Blooms, Beauty and Blueberries

Hello and welcome to another blog.

I hope you are all well and enjoying the weather. I have to be honest and say that the heat is not great for me, being both a redhead and pregnant! Safe to say I’m spending a lot of time inside next to a fan!! In fact, I think I’m going to be treating myself to the new Dyson Pure Cool Me which is both a fan and purifier – good for now and for when baby comes, I think.

I’m taking all your advice and enjoying this slower pace of life whilst I can before the baby arrives in July and have certainly been enjoying the fact that I can put my feet up or close my eyes when I’m feeling tired. I’m getting pretty big now so even just going upstairs can leave me all out of puff. Here’s a snap of me from last week. I shared it on social media but for any of you who might’ve missed it, you can see how much rounder I’m looking! Ha!

It is lovely to see all the flowers blooming at the moment, isn’t it? One of my roses has come out in full bloom and looks gorgeous (close-up photo of that at the top) and the Lupins and Delphiniums have certainly made an early appearance this year. What are you favourite plants in your garden, if you have one?

You might remember me saying if you’ve read previous blogs that we were hoping to get our bathroom sorted before the new arrival and for a while that seemed impossible, but look at it now!

I know… not exactly finished but it is on its way to being done and that is a huge relief as we had no bath and the whole thing was in a state of disrepair. I am so pleased that I won’t have to deal with it being done whilst also adjusting to life with the new baby. I’ve not got much further with the nursery yet, but I have ordered some curtains to be made with the most adorable woodland fabric so I’ll show you those when they are up.

I’m still posting weekly cook-a-longs on Instagram so do remember to have a look at those. A couple of you asked if I could post the recipes here as you don’t have Insta, so I will include the one for blueberry muffins at the end of this blog, as I mentioned it last time– it is so easy and they are lovely yummy, soft muffins.

Like a lot of you, I have been taking full advantage of QVC as I haven’t visited a shop of any kind since before mid-March so it’s nice to be able to get a bit of retail therapy still. I never thought I’d miss the supermarket shop!! I’ve re-ordered one of my faves from Taya haircare, the Inner Core Anti-Breakage Shampoo and Conditioner. It has been such a long time since my last haircut and the ends are starting to look a big ragged, so this is going to help rescue it! If you’ve long hair that’s suffering at the ends, then I really suggest you give this a try, I really love it and it has improved the condition of my hair before.

Now, on the note of shopping with QVC, there’s a couple of beauty things I wanted to let you know about coming up for the month of June. The first is our supersize of the month from Skinsense: a double size of their already much-loved Revitalising Facial Serum. This has some great reviews online for the original 50ml size, so we know lots of you already love it. If you are new to Skinsense, it is from Abi Cleeve who is the same person behind Ultrasun and the great thing is, she uses the same technology in her skincare range. So the Lamellar technology that makes Ultrasun’s protection last all day means that the actives are locked into the skin all day with this serum. Clever, huh? I like that it is a serum, so not too heavyweight and makes a good base for your make-up compared to how something thicker and creamier might sit underneath your foundation. This, of course, launches 1st June so make sure you get in early, Skinsense supersizes tend to go quite quickly in my experience.

The second beauty launch on 1st June is BRAND NEW from Elemis and it is part of their superstar Pro-Collagen range. I know a lot of you will already have something from this range in your collection, especially the Marine Cream and Cleansing Balm. The new member of the family is the Pro-Collagen Energising Marine Cleanser and we’ll be offering it in a 400ml size. I love this because the cleansing balm has always been a little too much for my skin and this seems to suit me a lot better as it is a light gel formula and the smell is DIVINE with Rose and Mimosa aromatics. I think even if you love the cleansing balm, this might be a nice addition to your morning skincare whilst you still use the balm in the evening. It is refreshing without being drying and can remove make-up as well as impurities from the day. Top marks from me!

Right, that’s skincare sorted, now to cure your munchies with the promised Blueberry and Yoghurt Muffins recipe. If you do have Instagram then you can watch the IGTV of me making them but if not, this is for you. These are lovely light muffins with no butter or marge and would be great in the morning or any time of day really. If you have children or grandchildren with you at the moment then these are certainly easy enough for them to join in with too.

Ingredients:

• 225g Self-Raising Flour
• 200g Yoghurt (I use strawberry yoghurt but plain would do)
• 100g Caster Sugar (white or golden works fine)
• 150g Blueberries
• 1 Teaspoon Bicarbonate of Soda
• 80ml Flavourless Oil (I use Sunflower)
• 2 Large Eggs, lightly beaten

Method:

• Pre-heat your oven to 180c
• Measure all the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, bicarb) into a large bowl and stir together.
• Add the blueberries into this and mix them round so that they get a coating of flour – this should help them distribute easily through the mix rather than sink to the bottom.
• In another bowl, whisk the oil into the eggs until its amalgamated.
• Add the yoghurt into this mix and whisk until combined.
• Pour the wet mixture into the dry one and carefully fold with a spatula/wooden spoon. Don’t overmix at this stage, you want to just bring it all together – too much mixing will mean tough muffins.
• Spoon this mix into 12 muffin cases – it fills them quite full.
• Bake for 15 minutes – They are done when they are golden on top and when pushed with a finger lightly they bounce back up.
• Cool on a wire rack as long as you can bear it (I like them a bit warm).

Let me know if you give those a go and do check out my Instagram as I’ve done even more recipes since I filmed this one and will be posting a new one of Thursday – its going to be savoury this time.

That’s it from me for now, but there will be another quick blog next week as I have a Today’s Special Value to tell you about which I’ll hopefully be video calling in for.

Take care in the meantime and please do get in touch if you fancy it – I love hearing from you.
Kathryn x