NashVille Season 1 out on DVD 15th July

Being forced to listen to country music as I was growing up sort of put me off the genre for a good few years, however as I got older I found my tastes have changed and now for some reason I quite like it. Which is a good thing as I'm sure you have guessed by the title of the show Nashville is all about country music.


The main focus of the show is about 2 characters, Juliette Barnes (Hayden Paniterre), the new face and mega star of country music and Rayna Jaymes (Connie Britton), former country queen whose fame and fortune are now on the decline.


After finding being told that her music is no longer selling as much as record executives would like former country music mega star Rayna Jaymes has been told that instead of headlining her own tour she must now support and open for the new, younger fresh face Juliette Barnes who instead of having a more traditional style of music records what Rayna Jaymes classes as bubble gum pop.


Seeing as there is quite the clash of characters Rayna dismisses a joint tour out of hand and has the idea of touring with just her lead guitarist and former love Deacon Clayborne (Charles Eston), which wouldn't be a problem if not for the desires of Juliette to have him joining her band and touring with her.


What isn't helping either ladies fortunes is Rayna's estranged, millionaire father pushing her husband to be mayor of Nashville for his own purposes and Juliette's drug addict mother reminding her of a past she has long tried to forget. At least all of this turmoil is giving both stars great writing material for new songs and for me the music is the real star of the show. The majority of the songs featured are stripped back to the bare bones of just honest to goodness lyrics and basic guitar accompaniment, especially those of aspiring and somewhat reluctant songwriter Scarlett O'Connor and her writing partner Gunnar Scott. If you are a fan of country music or not you cannot help but be moved by their words and voices.


I would highly recommend this series to anybody if they are fans of the musical genre or not as the side stories and characters are sometimes more interesting than those of the main characters and it is extremely refreshing to hear just music without any of the synthetic enhancements that seems to populate the charts these days.

Munchkin, Disney toddler dining set

The Munchkin Disney toddler dining set is a must have for any Disney fan, You can buy a choice for designs, My daughter is a huge Minnie fan and we was lucky to get the Minnie set sent to us to review, I opened the box and pulled it out and as soon as my daughter saw what was in there she started shouting mine mine, Lucky for us the post arrived just before breakfast so she was able to try the spoon and bowl out right away.

Both the bowl and plate have a grippy base and this has been a big floor saver as my daughter loves to push her plate around the table and it always ends up on the floor, But with this set she hasn't been able to do that, The plate is divided into 3 sections which I love the idea of this as it makes sorting her food out so much better, The fork and spoon that comes with this set is rounded for safer feeding and has a curved handle for easy holding.

I have found that since my daughter has started using this set shes eating more of her dinners as she likes to see the picture on her plate, I have also noticed that shes been using her fork a spoon a lot more than she was her others that we brought her.
The toddler set we was sent is suitable for 12 months plus and I think its perfect for getting your little one eating by themselfs.

To find out more about there Disney range please click here

Water

It's something most of us take for granted but two days with in a week our village has been without water all done to two burst pipes, When the first one went we was without water from the moment we got up and we had the kids home from school as hey also had no water, It was a nightmare,
The water came on again at about 9am so I quickly filled the sink so I could wash up and filled the kettle and some pans with water incase it went off again and it did about 30 mins after it came back on, we decided there was no point in staying in with the kids so we packed a picnic and took them for a walk along the river, we finally came home about 3pm and we still had no water, it's not till you don't have any you realise how much you rely on it, we couldn't have a wash or flush the toilet, but luckily thanks to my quick thinking we had water in pans for drinks which was a good job as it was a hot day.

Well today we had water most of the day but when I went to get my daughter from school I came home to find we had no water yet again only this time I really didn't have much water around, but I noticed my kettle still had a full amount of water and I had a bottle of water left over from last time in my cupboard, my husband was at work so I rang him to see if he had some money to pick up some bottles of water, luckily he works in a bottle factory so he grabbed some bottle and filled them with tap water and brought them home for us, he even had enough for some of the neighbours to take some too, but still as I'm writing this we have no water, a toilet that needs flushing and some very grubby kids that will need a good wash when the waters back on, but at least I have some coffee to drink with out it I would be lost as I normaly have a bath every night, but after having no water it has made me think about how much I use and how I can cut it back and one way is instead of having my nightly bath have a shower every night instead and just have a bath once a week.

Now I'm just hopeing that the water will be back on in the morning as I really wouldn't like my kids missing another day at school.

MAM Perfect Soother 12+

You might remember my review for the MAM perfect soother, If you can't it can be found here, The MAM perfect soother 12+ has a bigger teat more suited for older babies and toddlers.


It took a little while for my daughter to get used to using her new 12+ perfect soother but once she was finally used to it, Its the only one she will now take and it travels everywhere with her.
If you want to buy a MAM Perfect soother 12+ you can do so from here, There is 4 different designs to choose from 2 for a girl and 2 for a boy, The one we was sent was the lilac butterfly and out of all the MAM soothers we have this has to be my favorite design yet.

Crosse & Blackwell Soups

On cold days I just love to have a bowl of soup for my lunch I find that soup really warms me up, So being asked to review some Crosse & Blackwell soups was really great, I was sent the chunky tomato and basil soup and a pea and ham soup, I'm not a huge fan of pea and ham soup but I have to say this one is so much better than ones I have tried in the past, It was full of flavour and had really nice sized chunks of ham in, I really feel this is a pea and ham soup I could eat more of.

I next tried the chunky tomato and basil soup, I know it says chunky but I really wasn't expecting really nice sized chunks of tomatos in it, Tomato soup normaly doesn't feel me up but I feel the chunks of tomatos really helped fill me up not only did it fill me up but I also found that it had a really nice rich taste.

You can buy these soups and many others by Crosse & Blackwell from all major supermarkets and prices start from £1.29

Branston Bean Meals

I was asked to try out some of the new Branston bean meals, Now I love my baked beans so was very excited to try these meals, The first one I tried was baked beans with spicy spanish chorizo, We only had it on toast but it was a perfect lunch it tasted great my only downside was that I had to share with my husband.

I next tried baked beans with large Lincolnshire sausages, Now I know it says large but I really wasn't expecting full sized sausages again we just had this on toast and it had two sausages inside plus plenty of beans, The sausages inside had a really nice flavour to them unlike some Lincolnshire ones I have tried in the past.

These new Branston Bean meals are available to buy from Sainsbury's stores in 390g cans and prices start from £1.09
Aswell as these two that I tried they also have one more baked beans with hot and spicey chilli, if they are anything like the others i'm sure they will taste great.

Hello Canvas

I was asked if I would like to review a photo canvas from Hello canvas, I was over the moon as I had been wanting to get the photo at the top of this post blown up and put on a canvas but I hadn't got round to it, So I was very quick to reply with my photo that I wanted putting on canvas.

I got the canvas just 4 days after I sent them my photo and that was including the weekend so it didn't take long at all, The size of the canvas £39 which I think is a great price, I was excited to see what my photo looked like blown up as I have had problems in the past with companies when getting photos printed off with them looking blurry, But this canvas just looks like the original photo only bigger.



After seeing how nice this photo has turned out I will be going back to buy two more one of each of my other children, Should you want to buy one you can do so from here they do all sorts of sizes and prices starting from just £13 well worth the money and I look forward to sorting out buying another two.