My hair's best friend

Haha these scissors look a bit medieval in the photo here. I dug them out today to spruce my hair up a bit in between 'real' haircuts! If your hair is quite thick and you find it gets heavy in the lengths, you may like to have it thinned out a bit in order to give it some oomph. I occasionally have a quick DIY session on my hair with the old thinning scissors and it makes such a difference. I normally don't do much to my hair beyond washing and rough blow-drying, so it has to be low-maintenance. A bit of thinning through the lengths, from the cheekbone down, helps to give it more life and makes it so much more manageable. That's why I love these scissors!

Surprise beauty: Alternative uses for baby products!

Since becoming a mum I have been introduced to a new world of lotions and potions for me and my little one, and some of these products have been godsends to me. Some of my favourites have been: Bio-oil, which kept my skin supple and eased that awful bump-itch during pregnancy. Also, I'm sure I couldn't have breastfed at all with out the help of Lansinoh cream and its amazing healing properties - it was an absolute must-have and helped me deal with, what was for me, a very painful experience. These days I tend to wash my hair with nice mild baby shampoos, and I love the L'Occitane shea butter 'Mum and Baby Lotion'. We've used Bepanthen nappy ointment since V started getting the occasional bit of nappy rash, which has luckily always been very mild but is an irritation nonetheless. This ointment is nothing short of miraculous in how quickly it clears up redness and sore bits.

Recently when I had a little bit of a head cold and a sniffly nose, the skin around my nose and top lip got quite red and sore from nose-blowing and constant tissue abrasion! So it struck me to try a bit of Bepanthen on the skin to see if it would help. Usually this soreness would hang around for a couple of days then leave me with dry, flaky skin for a few more, but with a liberal coating of Bepanthen it was cleared up literally overnight! I've also discovered this is great on lips plus rough skin patches on elbows and knees. I think the key is that this acts as an excellent barrier cream, while its lanolin content is great for repairing the skin. Bepanthen you are my new surprise beauty hero!

Random Access Memories

Listening to Daft Punk takes me back to my teens when their first album came out, and it was a soundtrack to all of our parties that summer. Amazing!

Now I've been listening the new album and feel that it could easily be my soundtrack to this summer. Pharrell's voice particularly gets me on this track when he chants: 'Sweat... sweat... sweat... Lose yourself to dance!' Ahhhhhhh love it!

Healthy switch-up: bolognese sauce with turkey mince

Although I love red meat, we're always being told to eat less of it for health reasons. I do still eat it perhaps more often than I should, but I do like to vary the proteins that our family eat as much as possible.

In this country, most of us only eat turkey around Christmas time, but I love this versatile meat and try to eat it regularly. It is tasty, lean and often dubbed a 'superfood' by dietitian types. Not to mention how cheap it is. We use turkey steaks, turkey sausages and most frequently turkey mince in our cooking. Here I've replaced the beef in a bolognese sauce with turkey, and we all enjoyed it. I also used rice pasta to vary things as I felt we'd been eating a lot of wheat recently. I try to vary our grains too! I added extra vegetables to the sauce as this is always a good 'sneaky' way to feed everyone their 5 a day.

Do you have any healthy substitutions you like to use in your cooking? Are you a fan of turkey too?

A Sunday Feast

Happy bank holiday weekend! What better excuse to get friends and family together for a bit of a feast? This was our lunch yesterday.

Slow cooked Moroccan spiced lamb with honeyed apricots, wild rice and toasted almonds.

Chicken and pepper skewers with a lemon, honey and sumac glaze.

Tomato and basil salad with green olives, olive oil and balsamic reduction.

Slow cooked BBQ ribs

My sister's roasted aubergines with pomegranate and yoghurt dressing. This is a delicious recipe from Ottolenghi. My sister is an amazing cook.

My dad's spicy prawns with chorizo. This was fantastic - big flavour!

I love having a tapas style meal like this with lots of different dishes to sample. It is particularly good when feeding lots of guests. Most of my own cooking is a bit improvised but let me know if you're interested in making any of these and I'll put the recipes up!

I hope you are all having lovely bank holiday weekends. Ours has been great so far but it looks like torrential rain all day today. Oh well, hopefully there will be a good movie on TV!

Going Out! And the lunches that follow.

I had a night off last night - hooray! Out I went to my friend's masquerade themed birthday party, and what fun it was. Lots of nice food and wine and catching up with the girls. I may have slightly over-enjoyed myself but I was home before the clock struck twelve (or thereabouts) to be ready for a 6.30 wakeup this morning!

Today the parents-in-law took us out for a huge lunch at Church on the Hill, which was greatly appreciated by my champagne-soaked stomach! This is a place we really like to go at weekends as it is big, family friendly and the food is big, weekend food. Particularly good for pizzas and burgers.

I've had some great weekend fun but realise that I do not miss the rather frequent hangovers of my twenties. Back to cosy family nights in for a while, I think!

Hannah x

Eating Out: No.1 Chocolate Factory

Today we met some friends at No.1 Chocolate Factory in Glasgow, where we enjoyed lunch and some very chocolatey treats.

I neglected to take any pictures today but here's one from a previous visit.

There is a nice lunch menu of salads, sandwiches, soups and sharing platters. You can also opt for a very nice looking afternoon tea. One thing you need to have when you come here is their Spanish style hot chocolate - it is so decadent that you might not manage anything else!

The cafe itself is spacious, bright and airy. It's in the striking Charing Cross Mansions building and is located on a corner, with windows all around - good for people watching at this busy intersection between the city centre and west end! It's a great place for children and, as you can see, V already enjoys a babycino and asks for 'chocolala' when we go in.

Window as headboard

Another decor update!

We recently had our master bedroom stripped back from polystyrene tiles, textured wallpaper and an oppressive dark colour scheme, to white walls and the original Victorian features. This was extremely refreshing but has left the room looking somewhat of a blank canvas. The way we had our furniture looked just too symmetrical, so we decided to move it all around and put our bed up against the window. So instead of the oversized upholstered headboard we were planning to make, we've ended up with the window as our headboard. I really like it.

I've dressed up our bed as it was also looking very blank with its white sheets. You can see from the view across the road that we live in a classic Glasgow tenement flat!

I love the look of the washed-out rose coloured bedlinen I've seen recently at places like Toast, but it is really pricey. I used this pale pink throw from Ikea to make an inexpensive version of this look. The cushions are from H&M and give a bit of contrasting colour.

From H&M Conscious Collection. These cushion covers were only about £4 each.

Grey throw from John Lewis, pink throw from Ikea

I love my battered old trunks and suitcases. This one was a housewarming gift from friends and tells an interesting story. At one time it travelled with a ballet company, so it still has various travel stickers on it plus inventories of contents that include headdresses, tutus, tights and plastic flowers! The trunk serves as a blanket box at the foot of our bed.

One of our reading lamps is an industrial inspection lamp which hangs from the window frame. I like the stark look of the lamp and its bright orange flex.

And here's the pastel fest of our bed next to the wardrobes I painted. 

The room is still very much unfinished but I will show you what I'm doing as I go along. Hopefully next we can find some nice artwork to adorn our walls. Getting there...

Leaving naps behind?

Increasingly, V has not been in favour of taking a nap during the day. He is still having one most days, but those days when he doesn't are becoming a lot more common! On these days it can be hard to keep him happy right up until bedtime, or stop him falling asleep in his dinner! I am relieved when he does have a nap as it gives me a little time to get on with other things and also means plenty of energy for the rest of the afternoon. Has your little one been napping less recently and, if so, how are you adapting?

Hannah x

Topshop pocket dress and other goodies

It was a gloriously warm and sunny day today. Does the apparent change in seasons make anyone else want to go shopping? I had a few presents to buy and I wanted to get a couple of summery items for myself too. Here's what I bought:

Summerish attire: Navy vest from Dorothy Perkins, coral and gold necklace from Accessorize, pink pocket dress from Topshop.

I'd wanted to buy a bright cotton dress for the summer and found this one in Toppers which is a nice shape and easy to wear. You can see it better here on the Topshop website. I think I should really start wearing slightly longer dresses for the practical purposes of being mother to a small child, but I really liked this even though it may be a teeny bit on the short side. I do love this shape of dress with its cinched waist which is flattering for most of us lady types.

This is just a basic navy vest which I wanted to go with a few skirts I have. I'm often tempted to wear lovely slenderising black on top but navy blue can look a bit softer against pale skin like mine! See it here at Dorothy Perkins.

I thought this necklace was so pretty and would go with anything. My sister said the coral and gold are my colours - I do love these colours and the bridesmaids were dressed in them at my wedding! So I'm sure I'll get plenty of wear from this. It's available here at Accessorize in the turquoise version; I couldn't find the coral one online.

The rest of my shopping was gifts, so I won't reveal those here, but the last thing I picked up was a No.7 powder from Boots. I have used this powder for years and it's brilliant. Having very oily skin, I have tried just about every powder and this is my fave one out there - even better than its counterparts from Chanel and Dior - gasp! So if you're in the market for a new pressed powder to keep summer shine at bay, do try this. No.7 Perfect Light Pressed Powder in the Translucent shade. Luckily I had one of those nice wee No.7 vouchers that come out periodically and make their products even more reasonably priced.

So I've had a nice little day of shopping in the sun. Have you supplemented your summer wardrobe recently too? I'd love to hear about it!

Hannah x

Make! Indian spiced roast chicken

This is a very simple but effective way to jazz up a chicken. Before roasting the chicken I simply spread a layer of Patak's Tikka Paste all over the chicken, plus a drizzle of chilli oil.

Preparation of this meal was very quick. Above you can see everything ready for the oven. I also roasted some sliced peppers and red onion as an accompaniment. Try this if you want to do something different next time you roast a chicken - it tastes amazing and the skin goes lovely and crispy. Great served with rice, plus a garnish of fresh coriander and lemon wedges.

Make! Rock buns

Rock buns are a bit nostalgic for me because my mum baked them a lot when we were kids. Today they were something I could rustle up quickly before some guests came over. These are quick and easy to make, so now I know why Mum liked making these when she had all us kids under her feet, plus loads of our friends often in the house and lots of visitors always dropping by!

I followed this recipe from BBC Goodfood, except I used sultanas and not chocolate chips. Sultanas are a more classic component of rock buns and on reflection I think I would have used a few more of them than this recipe states. Otherwise a good recipe and nice crumbly buns.

Beyoncé for H&M pencil skirt

My attempts to resist this purchase became futile during a trip to Edinburgh yesterday.

Would I have bought this skirt had it not been endorsed by Beyonce in a very flashy advertising campaign? I'm not entirely sure, but I really do like it and can't wait to wear it.

After seeing this in about a million H&M windows recently I finally gave in. I was extra pleased with my shopping experience when I came away from the counter with this bag:

Sigh. I love you Beyonce, and I honestly think you could sell me just about anything.

Have you bought anything from this H&M collection?

Hannah x

Make! Waldorf Salad

My first taste of a Waldorf salad was had when I was sixteen and worked in an old-fashioned tearoom. Previously I had always hated celery, but the amazing textures in this salad made me see that crunchy vegetable in a whole new way forever. I love celery now and today something made me want to make a Waldorf salad again. It was part of our Sunday dinner and I made far too much, so half of it went home with my sister. So if you make this you might want to make less than I did, unless you are catering for a wedding or christening or something!

The ingredients:
Sweet crisp apples (I used pink ladies)
Celery
Walnut pieces
Sultanas
Mayonnaise (I used extra light to make the salad less fatty)

Chop your apples into small chunks and finely slice the celery.

Add walnuts, some sultanas and enough mayonnaise to coat the ingredients, and stir. Very simple salad with lovely sweet tastes and crunchy textures!

Make! Pulled Pork

Today we had my sister, brother-in-law and kids over for Sunday dinner, so we picked up a shoulder of pork from the supermarket and made pulled pork. This was the first time I'd made this at home but it is so easy and a delicious way to eat a very cheap cut of meat. Points for economy and taste: ding ding!

I preheated the oven to 200 degrees and made my own barbecue marinade to baste the joint in. I'm a 'throw it in' cook so quantities are guessed roughly. If you make this, just make it to your taste!

BBQ marinade for pulled pork:
2 tbsp tomato ketchup
2tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp caster sugar
1 tbsp garlic oil
2 tsp smoked paprika
dash worcestershire sauce
sprinkling of oregano

I basted the shoulder of pork with the marinade and put it in the oven at 200 degrees. After 1 hour I turned the oven down to 170 and left it to cook for at least 3 more hours.

The joint came out looking like this, and after 20 minutes left to rest, it was tender and easy to shred apart with 2 forks.

I served the pulled pork with a big green salad, a waldorf salad, fresh white bread and my spicy BBQ sauce.

BBQ sauce is very easy to make with ingredients from your cupboards. Just make it to your taste. I used:
tomato ketchup
malt vinegar
honey
dark soy sauce
worcestershire sauce
smoked paprika
oregano
tabasco sauce

I will make this meal again as it's cheap, easy, and so tasty! Do you have any tips for cooking cheap cuts of meat?

Date Nights: Rock Lobster

The combination of oysters and wine always makes me giddy, and it would ideally be the start of every evening out for me! A recent date night pictured here was spent at Rock Lobster, a new-ish seafood restaurant here in Glasgow. The food was superb and was complimented by its gorgeous courtyard setting in a hidden nook of the Merchant City area. Glasgow is generally not the place for alfresco dining but eating by the floor-to-ceiling windows here in Virginia Court on a bright spring evening was the next best thing. And I must give mention to the wine list which featured a few of our favourites. See the menu on their website here.

For a relaxed but special meal, a good-looking restaurant and friendly service, I'd urge you to pay this place a visit. Can't wait to go back!

Eating Out: Babylon Cafe