Conkers. If you’re like me, then you’ll know about the buzz that you get when you find a large, brown, shiny conker without any damage to it. Result! It’s part of our end-of-Summer ritual to go conker hunting in our preferred location. (I won’t tell you where it is. Any keen conker hunter knows never to give away their patches.) Usually, the last weekend in August is when they start to fall, but we went a week later this year due to bad weather. We combine the hunt with a walk through the forest, so it’s a great day from start to finish. You’re fooling the kids into getting fresh air into thei ..read more

Get some inspiration for some choice products to enhance your garden. I can personally vouch for both the shed and greenhouse! (I have not used Pinterest for such a long time! Here’s hoping all of the stuff works.) Note – some of these links may be affiliate ones meaning that if you buy any of these, I get a referral credit. The post The 24 Summer Garden Essentials of 2023 appeared first on Looking for the Postman ..read more

Electric vehicles (EVs) are the future of driving in the UK. By 2030, new cars can only be sold if they can drive a significant distance with zero emissions. Back in March, we traded in our diesel Ford C-Max for a second-hand Nissan Leaf. I have to tell you that moving from fossil fuel to electric required a shift in both driving culture and expectations. What I hope to do below is provide you with an overview of the things that I have learned during this period. Charger Types Each car comes with a charger port or two. This is where you plug your car into whatever you’re charging it with. Th ..read more

I became a father for the last time at age 40. My youngest will be 11 this year. I often wonder if people think that I’m her grandad when I pick her up from school. But it’s not unusual to become a dad at my age, or even older. As society continues to evolve and change, so too do the expectations and norms around fatherhood. Being a bit more, erm, , mature when you become a pop can present unique challenges and rewards. While becoming a father later in life can come with certain advantages, such as increased financial stability and emotional maturity, it can also pose difficulties, including p ..read more

The UK is suffering a class crisis at the moment. You switch on the news and the complaints are rife – the Government only provides for business, not people. The rich get richer, etc. I’m not on a soapbox, but you don’t need to be to know that there’s strong public opinion on the subject. Competitions, however, do seem to provide an antidote to this imbalance. Because the selection of a competition winner relies, for the most part, on chance, they are a great social leveller. Your bank balance, social standing, the school that you attended – it makes no difference. Mr Brown the Banker has as m ..read more

Warning. If you’re considering a vasectomy and are doing some research to reassure yourself, read this with caution! You may not find the assurances you’re after here. Consider yourself warned. I became a father for the third time shortly after my 40th birthday. Enough was enough. It may be fine for other men to want to have babies long after 40 but for me, I was done. We discussed our options. It basically came down to one of two things. Either I got the snip or Emma did. This is how I viewed that choice. Emma had Jenny a year before she had Eve. Jenny came out back-to-back resulting in Emma ..read more

Four kids. When people ask how many kids I have, I say four. Biologically it’s three, but I say four. I was 30 when I first became a dad back in 2003.I separated from Jack’s mother and we went our separate ways in 2006. Jack stayed with me a couple of nights a week. As with all people who go through such things, it was a rough time. Jack was young, though, and he grew up only really knowing that his dad lived somewhere else. On February 28th 2009, I met Emma for the first time. Emma had a daughter, Rachel, who was born in 1998. Emma and I got engaged in December 2009 and married in November 20 ..read more

Buying Christmas presents isn’t as simple as getting your kids what they want. Obviously! You always want to steer clear of complete rubbish and try to get something that may help your child develop in some way. Plus it’s got to be fun, right? Nothing wrong with fun. But then, you don’t want your kid sitting in front of a tablet / screen / tv all the time. That’s a big problem. How long is too long for playing video games? “The negative side of leisure technology is not in what it does provides for us – there are many benefits – it is what it does not provide or what it prevents us from doing ..read more

Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die. Those words are from arguably the greatest kid’s fantasy story ever, and if they’re not familiar to you then you’re in for a treat. As the great Peter Falk puts it in the movie “fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles…”, it has it all. I started reading the story to my kids at bedtime a few weeks ago. That’s how the book should be read. Actually, the story is a book within a book, but the book within the book doesn’t exist in reality. It’s all the work of the brilliant Wil ..read more

Pomora provide olive oil in the most conscientious and considerate way imagineable. In their own words, Pomora is an adoption programme. Our goal is to create a community of food lovers and food producers who share an ethical vision. People who care about high quality, wholesome foods of known provenance; people who care about mother earth and treating her with respect; people who care about and look after each other; people, we hope, like you. The message is, adopt an olive tress and enjoy the finest olive oil throughout the year whilst supporting traditional farmers. It’s an original, welc ..read more