Giveaway #708 : Win a Sharks book - closed - winner Danielle Spencer

Sharks are some of the most awe-inspiring creatures on Earth. In this book, profiles of the fiercest sharks and accounts from those working up close and personal with the predators are presented in stunning CGI artwork for a thrilling read that will make you marvel at these incredible animals - and may well give you goosebumps !

The book is divided into four chapters : A Sea of Sharks, Killer Design, Deadly Killers and The Future of Sharks.

Whether you love or loathe them, you can't fail to be impressed (and probably scared !) by some of the pictures, showing off their fierce teeth and wide open mouths. The numerous photos let you see sharks up close, fighting and even breaking through a divers' cage !

There are also lots of first-hand accounts written by a marine biologist and profiles of many species of sharks, including the Great White, Hammerhead, Goblin, Tiger, Bull and Megamouth species. It also looks at the dangers of shark extinction and conservation. I'm not keen on sharks but I wouldn't want them to cease to exist, all the same !

It's a fascinating read, with short texts that won't put off beginner or reluctant readers. Perfect for schoolwork, or just for pure enjoyment, it's a book that you can share with your children - I found it fascinating as an adult, and Pierre excitedly read through the texts, with lots of wow-moments !

Sharks | 9781783124510

Author: Ben Hubbard

Paperback | £8.99 | Published: January 2019

Age: 8+

for more information : www.carltonbooks.co.uk/sharks-pb.html

Fancy winning a copy? Fill in your entries in the Rafflecopter widget below - good luck !

a Rafflecopter giveaway

T & C's : Entries close at midnight on the closing date. Winners will be selected with a random number generator and announced on facebook and in the giveaway post subject line. Please note, you will be contacted by email and/or twitter and if I haven't heard from you after 28 days, I'll have to pick another winner. Prizes will be sent out by the companies or their PR directly to winners. Madhouse Family Reviews cannot be held responsible for any prizes that go astray. Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. The winners' personal contact information will be passed on to the PR / Brand responsible and used only for delivery of their prize. 

You may also like to enter my other giveaways :

coming soon !

Fab freebies of the week 12/1

I seem to be spending the whole time running around like a mad thing at the moment, dealing with loads of paperwork on top of work and the kids. I need another holiday !! Ah well, in the meantime, here's another roundup of the week's best freebies to chill out with. Enjoy !

***************************************

Sign up to claim your free 80g sample pack of swan and duck food

Complete the form below to receive a Scented Tattoo, from the latest KILIAN collection, My Kind Of Love

Authentic Skincare are looking for product testers for their new face cream

Check out Trnd's latest product tests, for Gillette Skinguard Sensitive razors and Fairy Non Bio's Child Safety at Home project

From Bobbi Brown : FREE 7-DAY FOUNDATION SAMPLE

Visit us in store to get shade matched and take home a FREE 7-day supply of the perfect foundation for you. Offer includes NEW Skin Long-Wear Weightless Foundation SPF 15.

Right now, you can grab free loads of freebies over at Checkout Smart : Tasty Soya Pieces, Tasty Soya Mince, Love Hemp spring water, Oasis Aquashock (2 flavours), VWater, akcohol-free Heineken 0.0, ...

Answer 5 easy questions correctly to get your FREE 100ml sachet of Nikwax Down Wash Direct

Will you win a free Tennent’s Limited Edition Pint Glass? Use code 30JUN19L8269

@DermaOrganicsUK

New to the #DermaFamily? Did you know, you can try most of our products before you buy with our FREE samples? Simply head on over to the Derma Organics website for more info!

@RevitalUGen

☕☕☕Do U want to lose #weight? Gain more #energy? Be more #focused & be #happier in yourself? Inbox 'Coffee' plus your address & email for your 3 #free #samples (UK only)☕☕☕

@RevitalUGen

☕☕☕Do U #love #hotchocolate but not the #calories? Our #revitalu #cocoa has just 25 calories per cup. Inbox 'Cocoa' plus your address & email for your 2 #free #samples (UK only)☕☕☕

You can see previous weeks' freebie roundups by clicking here but be warned, many of the offers are only valid for a short time. Let me know if any have expired and I'll remove them from the roundup.

You may also like to enter my current giveaways :


coming soon !

Book review : The Watcher - Ross Armstrong

The Watcher by Ross Armstrong is a book that I grabbed off my bookshelf over Christmas. I'm not sure where it came from - probably a charity shop find - but I wanted to delve into something that I had actually chosen to read, not that I was obliged to read for a review, over the Christmas holidays. I read some on the train down to see my sister-in-law in the West of France, then read some more at my parents' home in Sussex, then finished it off this week, now that I'm back at work. Sometimes I was a bit confused by what I was reading and how it all fitted together, but I'm not entirely sure if that came from the story itself or my busy lifestyle during the holidays !

The story is narrated by Lily Gullick, a middle-aged woman who lives with her husband Aiden and spends a lot of her time peering out of her window into the homes of her neighbours in the tower block opposite. She calls herself a birdwatcher and labels the beginning of each chapter with details about her different sightings, although it is soon revealed that this is actually just code-talk for her neighbours. 

Each chapter begins with a countdown - "7 days till it comes", "42 days till it comes", ... - but the reader has absolutely no idea what we are counting down to. With this and the initially incomprehensible bird-watching notes, full of initials and abbreviations, I was wrong-footed and couldn't work out where we were heading. I think this state of confusion and lack of clear objectives is supposed to give us an insight into Lily's state of mind, but it left me feeling annoyed, as I always like to be one step ahead of the game and work out what will be going on right from the early pages of a book (even if I end up being completely wrong).

Lily is excessively voyeuristic and this left me feeling uneasy. She has strange, secret meetings with Jean, one of her elderly neighbours, and also has a weird habit (with a hastily explained logic) of pretending to be a doctor. Once Jean has been killed and she is convinced that her neighbour is up to no good, she doesn't think twice about breaking into his flat, leaving a bug and, all for good measure, having a run-in with the local bad boys on the estate. This didn't really help me to trust or build up a rapport with the narrator.

Two thirds of the way in, everything changes. There is a big announcement that changes the way that you've read everything up until then. With her own observations and logic seriously put into doubt, it is hard to readjust and work out where the story is going. Things do soon pick up again though, and the closing chapters are intense and nerve-wracking. Some of the details in the final chapter - such as the wrecking ball and the nail-biting wait in the rancid skip, for example - seemed a bit overdone, and I couldn't help but wonder if everything that I was reading was true or if Lily was over-thinking things again. It turns out that she is a bit of a hero though, despite her tricky past, and all things come good in the end.

 The fact that Lily is the first-person narrator doesn't give you the sense of distance that a more level-headed, external narrator would have offered, but it was an interesting read, even if at times I felt a bit wrong-footed.

star rating : 4/5

RRP : £7.99

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: HQ; First edition edition (21 Sept. 2017)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9780008181178
• ISBN-13: 978-0008181178
• ASIN: 0008181179

Madhouse recipe : Chicken stir-fry

Christmas is a great time for eating (and over-eating !), with everything from mince pies and Christmas cake permanently on hand, as well as numerous boxes of biscuits and chocolates constantly doing the rounds. All that's without even mentioning the huge Christmas dinners on both side of the Channel ! Now we're back home and back to school, I'm trying to get us back into some healthy but kid-friendly eating routines. This chicken stir-fry was a quick and simple way to use up leftover roast chicken from the day before, with loads of veggies that the kids didn't even moan about eating because they were busy using chopsticks and they were easy to pick up - bonus ! I used whatever veg took my fancy in Aldi, so feel free to swap in other things, depending on what you have in the fridge !

 Chicken stir-fry

ingredients :

drizzle of olive oil

leftover roast chicken

1 onion

1 pack carrot sticks (or a couple of carrots)

1 pack baby sweetcorn

1 pack mange-tout

1 pack bean sprouts

1 pack noodles + seasonings

sweet soy sauce

This is what the meal started out as - all the leftover bits of chicken after our Sunday roast. There were a few bits of breast meat but mainly the legs and wings.

Start off by removing all the chicken from the bones and ripping it all into equal sized chunks or strips. I ended up with more meat than I first thought ! 

I had a pack of Thai flavour noodles in the cupboard that needed using up - along with a single serving pack of noodles, there were two sachets, one of thick soy sauce and one of green herbs. Boil up some water and let the noodles soak while you sort out the veggies.

This is quick to cook so sort out all your veggies before you start adding things to the pan - you need them all chopped into pieces about the same size.

Heat up the oil in a large pan or wok and fry the onion for a couple of minutes, then add the carrot and babycorn strips. Cook, stirring constantly.

Next, add the mange-tout. (I tried sugar snap peas this time, as they were on special offer, but the kids prefer the usual mange-tout.)

Then throw in the beansprouts, along with the chicken, and stir-fry for a few minutes until they have wilted and made some room in the pan.

Drain the noodles and add them to the pan. Looking in the fridge, I also found half a can of sweetcorn and the end of a pouch of Uncle Ben's rice, so they went in too. Give it all a good stir to stop it sticking.

Add a generous shake of sweetened soy sauce (or just regular soy sauce will do, if that's all you've got) and stir to combine all the flavours.

Add the sachets from the noodles (thick soy sauce and green seasoning that looks vaguely like dehydrated parsley but could be anything really !).

Heat through until the veggies are cooked but still nice and crisp, the chicken is perfectly warmed through and the sauce has oozed through everything. This is lovely with a final sprinkle of sesame seeds on top, but we'd run out !

This was a great way of using up leftover roast chicken and clearing out the veg compartment of the fridge, as well as using up a pack of instant noodles, so it's going on this month's #KitchenClearout linky.

What's Cooking at The Madhouse? menu plan 2019 week #2

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and New Year. We were busy catching up with both sides of the family during the holidays - in fact, I took some time to write this menu plan while still on holiday, so I'm not entirely sure of what's in the freezer ! Oh well, things can always be switched around. In 2019, I want to get back into trying lots of new globe-cooking recipes, but I'll have to try to find some kid-friendly options that we can all eat. So here's this week's plan - I'm on a mission to get lots of extra hidden veg in our meals, whenever possible !

Monday 

dinner - pork stir fry, with noodles and loads of veggies (red peppers, carrot strips, baby sweetcorn, mangetout, beansprouts, onions, ...)

Tuesday 

dinner - chicken enchiladas or fajitas with guacamole and rice

Wednesday 

lunch - Patatnik, a Bulgarian potato dish, with fried eggs or beefburgers, depending on what's in the freezer, and maybe some ratatouille

dinner - rigatoni al tonno, a tuna-stuffed pasta dish, with a cherry tomato sauce

Thursday 

dinner - Kung Pao chicken with rice & stir-fried veggies

Friday  

 dinner - Alnwick stew (a potato-topped gammon stew) with peas & carrots

Saturday

lunch - kids' choice of restaurant/fast food - probably the old favourite, McDonald's ! I think I'll go for a chicken salad, or maybe a wrap.

dinner - sandwiches and fridge clearout - I'll try making a Panzanella salad (dried bread, tomatoes, cucumber, ... - I'll share the recipe afterwards)

Sunday

lunch -  the classic Sunday roast - roast chicken, stuffing, gravy, carrots, mushrooms, onions ... but I might go for rice rather than roast potatoes, after all the festive over-eating !

dinner - sandwiches and fridge clearout

***Click on my Menu Plans tag to see all my other weekly menu plan blogposts.***

Madhouse diaries : The festive decorations

Well, it doesn't seem five minutes ago that we were coming out of school, excited about trekking off to visit the family on both sides of the Channel, but it's already time to head back into the classrooms. Where does the time go ?! As they were still open this weekend, we decided to go to the town hall to revisit the Christmas decorations and displays that they'd put up. I think they did a great job !

The whole entrance hall and staircase is decked out with towering Christmas trees, oodles of lights and giant displays hanging from the ceiling. I always think you can never have too much at Christmas, and whoever set up this display obviously shares my sentiment !

,

We all oohed and aahed at the white Christmas trees, giant candy canes and gingerbread men welcoming us as we headed up the stairs.

 Heading around the corner, you are confronted with a giant steam train - after rubbing your eyes, you realise that it's just a giant poster, but with the addition of steam, as well as a bench and other decorations to make it look like a railway station platform, you do really feel like it's real ! This leads into a room showing off some miniature train tracks, but they were so busy, I didn't stop to take photos.

Heading through a darkened corridor, we arrived in the reindeer's stables, complete with smiley elves looking after the kooky-looking beasts !

They have great character and really set the scene. Pierre loved sitting on the wooden stools, complete with saddles, too.

No Pierre, you can't be a reindeer !

Next, we found ourselves in a wonderful, wintry landscape, complete with cheeky elves playing and hiding in the Christmas trees !

I love the way they've cleverly used the lighting to make this look so realistic. You could almost imagine you are in a forest in Lapland !

 From here, we headed into the wintry library and crafts area, where younger children could sit at big tables with people dressed at elves, making Christmas cards and reading festive story books.

Following the arrows, we headed into a room with a giant chair and a (fake) crackling wood fire. This is where Father Christmas was sitting in the run up to Christmas, but we'd missed him.

The Big Man in Red may have been long gone, but the Madhouse kids still had fun posing in the photo props !

 The visit was a lovely way to finish off the holidays and take a final chance to wonder at the festive magic.

 Pierre had a different idea of festive magic though, and asked if we could finish off with a trip to the festive fairground, which will be in the town centre until next weekend !

Fab freebies of the week 5/1

For the first time in 2019, here's a roundup of this week's fab UK freebies. Hope you find something that takes your fancy and fingers crossed the big companies get extra generous with their offers over this coming year !

*************************************

Greek Olive & Herbs have a limited number of Olive wood bookmark samples to offer our customers. A valid e-mail address is required to participate in the Promotion.

Grab a carton of Bam Organic milk drink for free on Shopmium - there's a free pack of Butterkist popcorn plus Vitacoco and a bottle of Robinson's Refreshd too

On the Boots No 7 facebook page :  All our foundations are Match Made so rest assured you’ll show up wearing your skin true shade. Pop in store for your free three-day sample now

Like reading? Get one of 100 copies of One Minute Later on Caboodle (expired)

Complete the form to receive a free sample of Flexitol 25% Urea Heel Balm. After using the product once a day for 14 days, complete a survey on your experience. For every completed survey we receive, we will donate £5 to the Diabetes Research & Wellness Foundation.

Request a road safety Space Invader sticker pack.

Ryvita have a new Veganuary competition : In true Veganuary spirit, we'd love to offer you the chance to win a year's supply of fresh vegetables from our lovely friends at Riverford. That is 52 weeks worth of organic, tasty veg delivered straight to your door! 100 runners up will win the full range of Ryvita Crunchy Rye Breads to get creative with. What will you top yours with if you win?!

Try L'Or coffee for free. *Purchase coffee from our range and receive your money back,

simply by inserting the unique code and uploading your receipt. Offer valid till 31st March 2019. One pack per household.

FREE! FREE! Get your eyelash curler from Klihn. Therefore we ask you to send us a three-line feedback (max. 5 minutes), we want to improve our products together with your feedback! ⬇ "SEND MESSAGE" ⬇

From originsuk: Say hello to our NEW Drink Up masks - now infused with Swiss Glacier Water & superfoods for up to 72 hours of feel-good hydration 💦 Head on over to your local Origins counter for a free sample

Another instore freebie from Clinique : Discover a revolution in skin care: NEW Clinique iD.⚡️Three hydration bases, five cartridges to treat your biggest skin concern, 15 custom-blend combinations. Pick up your free sample in-store today.

Sign up to discover the NEW Alien Flora Futura Eau de Toilette and Alien Eau de Parfum.

If you're on a mobile or tablet, head over here for a free drink in January - cheers ! This is the Great British Pubs' Cheer Up January event until 20th January.

You can see previous weeks' freebie roundups by clicking here but be warned, many of the offers are only valid for a short time. Let me know if any have expired and I'll remove them from the roundup.

You may also like to enter my current giveaways :


coming soon !

#KitchenClearout December roundup and January linky

Right, we're into the New Year which means it's time to get things back under control. I'm not back home for another day or two as I write this but I'm already menu-planning for next week, sorting out paperwork (new passports for everyone, chasing up the life insurance pay-out from Madhouse Daddy's work, sending off Sophie's application to college for September - eeeek ! ... it's hardly surprising I'm exhausted all the time !) So it's time to catch up with #KitchenClearout after a month off last month, due to our internet issues. Let's hope things go a bit more smoothly in 2019 !

Jane from Onions and Paper started things off with this Veg Rack Roast, which was a great way of clearing out the fridge and the veg rack. It looks perfect for serving with any festive leftovers that may still be cluttering up the fridge and/or freezer too.

Going through my kitchen cupboards, I came across three ends of jars of peanut butter, so I used them all up in this batch of Peanut Butter Cookies. That made a bit more space for all the festive foodie goodies and the kids thought they tasted delicious too !

Over at Chez Maximka, Galina rustled up some  Mushroom, Sweet Potato and Chestnut Burgers which sound lovely, even if she thought they didn't look great ! They sound perfect after all the festive over-eating lately. I want to get more veggies back in the Madhouse kids diets in 2019 so this looks like a great way to start.

Maximka also shared her recipe for Easy Apple Turnovers, which are a great way of using up some of her bumper crop of apples and also finished off some signature spice. I know these would be a big hit at our house, so I'll definitely be making some of these some time soon.

Well, that was it for the last roundup, as my internet connection was down for two weeks so I couldn't get online. I'll hopefully be catching up this month and feel free to link up anything you posted in December. I'm predicting there will some ingenious uses for leftover turkey next month !

Feeling inspired and fancy joining in? Have a rummage through your kitchen cupboards, spice rack, freezer or fridge and see if there's anything that needs using up, then come and share your creations with us. Or if it's way past its sell-by date, throw it in the bin and come and tell us what you found ! It would be great if you could add my badge and a link to this post for anyone else who wants to get involved.

Join in with this month's link-up by adding a link to your blogpost in the comments below ! (Is anyone still using Inlinkz? I used to have a free account but it looks like you have to pay for it now - boo ! In the meantime, just leave your link as a comment.)