Category Archives: Featured

Why You Should Never Put Off Foundation Repairs

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The foundation of your home is what provides it with stability, and if any damage occurs it can create many difficult issues. Some people never expect their foundation to become damaged, and when this happens it leaves them wondering what to do. A lot of people are concerned about the expense of getting the damage repaired, and as a result, they often push the issue onto the back burner and fail to get it addressed.

However, this is something that can prove to be a serious and costly mistake, as foundation issues can have a huge impact on your home. It is important to ensure you get foundation repairs carried out as soon as you can and you must ensure they are completed by a professional with the right experience and expertise. In this article, we will look at some of the reasons you should never put off foundation repairs at your home.

Top Reasons to Get These Repairs Completed

There are many reasons why you need to ensure these repairs are carried out both professionally and quickly. Some of the top reasons you need to act are:

Avoid Serious Damage to Your Home

One of the top reasons to get these repairs carried out in a timely manner is to avoid serious damage to your home. When you have foundation problems, all sorts of serious issues can arise at your home including damage to walls and floors, sinking areas of concrete, and a drop in safety levels at your home. So, you need to get the repairs done quickly to try and avoid these issues or at least to minimize the impact.

Reduce the Cost of Repair

Another major reason you need to act quickly to get the repairs on your foundation sorted out is to keep the cost of the repair work down. While you may think that getting the foundation repaired is going to be expensive, it will cost you a whole lot more if you leave the problem to get worse. The more damage to the foundation, the more difficult it will be to repair and the most it will cost you to put right. In addition, the impact on other areas of your home will also be worse, and this will also then cost more to sort out.

Maintain Your Property Value

One other key consideration is the value of your home, which can be heavily impacted by the state of your foundation. If your foundation is damaged and repairs are not carried out, it can have a serious negative effect on your property value. In addition, the problems stemming from the foundation damage can also further impact the value of your home. If you decide you want to sell in the future, the foundation issues can make this far more difficult, and you will get far less for your home if you do sell.

These are some of the reasons you should never put off foundation work at your home. 
Collaborative Post with our brand partner.

Fantastic Haircare: Natural, nurturing shampoo & conditioner bars

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Pure Anada’s new Shampoo and Conditioner Bars are formulated to be kind to your hair and kinder to the environment. I love these shampoo and conditioner bars. They do the job wonderfully, all while smelling gorgeous and being good for the environment.

Packed with the powerful cleansing and nurturing properties of plants these small puck-shaped bars deliver high-performance, eco-friendly haircare.
shampoo, condoner, bars, eco-friendly

Pure Anada is handcrafted in the Canadian prairies from fresh, wholesome ingredients where they incorporate the goodness of nature into each of their products. Using ingredients derived from nature, luxurious plant oils, nourishing butters and ethically mined minerals are combined to create a comprehensive range of nurturing bodycare, skincare and haircare products with clean, natural formulations that are free from common allergens and not tested on animals.

Pure Anada is available in the UK exclusively from

Live in the Light – the online natural and organic lifestyle store www.liveinthelight.co.uk

shampoo, condoner, bars, eco-friendly

Pure Anada Shampoo Bars – £9.95
Shampoo Bars from Live in the Light
NEW: These pH-balanced shampoo bars are made with Ecocert approved, biodegradable, non-toxic surfactants. Infused with conditioning cocoa butter to cleanse and nourish scalp and locks – they work beautifully for all hair types!

Small but perfectly formed – at just 7.5cm round and weighing in at only 115g they will provide shampooing for up to 100 washes – the equivalent to 2-3 bottles of liquid shampoo (16oz).

Easy to use: Wet the shampoo bar in the shower stream, lather in the hands, and then apply shampoo to hair or rub the bar directly onto the scalp and throughout hair. Create a foaming lather while massaging the scalp and working the shampoo all throughout the hair. Rinse thoroughly.

Pure Anada Solid Shampoo Bar – £9.95

What is it that makes a solid shampoo bar different from a homemade bar of soap?

Soap is made from oil or butter and lye, in a process called saponification. This process results in a finished product that is great for cleansing the body, but has much too high a pH for the hair. Pure Anada’s solid shampoo bars, on the other hand, have a lower pH and also contain surfactants, breaking up the trapped dirt and oils on the hair and scalp gently, so they can be washed away with water.

Why is pH important for a shampoo bar formulation?

Our skin has mechanisms that regulate its pH, but hair does not. The surface of healthy skin will eventually return to its natural, slightly acidic pH after washing with soap—even with a higher-pH soap (many of them are between an 8 and a 10.)

Hair on the other hand can’t; it doesn’t heal and balance on its own. For this reason, it’s important to understand that one of the major sources of hair damage is using products with the wrong pH on the hair. Depending on an individual’s hair type and health, washing once or twice with soap might not immediately be a problem, but it can cause damage over time.

Pure Anada’s shampoo bar formulation is pH balanced, making it safe to use on a regular basis. It is not the same as a bar of soap which contains saponified oils which are a higher pH.

Pure Anada Conditioner Bars – £9.95
Conditioner Bars from Live in the Light
Follow with Pure Anada’s Conditioner Bar…
Detangle, smooth and hydrate hair with this concentrated, eco-friendly conditioner. Shea Butter nourishes each strand without weighing it down.

Presented in the same cost-effective 7.5cm puck these solid Conditioner Bars also offer the equivalent of 2-3 bottles of liquid conditioner (16oz)

Wet the Conditioner Bar in the shower stream, lather in the hands, and then apply the conditioner to the hair or rub the bar directly onto the scalp and throughout hair. Those with oily hair may prefer to only apply conditioner to the bottom half or to the ends of their hair. Work the conditioner throughout the hair and rinse thoroughly.

Pure Anada Solid Conditioner Bar – £9.95

Pure Anada’s Shampoo & Conditioner Bars are available in six fabulous, natural fragrances…

Frost Loves: BONDS Baby Clothes

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BONDS, the biggest babywear brand in Australia have a gorgeous range of Wondersuits. We love the style, but we also love the high quality.
BONDS baby clothes BONDS baby clothes
Following on from their ‘Love” collection, we love the fruit inspired design of Wondersuits, features melons, apples, oranges, coconut and more has landed. Let’s be clear in the current climate, all we (and your little one) is thinking about is …food. So a timely addition to their Wondersuit designs.
Available from Next.co.uk and John Lewis. Wondersuits RRP £20, Leggings RRP £12 please check stockist.

Do you Have a Stye?

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Whenever anything feels a little off with your eyes, it can be worrying. After all, there are so many things that can go wrong with them, and with sight being so important and precious, you don’t want to take any risks. That said, getting a stye is is relatively common and shouldn’t cause you too many issues long-term. Luckily, you can learn all stye symptoms here and hopefully be able to diagnose and treat them yourself at home. 

What is a stye?

Simply speaking, a stye is caused by a bacterial infection in either a hair follicle or oil gland. These can happen when the area gets clogged up with dead skin cells and other matter, and can form a painful, swollen lump on either the top or bottom eyelid, 

If you are someone who has to touch your eyes more than most people, for example, if you are someone who wears contact lenses, or has allergies etc, you might find that you are prone to styes. If you have rosacea or long-term blepharitis, you may also find that you end up with more styes than average. 

Symptoms of a stye

One of the most obvious symptoms of a stye is the lump itself. It is usually a pink or red colour and can have a white head in a similar way to a pimple. Your eye may become watery and some people report having a sensitivity to light, or a ‘gritty’ feeling in their eye. Usually, the day before a stye appears people tend to feel as though they have something in their eye, but can’t see anything. 

If you have a swollen eyelid, but there isn’t a lump, it’s likely that you actually have conjunctivitis instead. If the lump is hard, but not painful, it might be a Chalazion. A stye usually only affects one eye at a time, but there can be more than one eye on your eyelid. Thankfully, they often go away on their own in around a week. 

One thing you can do to speed up the healing processes is to wet a clean washcloth with warm water and hold it against your infected eye for around 5-10 minutes, 3 or 4 times a day. Use painkillers to ease any discomfort and avoid wearing eye makeup and contact lenses until it has fully recovered. Remember that you’re more likely to get a stye if you’ve had one in the past, and you need to be careful not to use infected makeup or towels to touch your face. 

Although in most cases a stye will go away on its own, occasionally it might need a topical cream to help clear it up. If it is incredibly painful or swollen, impacts your eyesight or doesn’t heal within a few weeks you might want to head to your doctor to see if there is anything they need to do to help with the process. 

 

Collaborative post with our brand partner.

Ladurée – The Easter Collection 2021

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Ladurée is delighted to partner with French artisan chocolatier Patric Chapon for its upcoming Easter collection. Alongside the delicious chocolate eggs, the classically delicate Ladurée Easter egg box design draws new inspiration from the Mayan chocolate god “Ek Chuah” and incorporates a seasonal pastel colour scheme.

Ladurée by Chapon has created 3 special gift sets:

laduree, chocolate, easter, eggs, laduree, chocolate, easter, eggs,

  • The individual dark chocolate egg is created with 75% Chuao chocolate encrusted with toasted almonds (185 g – £28)
  • The individual milk chocolate egg is 48% Chuao chocolate and Saint Malo milk encrusted with toasted almonds (185 g – £28)
  • The beautifully designed gift box holds 20 Sicilian almond and Piedmont hazelnut praline chocolate eggs which are carefully decorated with white chocolate designs (265 g- £32)
  • All three are available in-stores and online from the 15th of March.
  • Visit www.laduree.co.uk for more details.

 

A Wedding in the Country By Katie Fforde Review

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Katie Fforde a wedding in a country

Katie Fforde is a writer who needs no introduction, such is the weight of her talent and accomplishments. She is a national institution. Each one of her books is eagerly awaited and I cannot pretend I was not excited to receive this one. A Wedding in the Country is the perfect novel for these times. It is set in the 1960s which is a decade I have always loved (despite being born a few decades later). It is the perfect book to get lost in. The book has so much depth and I felt like I had been transported to another time. I loved the character of Lizzie and I could not wait to follow her journey. Get your hands on a copy of this dazzling book now. It is like a hot bath at the end of a tough day,  perfect up-lifting escapism.

This book is the most autobiographical for Katie Fforde. The book follows Lizzie who has arrived in London to do a cooking course, which Katie herself did, and Lizzie meets two other girls who become her best friends and moves into a run-down house in Belgravia. Her mother is determined she should have a nice wedding in the country to a Suitable Man chosen by her. But Lizzie wants to have some fun first.

‘Thank goodness for Katie Fforde. The perfect author to bring comfort in difficult times. She really is the queen of uplifting, feel good romance.’ A.J. Pearce

 Katie Fforde lives in the beautiful Cotswold countryside with her family, and is a true country girl at heart. Each of her books explores a different profession or background and her research has helped her bring these to life. She’s been a porter in an auction house, tried her hand at pottery, refurbished furniture, delved behind the scenes of a dating website, and she’s even been on a Ray Mears survival course. She particularly enjoys writing love stories. She believes falling in love is the best thing in the world, and she wants all her characters to experience it, and her readers to share their stories.

A Wedding in the Country is available here.

 

Our Top Pick is Perfect For Easter: Delicario Sweet Easter Hamper

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best easter hamperThere was much excitement when the Delicario Sweet Easter Hamper arrived at our home. ‘What is that?’ the children endlessly enquired. The husband asked when we would break into it. Well, it was not that long after it arrived, no one has that amount of willpower.

The hamper includes hand-crafted mini eggs (which are the best I have ever tasted) and a Madagascar dark chocolate egg for connoisseurs from Italian artisan chocolatier Autore (which is out of this world). Delicious melt-in-the-mouth sourdough Pear and Chocolate Bauletto cake (one of the best cakes I have ever tasted, just glorious), fragrant lemon biscuit and crunchy rich dark chocolate and hazelnut Goloso biscuits (both gone quickly). It sells for £79.50 and is worth every penny.

I love Easter and this hamper gives instant joy. I cannot recommend it enough.

There is a greeting card and personal message included. The hamper itself and the greetings card are elegant and beautiful.

easter cake

It is available here: https://www.delicario.com/hampers-gifts/p/delicario-sweet-easter-hamper Treat yourself, or someone else, now.

My Writing Process KL SLATER

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After years of unsuccessfully trying to get my stories noticed from the slush pile, I went back to university to study for an MA in Creative Writing at the age of 40. Before graduation I’d secured both a literary agent and a book deal. I’m now a full-time writer and live in Nottingham. Sounds quick but it took a long time, if you count the ten long years of prior rejections.

What you have written, past and present.
I wrote four Young Adult books between 2014-2018, published by Macmillan Children’s Books. Then in 2016 I moved back to writing my first love: adult psychological crime fiction and that’s what I write exclusively today for Hachette’s Bookouture, a digital-first publisher. Audible publish my audiobooks and I’ve also written two Audible Originals exclusively for them. I’ve just written my fifteenth adult thriller.

What you are promoting now.
THE EVIDENCE, a psychological thriller I’ve written exclusively for Audible published 11th February 2021.

A bit about your process of writing.
I work best during the morning. This discipline is a throwback to working a full-time day job and writing between 6-8 am before I went out to work. Sometimes I write in bed immediately after waking and, on a good day, I can get a couple of thousand words down before I get up. But usually, after reading and surfing online for a while, I go downstairs to my office and start work between 8 and 9 am. In pre-lockdown days we’d go out somewhere in the afternoons. Remember that?

Do you plan or just write?
I used to just write a short blurb and that was the extent of my natural urge to plan. But writing commercial thrillers and a few a year, means I now have to plan the book more thoroughly … thoroughly for me, anyway. I’ll do a long outline which I agree with my editor and then add to it as I start writing. I don’t know a lot about the story at the beginning of the process, I just have my initial idea and a sense of how I want it to feel. It doesn’t mean the plot can’t differ from the outline – it nearly always does – but in order to provide the twists and turns the modern reader expects, there has to be some element of planning.

What about word count?
I write a few books a year so it’s essential I’m disciplined about achieving minimum daily word counts when I begin a first draft. I try and get a basic draft down in no more than a couple of months so I’m looking at 1-2k a day. I often add substantial word count during structural and line edits. Sometimes I like to use an app on my phone called Focus Keeper. The ticking timer drives some people crazy but it keeps me … well, focused.

How do you do your structure?
I tend to draft out my initial outline in the form of five acts to start writing to a recognisable shape. But I’m not a slave to a turning point at 10%, another at 25%, that kind of thing. I just find it a useful template to get me started.

What do you find hard about writing?
Stopping. I find it so hard to break off or have a whole day off so I have to force myself as there’s a real world out there and real people I care about and want to spend time with. I’ve found getting out of the house is key to breaking the spell. I’m constantly striving to achieve that illusive but tempting cliché: work-life balance.

What do you love about writing?
I love how the world and characters I’m writing seem so real. I love that I’m earning a great living doing something I would do – and for many years did do – for free. And I love writing digital-first; it’s incredible that 6-8 months after having a new idea, the book can be out there.

Advice for other writers.
Write. Sounds obvious but most writers I know, myself included, have a precarious state of mind that is prone to self-sabotage and procrastination. So many new writers – I used to be one of them – spend too much time striving for perfection instead of getting the book down and then using editing as a powerful tool to refine the story. It’s really hard to get something good the first time around. I like to think of the writing process as a kind of sculpting: starting with a lump of clay and through many stages and revisions, finally ending up with something good.

The Evidence by K.L. Slater is available exclusively on Audible now.