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What's this blog all about?

Hi, I'm Nicola - welcome to a blog begun in 2012 about family travel around the world, without leaving the UK.

I love travel adventures, but to save cash and keep my family's carbon footprint lower, I dreamt up a unique stay-at-home travel experience. So far I've visited 110 countries... without leaving the UK. Join me exploring the next 86! Or have a look at the "countries" you can discover within the UK by scrolling the labels (below right). Here's to happy travel from our doorsteps.

Around 2018 I tried a new way of writing my family's and my own UK travel adventures. Britain is a brilliant place for a staycation, mini-break and day trips. It's also a fantastic place to explore so I've begun to write up reports of places that are easy to reach by public transport. And when they are not that easy to reach I'll offer some tips on how to get there.

See www.nicolabaird.com for info about the seven books I've written, a link to my other blog on thrifty, creative childcare (homemadekids.wordpress.com) or to contact me.

Friday, 28 March 2008

Soft centres

Nicola & Pete plus daughters Lola, now 9 and Nell, now 7, spent last year exploring Britain in a carbon-light manner. Our spring 2008 challenge is to give up waste from 24 March to 24 April. Most posts are by Nicola (as it was her silly idea). This is how it’s going:

I’ve been given a box of Green & Black chocolates (which are v nice, thank you). Although all the wrapping is recyclable, some might even be reusable (the box for instance), chocolate boxes deserve to be singled out as the most excessively over-wrapped items.

This is a mystery to me as when I make truffles (using Fleur’s recipe for 12) all I need is 125g of dark chocolate (ie, a bar) and then two spoonfuls of double cream and liquer. Once the truffles have set they don’t seem to stick, especially if they have been rolled in cocoa powder, which means you can pile them up in or on anything without having to worry about turning a dozen delicious treats turn into one blobby goo.

Verdict: it’s easy to reject over-wrapped food products, even delicious chocolates. And if you’re doing the giving, then maybe it is worth thinking about packaging as much as the rest of the product. After all the manufacturers do.

1 comment:

Karin said...

Thanks for that tip. I may experiment. I don't think I've ever made truffles, but think I've got a recipe hanging about somewhere.