Plutonium Sox

Natalie Ray March 24, 2016 Our Thursday Photos

Thursday Photo #98

You may have noticed that my blog has had quite a big makeover this week. It has been several months coming, I wasn’t happy with my header or the overall look of the blog back at the end of last year. Determined to do something about it, I stripped it back to a completely minimalist theme. And that’s the way it stayed. Things got so chaotic here that the blog makeover went on hold. This week, I’ve finally found the time to redo it. What do you think? I know a lot of people pay somebody to design their blog, but…

View Post

Natalie Ray March 23, 2016 Food and Drink

Co-op Easter treats: Review & recipe

Much as I loved Easter as a child, it’s been a long time since I had an Easter egg of my own. My family don’t buy them, my husband and I don’t buy them for each other and his family just buy one for the children. So when Central England Co-Operative asked me to review a few items from their Easter range, I jumped at the chance. I have literally years of Easters to make up for. I chose two fabulous looking, huge Easter eggs. The first egg I chose was the Brushed Gold Milk Chocolate Egg with Dark Chocolate…

View Post

Natalie Ray March 20, 2016 Toddler

Lessons from my children: On saying ‘No’

Since beginning my love affair with Instagram just a few short months ago, I have become more aware of the world around me. This afternoon on my walk, I noticed that the sun glancing out from behind the hills onto a tree cast it into a perfect silhouette. As I stood there for a few moments, committing the beautiful view to memory and to camera, it crossed my mind that the structure of the trunk, branches and twigs were reminiscent of the skeleton of a leaf. The tree follows a tried and tested structure that it knows to be strong and effective…

View Post

Natalie Ray March 19, 2016 Small World Series

The Small World Series: Plutonium Sox

The world can sometimes seem like such a big place. Good friends moving to a different continent and my own yearning for travel serve as regular reminders. And even as technology advances and keeping in touch becomes easier, other events make us realise that planet Earth is pretty vast. Did you know that we know more about the surface of the moon than we do about our ocean floors? And when Concorde was decommissioned nearly 13 years ago, its last pilot said, “Our shrinking world just got a little bigger.” He was right, no plane since has matched Concorde for speed. And…

View Post

Natalie Ray March 18, 2016 Ethical shopping

Palm Oil Free Product Recommendations #2

Palm oil is an equatorial resource that can only be grown ten degrees either side of the equator – right where the most diverse environment on earth is found; the rainforest. Finding palm oil free products is difficult, but there are some amazing companies out there producing high quality, ethical products that are also affordable. These have been my favourite brands this month. Breakfast Cereal Rude Health make a range of ethical foods, including snacks, drinks and this Fruity Date organic porridge that we tried. The ingredients used by Rude Health are all natural and unrefined and of course palm oil…

View Post