were more successful than logic.

Anyway, I’ve bought Swift Publisher for similar tasks at home which is so much easier for a child (and me!) to use, so hopefully we can build some confidence and experience at home with a tool that’s actually designed for the job. We’ll save the Word Processor for when he’s actually got some words to process.

The question in detail was would you trust a blogger’s opinion of a book over that of a professional critic? The stress on the word professional rubbed home the fact that us mere internet graffiti artists have no proper training to be able to properly comment on whether we’d recommend anything to our friends or not.

Personally (although, obviously, I’m highly biased – reviews form a substantial part of the Prattle) yes I do trust the average Joe on the ‘net over a professional reviewer. No they aren’t as professional in writing out their review, but they do know whether they like something and I know they’re not getting paid to deceive me. I even trust the comments on Amazon far more than any newspaper review.

Of course, I do check that the reason for a good or bad review is well thought out and that we share similar views of what makes a good or bad product.

No matter how much someone raved over a horror novel, I would still not buy it – I’m a wuss and can’t sleep at night after reading even the mildest story in the horror genre. Nor would I trust someone who said something sucked without offering any explanation why. I also try and look for a consensus over a great many opinions rather than relying on one, particularly if it’s a blog I haven’t read over a long period of time. This is common sense. But these days I hardly buy anything without doing a thorough internet search first and the reviews that have most weight with me…?

… they’re the reviews on personal blogs.

When I was looking for a light box, I found it really confusing – there are so many different claims out there, different types and brightnesses. You do feel a little lost among all the marketing! This was the one I finally selected for varying reasons and it’s turned out to be bang on right for me – however, the caveat to that is it may not be right for you, so I do highly recommend researching thoroughly especially as all of them are so expensive.

So what is the Apollo goLITE M2? It’s a very small unit: only 13.5cm high, 14.5cm wide and 2.5 cm thick (measurements approximate at largest points). The cover folds back on a hinge and becomes a stand at just the right angle for the light to bathe your face when switched on and placed on a desk. Instead of a bright bulb, it has 66 LED lamps which all emit in the blue spectrum only – this is the area of the spectrum that the latest research has identified as most beneficial to SAD sufferers. Like all good light lamps, it emits no UV radiation.

The buttons are simple – but to be fair, what else do you need? Power, light… you can set a timer (so it’ll switch off when your “dose” is done), adjust the brightness and set an alarm as a reminder. It’s completely portable – you can charge it up then place it somewhere convenient where there may not be any power socket available.

It costs just under £200.

PROS

• Despite its size, it is a very powerful little light – I was really nervous when I first got it in my hands. It looked so tiny and flimsy, how the hell was it going to compete with the bigger units I’d seen? All my worries dissolved when I switched it on. It is very bright and very effective.
• Short treatment time. As a result of its brightness, the treatment time is short and you can very quickly then just get on with your day. It’s advertised as 15-30 minute treatment with the average being around 20 minutes for most people. I find I do need a full 30 minutes, but then I only have it on 75% strength, so maybe I could reduce the time if I just had it on full… am happy with the routine I have now, though!
• Excellent battery life. I forget what the battery life is officially, but I’m easily getting a week’s worth of treatment on just a one 8 hour charge. You can also do a “quick” charge for a couple of hours, but to be honest I remember to charge it on the Friday as routine far more easily than doing lots of little charges as and when it needs it.
• Energy efficient. As it only emits in the blue spectrum (rather than the full visual spectrum), it uses much less power than a conventional light box.
• No bulbs to replace. You’re supposed to change the bulbs in a traditional light box every year, as they slowly lose their efficiency over time. While they may still appear bright, the amount they emit is vastly reduced (those of us who keep fish will know of the equivalent problem with hood lights!). However, this isn’t necessary with LEDs apparently.

Cons

• The lid/stand feels cheap and flimsy. For my biggest complaint, I suppose it’s not a bad one to have, but even so – it doesn’t feel that robust and considering its cost, I would really like to have seen a more quality finish to the product (not to the expense of the actual therapeutic qualities though, of course).
• The size can also be a disadvantage. The first few times of use I sat there rigid, terrified that by twisting my head slightly, my eyes would fall out of range of the light. It proved unfounded and I did relax eventually, but I’m sure with the bigger light boxes there’s much less awareness of that “field” of light that you must keep in.
• It’s expensive. Not really a disadvantage when you compare it to other similar light products – prices vary, but in comparison to other short dose light boxes (i.e. ones that are powerful enough to only have around half an hour of treatment time) it’s competitive. It’s just that it feels over priced compared to how small and plasticky it is. I do wonder whether we’re paying more to cover the cost of the research rather than the components, or if they just priced it to be in the ballpark of their main competitors.
• Charging is a bit of guess work. Would it really have cost them much more to have a “fully charged” indicator or beep? The battery gauge is next to useless as well – showing fully charged for ages, then suddenly running out of power. Frustrating where so many other gadgets in our lives seem to have much more effective solutions.

Over all though, I am very happy with it and feel like it was money well spent.

For those who haven’t a clue what I’m talking about, light therapy is one of the most recommended treatments for a condition called SAD (or Seasonal Affective Disorder). SAD is a form of winter depression – symptoms in the darker months of the year include: oversleeping and difficulty staying awake, continual fatigue and disinterest in activities, cravings for carbohydrates and sugary foods, along with other common symptoms of depression.

The reason why people get SAD (which does appear to have a strong genetic component) is thought to be linked to nerve cells in our eyes that react to the blue portion of daylight in order to keep our body clock on track. As the days get darker in the winter, this process just isn’t as efficient for some people, hence triggering a “hibernation” effect with the symptoms listed above.

What light therapy tries to do is provide enough light at the correct time of day to “reset” that body clock. It has proven to be highly effective for most suffers of SAD and is often the first choice of treatment before antidepressants and counselling, although the latter two also have proven benefits for this condition.

If you’re interested in finding out more about Seasonal Depression, you can find out more information from the SADA website.

So that’s the theory. What did I find out in practise?

Well the first thing I discovered, is that (contrary to what you would expect… it’s only “light” after all) light therapy does have side effects.

For the first few days of treatment, I really did feel quite giddy and sick. On investigation, this is quite a common side effect and I think next year I will be much more careful to slowly work up to a full “dose” over several days rather than on day one – give my brain a chance to catch up a bit. I’ve also read that (for similar reasons) it’s important to slowly trail off exposure to the light over several weeks at the end of the SAD season.

The other thing that is tricky to get right is the dosage and timing.

I have a fairly high powered light box, which means my recommended exposure time varies between 15 minutes and half an hour (I can also vary the light strength). This was a bit of a balancing act as I found that using it too early in the morning meant I woke too early the next morning, but leaving it too late meant I really struggled to get out of bed in time the next day. Also, too short a dose meant I had an energy slump in the middle of the day and needed a top up.

It was a case of trial and error in the early days to get the right balance. I’ve ended up with a routine of using it an hour after I wake up, for half an hour on a three quarter dose – but each person will have different requirements, I’m sure.

I also found that if one day I had a lie in and hence had a later dose of light therapy than normal it completely messed my body clock up – so those days I would skip the light therapy completely, rather than reset my body clock to a different time. You do have to be careful though, as miss too many doses and the therapy is no longer as effective.

All that said, the light therapy has been fantastic, and I really don’t begrudge spending the money at all. I’m finding it so much easier to get up and have energy and interest in my day again. I’m a nicer person with my children (and you really don’t realise quite how depressed you were until that depression lifts and you start to feel so much better).

I did have a bit of a slump earlier in January when we had a week of constant rain – in retrospect, I should have upped the light strength just for that week as soon as I noticed my mood declining.

I will be using the light box again next year.

So there you go, I hope that was helpful. I will review the light box I bought shortly in another post.

I never get anything very interesting in the post. Bills, junk mail, a load of baby catalogues I never managed to get off the mailing list for, plenty of “To The Householder” letters. If I’m lucky, a parcel containing something I probably shouldn’t have purchased. Even so, when the post hits the mat (later and later in the day, these days…) it’s a welcome sound, a bit of excitement.

Today there is no delivery, however, and deliveries have been suspended for a week while two 48-hour walk outs by postal staff follow in quick succession. In practise, I can’t see things getting back to normal again for at least three weeks.

It’s irritating – an inconvenience. I’m waiting for some yarn from the US to arrive, I had to send my niece’s birthday present by special delivery to get there in time as I heard about the strike too late for proper contingency planning. Annoying, but nothing serious. But I know others, desperately waiting for an important cheque, trying to send stuff to ill relatives, or book something important that this is more than a mere inconvenience for.

I do have sympathy for the workers and I also have sympathy for the employers – from all accounts, Royal Mail just isn’t profitable and they’re struggling. Post Offices all over the country are closing because they’re losing money – a shocking situation when you consider how much of a community lifeline a post office is in many rural and hence unprofitable locations.

The inescapable question is, why was the Royal Mail ever privatised? We’re told that a privatised company is much more efficient than a government owned service, but how can that be true when we used to have an enviable postal system with two deliveries a day, first class used to mean something and buying insurance in case the parcel got lost was actually much less of a necessity?

What I, and many others this week, have discovered is that there is no genuine competition for the Royal Mail. Couriers are much more expensive, inconvenient and don’t deliver as quickly unless you pay silly money. For letter post, sure I could send an email, but there are many things you can’t use email for. The Royal Mail is a monopoly to all intents and purposes. Even if you could get viable competition, how wasteful would it be to have several letter deliveries from different companies throughout the day? And having so many different collection points for different companies dotted around, with (presumably) different stamp systems – because door-to-door collection of letter post would be completely cost-prohibitive as we can already see with courier post now.

So, the solution isn’t to give in to all the workers’ demands, or even to allow the Royal Mail to make the changes and hike up the prices to be more more profitable. I think the only sensible solution is for the government to buy it back.

Any party willing to make that promise?

I can’t say for sure why this case has affected me so much, I suspect (like so many parents who are constantly refreshing the news page) it’s due to a strong feeling of “there, but for the grace of God, go I”. What’s stunned me though, is how so many parents appear to blame the parents for Maddie’s disappearance.

Most, I’m sure, are reacting out of a primaeval defence mechanism. “I would never do something like that” is an immediate comfort – a way of proving to yourself it would never happen to you.

And yet, what the McCann’s did was not in any way unreasonable. Mark Warner actively discourage (and in some cases ban) young children from attending the restaurants in the evening. Their baby listening service involves nannies patrolling corridors and only listening at the doors at certain intervals – not much different from a parent checking at regular points in the evening – and a parent would go right inside to check, not just rely on hearing something at the door in those few seconds.

At that particular resort, due to its unusual layout, the nanny patrols weren’t even available – the choices were to take your child to a crèche where they would sleep on mattresses on the floor or to have a babysitter inside the room. Neither option is ideal with young children set in their sleep patterns.

I can’t say I would have made the choices they did (mainly because we’ve never been able to afford that type of holiday, so it’s never even been a risk assessment we’ve made – and obviously hindsight is now coloured by the events on the 3rd) but neither can I fault their reasoning.

One eye-witness report I’ve read (admittedly on a message board and not widely reported in the news, so not a certainty) suggests the McCann’s were also using a baby monitor that night – a system which would have made it superior to many hotels’ baby listening services. Either way, it’s a risk that thousands of parents take every year without incident.

You see, every second of every day as a parent you are making a risk assessment. There is no such thing as risk free, just a balance between benefits and risk.

Sometimes, we cock it up (at least in hindsight). Can any parent lay their hand on their heart and say that they never let go of their toddler’s hand while paying in the supermarket, never looked up while chatting in toddler group to realise you haven’t actually seen your little one for a good ten minutes, never let your older children play out the front with their friends unsupervised, never lost them for a moment in Soft Play because you were talking or reading a book, never stepped outside to remove a spider from your house only to have your toddler lock you out for the next 45 minutes until a locksmith could be found (the last should be a dead give-away that I’m guilty as charged for all of those).

Most times there are no repercussions for our misjudgements. Except when there is. If something had gone wrong on any of those occasions, I would not have been a bad parent, but I would have taken all the blame upon myself. Forever. That’s what parents do, that’s our job.

I’m sure Kate McCann would give everything she owns to turn back the clock and not leave Madeleine that night. That does not make her a bad parent. It makes her a human one. She does not deserve our blame.

The blame belongs solely to Maddie’s abductor.

However, on this one I had some forewarning. A couple of weeks ago, I was sent an email asking if I would like to be sent a free Hotel Chocolat Signature Egg, in return for reviewing it here on the Prattle.

I have to confess I did a slight double-take at the implication that I might actually refuse free chocolate, but soon recovered from my shock, got in contact and sorted out details.

For the sake of transparency, I should at this point out that I am not in anyway affiliated with Hotel Chocolat, I don’t get squazillions of chocolate if you all rush out and buy one (more’s the pity) and I’m completely free to say what ever I like in the course of this review.

I just got to eat lots of luxury chocolate to give you the inside scoop – but you know how it is, I’m always prepared to go above and beyond the call of duty on your behalf. With that cleared up, on with the review…

I’d heard of Hotel Chocolat before, associated the name with a luxury chocolate brand, but had never got around to trying any of their products. Even so, when I received the parcel I couldn’t help but be impressed. Right from the start, the packaging just screams quality and high-class chocolate (in a very understated and refined way, of course).

I’m usually bitterly disappointed with Easter Eggs; after all the excitement and hype, you spend ages taking off about 20 layers of packaging, find a tiny little egg inside with wafer thin chocolate and if you’re lucky a minuscule little bag of sweets inside. Not so with the Signature egg.

On removing from the cardboard outer, the egg is reassuringly solid and heavy.

The egg itself is two distinct halves – one side plain chocolate and the other milk. The shell is thick and makes a nice substantial “crack” as you break a slab of chocolate away from it. The plain side is tart, without having that residual bitter after taste you get in some dark chocolates. The milk side is rich, creamy and substantial. No disappointment in sight.

But the most impressive part of all is the filling. The egg is crammed with mini “egg” truffles. All potently alcoholic. I’d describe them all to you, but they are very rich and I have eaten only the amaretto one which was divine. I shall be eking them out over several days so I can fully appreciate them and not get chocolate fatigue.

The only downside (you knew there’d be one, didn’t you?) is that at £19 plus postage, this is not a cheap Easter Egg. However, unlike the cheap and tacky ones stacked to the ceiling in Tescos, this egg really feels like it’s worth every penny.

If your budget still can’t quite stretch, then you may be glad to know that Hotel Chocolat are currently running a competition to win one of 20 Easter Hampers with enough goodies to make even the most hardened chocoholic squeal with joy. Visit The Online Easter Egg Hunt for more details – but hurry, I think the competition ends tonight…

It was quite impressive that Akra and I managed to watch Top Gear at all, actually. We rarely watch the telly, and the new season of Top Gear had been put on the calendar weeks in advance so we wouldn’t forget. But there we were, tuning in fifteen minutes early with a bowl of cherry pie and custard, settling in for an evening’s viewing.

But what WAS that dreadful show on before Top Gear?! Meerkat Manor – it looked more like Big Brother for rodents than a wildlife documentary. The voice over was particularly cringeworthy and saccharine. Can’t say that we were terribly impressed.

I think next week we’ll have to set an alarm for the television to be switched on at 8pm precisely.

The thing that mystifies me most of all, out of all the conundrums that life regularly throws at me with abandon, is why … if it’s going to rain at all in a day … WHY do the heavens always open just around three o’clock in the afternoon?

Don’t believe me? Then ask a parent of a school age child and you’ll find them nodding away in complete agreement.

Three o’clock is that magic time of the day known as “pick up time”. The time where every second ticks slowly by as you stand in the playground waiting for the home-time bell, shivering and usually wet, trying to make intelligent-sounding conversation while avoiding playground politics with other parents (most of whom you have nothing else in common with other than the fact their offspring goes to the same school as your own).

Conversely, it hardly ever rains at 9am. Why is that? If it rained at 9am rather than at 3pm, I get to send Akra Jr in early (they let them go straight in – heaven forbid they get a chill and lower the school’s attendance records. It’s only parents who are allowed to get pneumonia in the playground), so of course it doesn’t rain then.

There’s probably some logical climatological explanation to do with the clouds forming and warming up as the day progresses before they can release precipitation, but I prefer using Occam’s Razor in situations such as these.

The simplest explanation can only be that the universe is out to get me.

Read more about things that mystify others at participating Bloghuh? blogs this week:

Aprosexic
Blue Witch
bob’s yer uncle
Changing Places
Depthmarker
In the Aquarium
Jen&HerBoat
Kitchen Witch
La Que Sabe
London Daily Photo
Purple Pen
Quixotic Evil
Santiago Dreaming
Tabula Rasa
Who Knows Where Thoughts Come From?