Family Game Review - Pictureka

 

Pictureka is a game we got for Christmas several years ago but we still bring it out for a game now and again. It's so simple to play for anyone of any age.

The 'board' consists of 9 double sided tiles showing lots of images of all kinds of animals, things and people. You just lay them out any way you like on a table or floor.

In it's simplest form (for example if you were playing with small children) you could just use the blue cards. Each card has something on it and you have to find it's match on the tiles.

Like this diamond.

Or this farting horse!

There are also red and green cards where you have to pick a category of things to spot within the time (tiny hourglass included) or bid against others about how many of a category you think you can spot and then attempt to do so.

It's a really fun game and it doesn't get too easy as throughout the game there are prompts to turn cards over or rotate them so you don't get used to where everything is. We've played lots and still don't know where everything is each time.

I really like the art style and that there's so many funny little things to spot on the tiles. It's a clever game that has you relying on speed and your ability to recognise what you're seeing as the colours are different on the card than the tile.

Ratings: Emma - 5, JD - 4, Val - 5 and Erin - 3

N is for North Yorkshire

 

Carrying on with my A-Z Blogging Challenge, I find myself on N and the first thing that comes to mind is the place I live. North Yorkshire!

The countryside is beautiful, folk are friendly and I'm proud to be a Yorkshire lass. I've got my favourite places to visit in North Yorkshire so here's a list of my favourites.

Whitby

A boat trip, a walk on the beach and some fish & chips at Whitby might be my perfect day. It's a great place to visit any time of year.

Malham Cove

It's a lovely walk from the car-park to this limestone formation and then if you want to, lots of steps up to the limestone pavement above. A more circular walk will take you past Malham Tarn. Gorgeous countryside!

Brimham Rocks

We've been coming to Brimham Rocks for a walk since I was a little kid. I love this picture JD took of my Dad leading an expedition through the rocks with me, Val and Erin following him. It's a great place for climbing, walking, hiding and general exploring fun. Plus they sell ice cream!

Bolton Abbey

A great place for a summer picnic and a walk. We did a Treasure Trail here and it was a lovely day out. The stepping stones are fun and there are lots of trails along the river and nearby woods.

Knaresborough

I always love a visit to Knaresborough. An ice cream on the benches in the Castle Yard with a view of the viaduct and then a walk down the steps to the waterside to feed the ducks. We also love the Conyngham Hall side of the Nidd too for paddling in the river, jam-jar fishing, kayaking or swimming. My Dad was born in Knaresborough and one of the nicest walks we had was when my Dad acted as guide telling us the history of everywhere we passed. Good memories!

Studley Royal Deer Park

A lovely place to observe animals in the wild while out for a walk. Hundreds of deer, rabbits, pheasants, squirrels and more. The park is well maintained and includes the water park too where you can feed the ducks, geese, swans etc. 

Armscliffe Crag

A place close to my heart is Almscliffe Crag. We climbed to the top and Dad got some great shots of his beloved Red Kites. It's a lovely place for a walk as the views are amazing when you get to the top. You can take a short-cut going straight up or meander round on a more leisurely ascent. Be careful though, someone got stuck halfway up last week and had to be rescued by firemen!

Pateley Bridge

More lovely countryside than you can shake a stick at! Gorgeous walks, lovely little shops and reservoirs to walk around. It's a lovely little place to visit and even the drive there is ridiculously scenic. Love it!

There's lots of places in North Yorkshire I could've mentioned but these are my personal favourites. Just seeing the countryside around here makes me feel happy. I love seeing sheep, dry stone walls, hills, trees and fields wherever you look. I feel lucky to live here!

Masterchef Invention Test

 We've been watching a lot of Masterchef on Netflix lately. Our favourite thing about it (apart from Gregg Wallace's weird faces) is the Invention Test. It's brutal to watch the contestants have to choose between two ingredients then go on to make a dish from it. No recipes, no planning, it looks difficult.

So, of course, I wondered how we'd do at the Invention Test! I asked my sisters, Caroline and Sally to suggest an ingredient each. They chose Celeriac and Cherries. A quick trip to the fruit & veg shop and we were ready to go.

Neither JD or I had cooked with celeriac before so all we knew was that it was a root vegetable. JD chose it anyway and I opted for the cherries. We each had an hour (at separate times, we only have one kitchen!) to make a dish out of our chosen ingredient using our food cupboards for additional ingredients.

It's just as difficult as it looks!! I decided on some cherry muffins (as muffins bake quicker than a cake) but completely blanked on ingredient proportions even though I've baked muffins dozens of times. I made the batter as best I could and stirred through a handful of halved cherries. I put them in the oven and started on the frosting for the top. I made a reasonable butter cream frosting but then made a bad decision to stir more cherries into that. The juice from the cherries split it and later when I tried to pipe it onto my cooled muffins the cherry pieces got stuck in the nozzle. It was a 'comedy of errors' that was quite stressful and I was in my own kitchen! It must be much more stressful having Gregg and John staring at you while you cook.

My finished muffin was baked quite well and the cherries inside the muffin were lovely. The frosting was disappointing though which detracted from the overall presentation of my dish. I wish I'd picked the savoury option as baking is much less forgiving if you don't get measurements correct.

JD made us a lovely celeriac casserole. He chopped it up and cooked it in some tinned tomatoes and a beef stock cube amongst other things. This is the kind of cooking JD is good at. He hardly ever follows recipes and just adds things until it tastes good. He will try some traditionally unusual ingredient combinations though which make me question his sanity until I taste the finished dish. We ate his celeriac casserole for lunch and although the celeriac was an unusual taste for us, we enjoyed it.

The best part was the cheese topping JD had added before putting it in the oven for a bit. JD's presentation left a bit to be desired too which cheered me up a bit!

JD was declared the winner of our Invention Test and we'll carry on watching with added respect to all that do well in the Masterchef Invention Test.

Subscription Box Review - Papergang

 

Papergang is a stationery subscription box that is delivered monthly for £14. I got a half-price offer so received mine for £7. I love all things stationery so I was looking forward to seeing what I got. 

The box arrived through the post a few days after subscribing and it was really cute. The box fits through the letterbox which makes for easy delivery. 

The contents were beautifully packaged in orange tissue paper (which is also a treat for me and I'll put it in my craft basket). Papergang works with different artists each month to create unique stationery items for subscribers. Also for every 4 boxes sold they plant a tree. Over 40k trees planted so far, impressive!

Three pencils with positive messages on them and a gold pencil sharpener.

This was my favourite item in the box. A tiny set of post it notes shaped like apples. It's so cute and I use notes like this a lot so it'll be really useful.

A planner with space for lists, notes and doodles. I really liked how everything in the box was co-ordinated including the box and packaging. Such a nice touch. 

There were other things in the box too but I don't want to ruin all the surprises.

Overall, I was pleased with my box of stationery. It was lovely to receive as it was all so nicely presented. The items were all things that I'll use and were of good quality. 

M is for Make Do & Mend

 

Continuing with my A-Z challenge to blog about something starting with every letter of the alphabet, M is for Make Do & Mend.

We love to stretch our money as far as possible and one of the best ways to do that is to Make Do & Mend. We try not to buy anything we already own unless it's irreparable. 

My everyday trainers developed tiny holes on the front where my big toe poked against the material. It was a shame to get rid of them when they were perfectly fine everywhere else and really comfy, so I decided to mend them. I bought some small butterfly patches for a few pounds and sewed them over the holes. Now I have some unique trainers that have been brightened up and I've saved myself the cost of new trainers (at least for a while longer)!

My computer desk started life as a toy cupboard when the kids were little. When we no longer needed it, we turned it into a desk by taking off the doors and fitting a pullout keyboard tray. I say we, JD did it. He cut a piece of wood the right width and fit it onto some runners. It works perfectly and it saved us the cost of buying a desk. It also stopped a piece of furniture we didn't need going to waste.

My favourite little plant pot has led a troubled life. First, he lost part of his arm and we decided it gave him character (we had to, we couldn't find the lost part). Next, he lost his leg. But, we didn't give up on him, JD glued it back on and he continues to do his plant holding duty to this day.

I'm in charge of mending clothes. I mend hole in socks, replace buttons, patch trousers and whatever else needs fixing. It feels good to be able to keep clothes wearable instead of just throwing them away. Clothes are so cheap nowadays that we think nothing of buying new clothes often. I've even made the kids favourite t-shirts into cushions for them before so they can keep them longer once they've grown out of them.

JD helps us save money by doing small repairs on the car when needed. Replacing windscreen wipers by finding what he needs on eBay and attaching them himself. Changing lightbulbs when they blow out too, among other things. 

Our dining room table is one of those that folds down and has 4 chairs that fold up inside it. It was bought when I first got married in 1995 and is still going 'strong'. We no longer use the fold-out chairs and the supports that hold up the table wings have been glued several times but it's really convenient to fold it up and make room. It's folded up nearly every day for someone to play on the Quest in the dining room and on date night we fold it up halfway for a more intimate meal setting. As you can see there are a lot of marks on it from over the years as well as a blob of blue paint from crafts when the kids were little that never came off. One of my future projects is to sand it down and either paint or varnish the top. It would be nice to have a new table but for now this one suits us fine!

All these things are small things on their own but together they save us a lot of money. With a Make Do & Mend attitude you can be satisfied with what you have instead of always wanting the next new thing. Which is the way we try to live.

Family Game Reviews - Taskmaster Board Game

 

I love everything about Taskmaster! The show, the book and now the board game. It's just the kind of silly nonsense I like to spend my time doing.

I got the board game from my sister Cas (also a Taskmaster fan) for my birthday and I was interested to see how they'd adapt it for playing at home.

The first task is to draw yourself for your leader board picture. Me, JD and Erin from left to right.

The game set up is quick and easy, just place the cards on the places named on them.

We each had to pick a Secret Task card and this was a task we had to do throughout the game without being called out. I had to obsessively tidy things during the game. No-one noticed because I usually do that anyway. Erin's was to eat and drink noisily which we also didn't notice. I forget what JD's was as he didn't manage to do it.

You take it in turns to be the Taskmaster placing the golden statue wherever you want to pick a card from and then read aloud the task. I went first and the task was to draw around your hand on paper and then turn the handprint into a self portrait.

This is Erin's hand self portrait.

JD's hand self portrait

I chose JD as the winner because his finger face was quite accurate, haha!

There were all kinds of tasks during the game. It's quite casual as you can play as many rounds as you like so if you want a quicker game, no problem.

JD and I had to compete in getting into bed in the fewest steps possible. Our bedroom is up two flights of stairs! After a brave effort by me of getting there in 23 steps, JD smashed it by getting there in 14.

JD and I were tasked with changing the colour of milk to as bright a colour as possible. Harder than you'd think. I used red food colouring on the left to make a feeble light pink. JD poured tomato ketchup in his milk and won even though he made us all feel a bit sick.

Other tasks included making the smallest sandwich possible, collecting as many blue things to fit into the box lid as you could and putting your finger in something in the fridge least likely to be recognised.

The tasks were all well thought out to include things you'd likely have in your house. It's the most fun board game I've ever played, instead of sitting at the table playing you're running around the house trying to solve tasks.

I can't wait to play it more.

Taskmaster excitement has also leaked into the weekly video chat with my sisters. We've started doing a task when we chat. This week we had to eat the best picture out of a slice of bread.

Caroline made this picture titled 'Bread Boy' who seemed to have a bit of a club foot amongst other problems.

This ambitious scene by Sally includes a house, tree and sun with several rays.

This poor effort by me is of a tree flanked by two bushes. Impossible to choose a winner with such talent. Next week we're going to try reveal the most surprising thing from an upturned mug. Wish us luck!

So yeah, it's a lot of fun. Buy it, play it, enjoy it!

Subscription Box Review - Mindful Chef

 

This is another recipe subscription box popular at the moment. It focuses more on healthy foods and the recipes don't include any refined carbs. The recipes are all nutritionist approved and each recipe has details of calories, fat, sugar etc if you're into monitoring that kind of thing.

I ordered a box containing 2 meals for 2 people just to try it out. There was a January £10 off offer for your first 2 boxes so it cost £19. There were plenty of recipes to choose from including vegan, gluten free and meat/fish options.

My box arrived in a 1 hour delivery slot which I'd been texted earlier that day. It was well packed with each recipes ingredients in separate brown paper bags.

You also get a magazine which has all the recipes inside. Each bag has a number on it that matches the recipes in the magazine. 

The first recipe we made was Pork with Colcannon & Mustard Sauce. I started the preparation as laid out in the instructions, chopping and mixing things ready to start cooking. It is easier that all the ingredients are pre-weighed/measured for the amount you need but there was still a lot of prep. It wasn't the easiest of recipes which surprised me as one of the ads I'd seen for Mindful Chef said it was ideal for the novice cook. I don't agree as at one point there were 3 pans on the go and there must be much simpler ways to make a similar dish.

I feel like I'm a person who's followed a lot of recipes and I found the instructions difficult to make sense of sometimes. I had to constantly read and re-read sections to make sure I was doing it correctly.

The finished meal was delicious and we both enjoyed it although it did take longer to make than our usual evening meals. It was filling and seemed a good portion of food with plenty of veg.

Next, we made Asian Pork Meatballs, Kale & Brown Rice.

This recipe was equally complicated but it did seem worth the effort as the finished meal was delicious. The meatballs were tasty and moist inside. The vegetables were also flavoursome and the brown rice added some texture to the whole meal. This was our favourite of the two meals and I thought it was well put together.

Overall, I'd recommend this subscription service to anyone wanting to eat healthier without having to organise it themselves. The food provided was all of good quality and well portioned out. The pork steaks were particularly nice. I feel that is one of the plus-sides of this service. 

An advert on Facebook for Mindful Chef suggest that the meals are cheaper than buying food in the supermarket which is just nonsense (unless you shop at M&S perhaps). They should market it for what it is, a service for people without the time to meal-plan or shop but who have plenty of money to spend on meals. 

I enjoyed trying it out but will stick to planning my own meals with food from the supermarket.