Oh my gosh! I know we don’t like to complain, but if we could just grab a minute between school runs, work, after school clubs, pet care, cleaning, fetching, carrying, that would be absolutely swell. I mean, who else just feels as though their ‘to do’ list is never ending?

I always start the year with good intentions for time management, but without adopting a sergeant major position in my own brain – yes, I talk to myself, too – it’s impossible to keep up with everything there is to do. A standard weekday is non-stop, weekends are non-existent, and I definitely don’t remember what a lie in is like.

Was that a chorus of ‘I hear you’ that I just heard? I think it was.

So, with the very best intentions at heart, I want to do my bit for all the parents out there who don’t even get to pee in peace. Here are five little tips (life hacks, you might call them) that take the pressure off a tiny titch, and keep you going just one more day

Give grass the elbow

If you have time to do the gardening, then you are on the wrong blog post. Seriously. Pruning and planting and whatnot? Who has time for that? I don’t even have time for my lawn, and all it wants is mowing.

Give grass the elbow and opt for artificial grass from Grass Direct as they have everything from budget to premium grass, just team it with some pretty pebbles and voila, no need for weekly maintenance.

Friday night chippy tea

Your eldest’s best friend may well be going home to a plate of sea bass with quinoa rice salad, but that doesn’t sound like a Friday night to me.

After a week full of school runs, pick-ups, drop-offs, work stress, deadlines, and more, forget washing up, forget cooking, head to the chippy and eat out of the paper, around the fire, with the TV on. Taste the delight. Go on.

Learn to love leather

Upholstered fabric is oh-so stunning, and we all want a showroom home, somewhere down deep at the bottom of our shallow hearts. It’s true.

But have you ever actually met kids? Now is not the time for fabric. Save it for your retirement. Leather is the way, and the only way. Spills, sick… all that icky kiddy stuff can be wiped away and forgotten. All hail wet wipes.

Masquerading ‘me time’

‘Hey kids, do you fancy popping to the play area?’ Win-win!

Out of the house for a few hours, rather than turning their rooms upside down, they can run riot in the play area. While they have the time of their lives, entertained with ball pits and swing ropes, you can sneak in some me time. Take a book, grab a latte, and make the most of those minutes.

Swap how you shop

No parent should brave a supermarket with any children under the age of five. It should almost be a law. Just don’t do it to yourself. If you have more than two children under the age of five, it’s a miracle if you make it out alive.

Sign up to a delivery saver and have your shopping delivered to your doorstep. It’s absolutely fool proof. You can even have a glass of wine cup of tea while you shop. Bliss.

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I don't really remember learning to ride a bike, it just seems like something I have always known how to do but when teaching my own girls to ride a bike, I am all about their safety, with a helmet and knee pads. I honestly don't think I personally ever had a helmet on to ride my bike as a child and I don't know whether it was because we are more safety aware now or whether helmets were not "cool" back then!

Mini Hornit helmets are a bit, no a LOT, cooler than most kids’ bike helmets! Painstakingly designed to look stylish & fun (or quiet understated in the case of Stealth!), they are fully adjustable, comfortable, lightweight and actually something children will want to wear. They will also love the integrated LED which is an added safety feature, useful for riding home after school in winter.

There are lots of designs to choose from but we went for the Minnie Mouse inspired Mini Hornit Lid for our little bike trainee and she squealed with excitement when she saw it, which was a good start. She is usually found sporting pigtails in her hair, so we had to have a hairstyle change to ensure a comfortable fit but she couldn't wait to try it on. It took us a little while to find the best and most comfortable fit but it is really easy to adjust and I personally love the LED light at the back.

The Mini Hornit Lid is fully adjustable (for when she gets a big head after learning to ride a bike) but as an overview:

 

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Waste is big news at the moment and one of the worst rubbish removal problems we have is uneaten, unused food waste. It is estimated that world wide, about one-third of all food produced ends up wasted! Moreover, most of this wasted food ends up in a landfill where it produces carbon dioxide and methane, both major contributors to the greenhouse effect. Methane gas also bubbles through the ground, sometimes causing dangerous explosions far from the landfill.

Restaurants often produce so much food waste, they can't keep enough rubbish removal bins, especially during their busiest seasons. However, a few UK restaurants have decided to make as part of the central theme, an effort to compost their food waste to keep it out of the landfills. In fact, most of these same restaurants go a step further in trying to produce less food waste.

Silo, a restaurant located in Brighton, has placed as a center attraction, as soon as you walk in the door, a special composter, called a digester, to compost all their food straps. It's specially equipped to "digest" meat, dairy, and oil, unlike most garden composter or garden compost pile where these items are typically excluded. Beyond the composting of food scraps, their plates are made from recycled plastics, their drinks are served in recycled jam jars, and they even mill their own flour and brew their own beer. Their restaurant furniture is made from rustic repurposed materials that serve as a constant reminder to their dedication to getting as close to zero waste as possible. All of these efforts combine to create a lot less rubbish removal and they very proudly boast about it -- and they should!

Poco, a restaurant with locations in London and Bristol, not only composts their food scraps, they take avoiding food waste to a whole new level! For starters, they actually keep track of the food that is left on their patron's plates. If a particular menu item gets left on their plates too often, they take that item off the menu so they don't generate as much rubbish removal with the food they serve -- smart! The owners of Poco also choose their vendors in large part based on who can deliver with the least amount of packaging. This is better than recycling your packaging -- when you have nothing, or at least a lot less, to recycle! On the Poco website, they proudly state, "95% to 100% of our waste is composted and recycled."

Other UK restaurants follow a similar ethos to minimize their rubbish removal as much as possible. These include The Modern Pantry located in London, the Tiny Leaf also located in London, and the River Cottage HQ in Devon. Of all of the methods used to minimize rubbish removal in restaurants, composting is the most successful in terms of the volume of rubbish diverted from landfills.

FERN, which stands for Food Establishments Recycling Nutrients, is an NGO based in Lebanon with a mission to reduce the food wasted in restaurants. On World Food Day last year, they hosted a lunch that was made entirely out of food left over from that day's breakfast buffet. How's that for no rubbish removal of food! They also consult with restaurants all over the world to help them learn how to reduce their food waste and how to compost their food waste rather than tossing it in the rubbish removal bins where it will likely be taken to the landfills. FERN facilitated an experiment with ten McDonald’s in London, who agreed to separate out their food waste so it could be taken to a composting company. The experiment was a huge success and has been highlighted to show other restaurants what's possible.

Judging from the consistently high scores and high praise these restaurants get on their online reviews, they are among the most popular restaurants in their respective geographic areas. Consumers flock to them not only for the quality of food they produce but for social commitments they've made to keeping food and other items out of the landfills and reducing their waste overall. While some of them bill themselves as "zero waste" restaurants, they probably don't quite reach that goal but they do seem to attempt to get as close to that noble goal as possible.

Clearabee, a rubbish removal company with a shared ecofriendly mission, has been promoting their services to restaurants, not with the goal of taking their food waste to the landfill, but rather with the goal of keeping it out of the landfill! One of Clearabee's top missions is to divert as much rubbish from the landfills as possible. To this end, they find places to LEGALLY take the rubbish they clear for recycling, upcycling, or reuse. In the case of food, composting is the best way to recycle it!

This is really "food for thought" and takes me back to my childhood where we used to rolle our eyes at my Mum for wanting to recycle everything or compost the leftovers. Little did I know that my Mum was ahead of the trend! Shhh don't tell her that though!

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