The consumer magazine Which? has confirmed what many of us might already have suspected. it seems pack sizes are shrinking. Over a dozen kitchen staples have been highlighted as having shrunk in size. Amongst the offenders are Kellogg’s Coco Pops and Branston Pickle. Although the pack sizes have shrunk the prices appear to have remained unchanged. Personally the thing I have noticed most is the Cadbury’s cream egg. I have no proof but they certainly seem much smaller than they used to be. Other items highlighted in the article include Ambrosia Creamed Semolina, Birds Eye Crispy Chicken and Fairy All-in-one Dishwasher Tablets.

We spent yesterday at the allotment putting the potatoes in the ground and doing some general weeding. So far we have onions and leeks growing and now two lines of potatoes. With the help of my father we are gradually digging out the next area of ground ready for some more crops. Meanwhile we have carpeted as much of the ground as possible to kill the weeds in preparation for digging. The carpet makes a great home for a variety of creatures and I spent much of the day amusing myself trying to catch the slow worms and frogs. We have also come across a mouse hole which we disturbed whilst digging. I had so much fun catching creatures that I didn’t get an awful lot of work done. The plot is starting to look a lot better and judging by all the blossom on the damson trees we should have a good crop this year for some more lovely jam.

Penny is now 18 weeks old and is fast developing into a proper little person. She now sleeps all night from 10pm through until at least 8am in the morning. Still very hungry she spends most of the day drinking milk and we are now starting to give her little tastes of various fruit and vegetable purees. It’s hard to remember the tiny little baby she was back in November, she is certainly growing fast and I guess it won’t be long before she learns to crawl.

If a Cadbury’s Cream Egg is not already sweet enough for you then you might want to try some of these recipes. All made with cream eggs they feature such classics as this Cadbury’s Cream Eggs benedict made with cream eggs, a doughnut and frosting. Personally I think they would be a little too sweet for me but they certainly look interesting.

This is interesting it’s an article about how to make your own Easter eggs. Unfortunately with a young baby I doubt I will have the time to try it this Easter but it looks like good fun especially if your children are old enough to participate in the project. I will certainly be giving this a go when Penny is older.

Not much if this article is correct. It claims that in the average Easter egg the chocolate takes up just 38% of the box, with the rest being made up of packaging. I remember reading a similar article last Easter where environmentalists were calling for Easter egg manufacturers to reduce the amount of packaging they use. The eggs to me still look the same. It makes sense that hollow eggs require a fair amount of packaging to protect the chocolate shell but if more than half of the pack contents is packaging, it seems it might be time to campaign for more chocolate in our Easter eggs.

That’s according to the Office of National Statistics. They say that not only will one out of three babies born in the last year live to be 100 but also that the number of centenarians will rise 40-fold within the next 50 years. The rise in life expectancy is down to factors such as improved diets, advances in medicine and a move away from manual labour. It’s interesting to think that my daughter has a good chance of seeing her 100th birthday. I do wonder, however, what this means for the future of the state pension.

It’s not quite April the 1st so I’m assuming this article is genuine. It’s about a new tea which is set to go one sale. The tea is supposed to be the most expensive in the world and is unusual because the plants are fertilised with panda dung. Quite how this improves the flavour of the tea is unclear but those wanting to try a cup should expect to pay around £130. It is made by a former teacher and journalist who believes using the panda manure to fertilise the organic green tea produces the perfect cup. The panda dung is obtained from nearby panda breading centres in Sichuan province, China. With 50 grams of the tea selling for 22,000 yuan (£2,200) and a cup of tea requiring about three grams each cup of tea would cost about £130.

A study which I can only assume has been commissioned by Cadburys has found that people who eat chocolate regularly tend to be thinner. The findings come from a study of nearly 1000 US people. It looked at diet, calorie intake and body mass index and found that those who ate chocolate a few times a week were on average slimmer than those who ate it occasionally. Scientists believe that even though chocolate contains lots of calories it also contains ingredients that may favour weight loss. I’m convinced, it seems like another good excuse to eat chocolate.