This review time is looooooong overdue so massive apologies to everyone who’s sent me lovely things to test and then been drumming their fingers while I move, lose my washing, and blog endlessly about it instead of getting down to some constructive work …..
Well, the wait is finally over. I haven’t found my washing, obviously, but I have decided to Let It Go and stop ferreting about in the garage boxes as it is quite obviously right at the bottom of all of them and does not want to be found. I have actually now managed to take some very deep breaths and do my reviewing like a good girl instead. This is mainly thanks to the lovely folk over at Divine. Incidentally, did you know that 45 per cent of the Divine company is owned by actual cocoa farmers, living and working in Ghana? Isn’t that an amazing and splendid thing? Anyway, the lovely Divines have sent me over a box of their chocolate bars to be subjected to the rigorous Divorce Towers reviewing procedure (snaffled up at the speed of light in front of whatever DVD the girls are watching at the moment, currently the massively unsuitable Book Group which they love). Our top favourites so far are the Milk Chocolate – very creamy and smooth, like a highly sophisticated version of Caramac – and the Dark Chocolate with Fruit and Nut, delish. Child Two has taken the White Chocolate with Strawberries for snack time so I’ll report back on that soon. I’ll be writing more about Divine’s latest idea, Celebrating Divine Women, in the next couple of days.
Now those marvellous folk at Griffin, creators of my favourite ever iPhone gizmo, the Air Curve, which we call the ear trumpet – a truly brilliant and beautiful piece of perspex which amplifies your music without wires, plugs or switches – have sent me some other bits to try. The first is the super-cunning Slap, a wristband for your dinky little iPod Nano which makes it into a functioning watch. The best bit about it is the way you put it on – slap it around your wrist and it snaps shut snuggly with a satisfying snap. Hours of fun for teenagers and, ahem, divorcees.
Next is the iPad CinemaSeat. Now the iPad I think of as a swish bachelor product – all sleek and dynamic, and handy for reading newspapers on. The CinemaSeat turns it into a child friendly bit of kit, meaning that you can entertain your bored children on long car journeys by screening their favourite films on the iPad. Poor old bachelors, no sooner did they think they had a gizmo all of their own, than it is annexed by their sticky-fingered nieces and nephews ….
And finally, lovely Griffin has come up with the Cabinet Mount for your iPad. Yep, looks like the iPad bachelor is not getting his toy back any time soon, as this idea is perfect for any aspiring Nigella. Our plan is to put this in the kitchen so we can download recipes and cook up delicious little numbers ….. but all that will have to wait until we have a kitchen. It’s not coming till May. I’ll let you know then how we get on with it!
My next little review is for Innocent. We’ve long been fans of their smoothies, and now they’re doing orange and apple juice as well. In my current kitchenless state, I am liable to love to death anyone who sends me foodstuffs but we did genuinely think this juice was really good. I asked for the smooth variety, as Child Two loathes the juicy bits in OJ. We tested it against a carton of Sainsbury’s non-concentrated orange juice, and it was the clear winner. It just tasted better and fresher. I’m sure it would win by a mile against the concentrated type of juice as well. To me, that always tastes strangely tinny (even when from a carton) and syrupy. We haven’t tried the apple juice yet but it looks good, cloudy and natural looking. The plastic carafes have a nice solid feel to them and look good on the breakfast table, too. They also sent us a small bag of muesli, not tested yet, and some apples, one of which Child Two took to school for snack time. Altogether a lovely start to the day, thank you, Innocent!