Review: Toby Carvery, Not Just for Sundays!

Everyone in my family is a big fan of Toby Carvery. I visited my first one with my husband when we were just 21 years old, so that's 24 years ago and we've been going regularly ever since. We love their format and truly think they are the best carvery chain out there. You get served the meat but the potatoes, yorkshire puds, vegetables, stuffing, crackling, gravy and condiments are all help yourself and that makes them perfect for a family who have a big apetitite and love their veg!

Our local Toby Carvery is in Eastbourne and we probably go there at least once a month. A short while back it was refurbished and today was our third visit since it has re-opened. I have to say that I feel as if they have really upped their game along with the new decor. We've always had pleasant staff serving us there but it's as if they all have an extra smile and are enjoying their job more since the place has had a makeover, and their sunny personalities are matching the new smart interior.

As well as the hearty meal, another reason we regularly visit Toby Carvery is because you can often get great discount vouchers to be used on weekdays. Take today for instance, I'm using a 50% off main courses voucher and often I can find 33% or 40% off. Sign up to the Toby Carvery mailing list (or download the app) and you'll be sent great deals.

My dinner (the meat is hiding under the veggies) and bottomless soft drink

Sunday is of course the most popular day for people to traditionally enjoy a roast dinner and for this reason we always avoid Sundays, as we like the restaurant to be a bit quieter when we go there. My recommendation would be to go early evening on a weekday, around 5.30/6pm or late afternoon on a Saturday, around 3/4pm as you'll then find the restaurant quieter but thankfully, we never have any problem with dry meat or old vegetables like you might in some restaurants for the non-peak times.

Visiting the Seven Sisters Country Park, East Sussex

We've lived in East Sussex for coming on six years now and visited the Seven Sisters cliffs so many times. It is a stunning area and wonderful to walk, but with the massive dips (or seven sisters) it can be a demanding hike and takes a bit of energy and kind weather. Recently we wanted to head out as a family to enjoy a good walk, but not a really demanding one, so we decided to trial the flatter walk from the visitor centre down to the Cuckmere Haven, where the River Cuckmere meets the English channel.

I'm so glad we discovered this area, it was a little further for us to drive than Beachy Head or Birling Gap where we normally go, but it was well worth it. The country park is maintained by East Sussex country council and there are two car parks, one on each side of the road. We found plenty of parking on a mild January day but I'd imagine it would be heaving busy in the summer. It costs £3 for up to 2 hours and £4 for the day. The machine takes coins, credit cards and you can use the Ringo app too.

I was really pleased to see that there are toilets (including an accessible one), a visitors centre (open for limited periods during the year) and a gorgeous cafe serving fabulous coffees, homemade cakes and a super selection of salads.

The easy access trail that we took is 4km down to the beach and back and it is great for pushchairs, wheelchairs, mobility scooters and all sorts of kids fun, like bikes, skates and scooters. My girls preferred to be running all over the place, up the hills, down to the riverside, looking in streams and jumping puddles. It is certainly a fun place to explore.

Fantastic Family Time at Harvester Restaurants

JJ hits the ripe old age of 15 in a couple of weeks and his favourite celebratory thing to do is eat, so when Harvester invited us to the Horse and Groom in Polegate, East Sussex we jumped at the chance. I'll be honest, our family used to be loyal Harvester customers but about five years ago they had a menu overhaul and we stopped going as we didn't like the changes. With this in mind and another new menu, I was keen to go and see what Harvester could offer our family of five nowadays.

I won't beat around the bush, we had a great meal at the Harvester. None of us had been to the Horse and Groom before and it is a super venue, there are a few different seating areas, all with modern furnishings and lights, so different to the Harvester of my childhood when there were pitchforks on the walls! There were still the classic elements to remind me I was in a Harvester, like the salad bar, help yourself fresh bread rolls, open fronted kitchen and rotisserie chicken cabinet.

On arrival at the Horse and Groom we were greeted quickly by Mo and he asked if we wanted a children's menu. I questioned if the girls could have it as they are 11 and it suggests on the website that it is for 10 years and younger but Mo, said it was fine and the portion sizes should be suitable too. This was great to hear as the £5.99 price tag for a meal, drink and dessert is fabulous.

Mo then suggested my girls would be too old for colouring but I knew that at least one of them would want it, so we had a laugh about how hard it is to judge children, as Mo said many turn their noses up at his offer of the kiddie activity bag and crayons.

We were shown to a small area with just three tables and one was occupied when we arrived but by the time we left it was just us. Everywhere felt very clean and taken care of and its always nice when you can see into the kitchen and the chefs are in fresh whites.

We choose our drinks and all went for the same option of help yourself soda. My girls love this as it means they can add flavours like vanilla, peach and cherry to their Pepsi, lemonade or Robinsons squash. I personally just like the straight Diet Pepsi and it is good to have the option to refill as many times as I like for £2.90.

The Highs and Lows of my Spa Day at The Grand Hotel, Eastbourne

What a lovely day it has been. I've been at the Spa with a friend and thoroughly enjoyed a workout in the gym, a swim, jacuzzi, steam, relax and then delightful afternoon tea. Can I do it all again tomorrow please?

A post shared by Michelle Pannell (@michelletwinmum) on Jan 29, 2018 at 11:53am PST

Earlier this week I enjoyed a leisure day at The Grand Hotel Spa in Eastbourne with my friend Annie. I had some spa vouchers to use and it seemed a good idea to gift Annie half as her Christmas present. I choose the Grand Hotel as it isn't far from our homes and as it is a 5 star hotel I expected the spa to be pretty luxurious and it certainly looked good in the photos on the website.

We arrived to the hotel about half an hour before I had booked our treatment times and our first struggle was finding some free parking. The streets round the hotel generally have free on-street parking but it was super busy. You can park in the grounds of the Grand but that's £25 a day and you pay to park on the seafront as well. Luckily just as I was about to give in and pay we found a space close by and headed in to the hotel. We were greeted by a lovely jolly doorman who gave us instructions were to go. Let the fun commence!

The first impression of the hotel is fabulous, it's not called the Grand for nothing but as we headed in the lift to the basement the view gets consistently more grotty. Old carpet, plain cream walls and not a touch of glamour in the corridors or reception areas. Thankfully the staff were in total contrast to the look of the area and they were great. Really friendly, super professional and nothing was too much trouble for them.

Wearing Orthotic Insoles in my Hotter Shoes

It's funny how things change over time. When I was a teenager if anyone had said to me I needed orthotic insoles in my shoes I'd have probably cried and told them no way, they are just for old ladies! Nowadays things are changing, research shows that the orthotic insole market will reach around 3.5 billion dollars by the year 2020. With the increase of diabetes, arthritis and obesity more and more people are seeing their podiatrists and finding that an orthotic insole would help to alleviate some of their problems.

At the age of 44 years I am one of those people. I have been suffering with pain and various foot issues for quite a few years now and some of it I thought was bad luck (verrucas) and others I put down my being overweight. When I first saw a private podiatrist back in 2014 he treated my verrucas and tidied my feet up and I was very happy when the verruca went but the pain didn't so I headed back to see him again.

It was at this point he gave me a visual bio-mechanical assessment and declared I have short calf muscles and these are throwing my body alignment out of sync. As we talked and I told him of having been a tip-toe walker as a child, always having my feet positioned at ten-to-two and the amount of ankle sprains I have had in my life, he said it all made sense and could be the cause of my early-onset arthritis of the knees, the pain in the ball of my feet and my tight and uncomfortable calf muscles.

To cut a long story short, I was lucky enough to be able to be referred to an NHS podiatrist (as I am bio-mechanically incorrect) and have been seen over the last couple of years. I'm stretching every day (in all sorts of ways), I've had an MRI to rule out a Mortons Neuroma and if things haven't improved with my continuing stretching and the use of my orthotic insoles I'll be referred for calf lengthening surgery in a few months.

Review: Babe the Sheep Pig Live - Touring the UK NOW!

Last night our family of five had its first trip to the theatre all together. We've been to panto, we go to the cinema loads but we've never seen a theatre performance together and as my husband and I adore live theatre it was only the perceived cost stopping us. I've investigated seeing a West-end show together before and the cost would be around £250-300 for the five of us in decent seats and that is outside of our affordability.

I'm not sure why but I'd totally bypassed local theatre venues and how stupid have I been? We all headed off to the Devonshire Park theatre in Eastbourne to see Babe the Sheep-Pig Live, a family friendly show produced by the unique children's theatre company Polka and in general we loved it (well four of us loved it and one is a 13 year old boy with a love only for gaming! lol). And the cost for seeing this in a town local to us rather than seeing a west-end show was £81.50 full price in the best seats but in fact a special offer email was sent out a few weeks ago with all seats at £13 for the Thursday and Friday performances, so that's just £65 for five people - what a bargain!

Before I tell you what we loved about it, why don't you have a quick peek and see for yourself what the show is about -

It looks good, right? and it really is as good as those snippets make out.