Harvester update

A couple of months back, you may remember I wrote a post about an incident with the Harvester restaurant serving out of date baby food, you can read my post here. I thought I would do a quick update as after my last correspondence with the CEO my other half was still unsatisfied that there had not been an apology from the top. To cut a long story short he arranged for one of the area managers to contact us and meet in person if we wished. When she contacted my other half they arranged a date, the day before Eliot's first birthday party. Typical the OH would do such a thing when I had cake baking to be doing!
So I couldn't attend the meeting but my partner did. The area manager went into detail about how she had investigated the matter, one thing that that came up was that they had called me following my initial complaint and she'd checked the phone records. I did not receive any call from them, unless they called from a withheld number or some 08 zillion to the back of beyond number. In that case I would not have picked up my phone (I don't to such numbers) and in that case they should have left a voicemail. That got my back up a bit because it insinuated we were liars, of course I wasn't there to argue my case but the OH obviously did. Other than that the meeting went ok, we were informed that training/measures had been put in place to ensure that no other baby is served out of date food and the incident had been a learning curve. They did kindly give Eliot a Toys R Us voucher to apologise for 'letting him down', which was unexpected.
After my previous post  I received a comment from someone who basically said after getting our meal complimentary we shouldn't have taken it further. It was not about getting a 'freebie' it was about the health and safety of my son and other babies! If we hadn't made a fuss/drama, there's a possibility it could have happened to someone else's baby and if they have new measures in place as we were informed, it theoretically should never happen again.  And that is not a bad thing!

First Year Favourites-Essential Baby Items & Tips When buying



 



I like many other mums, went crazy baby shopping when I was pregnant. I bought far too many baby clothes and other unnecessary bits and bobs, so I thought I'd make a vlog featuring my favourite essential baby items. I realise not all will be 'essential' to some parents but the items featured are what I found essential for us, my favourite baby essentials! I haven't included any of the 'big' items in the vlog just the little things that make a difference!

Even though I did go 'crazy' when baby buying, there are a few tips I'd thought I'd share that enabled me to save quite a bit of money! (especially on some of those larger items)

Tips

• Find out when the next baby & toddler events are on at supermarkets, you can bag some real bargains!
• ALWAYS shop around (including online) and compare prices to find the best deal
• Shops like Mothercare hold expectant parent evenings and offer extra discounts (I bought our pushchair from Mothercare on one of these evenings and got an extra 10% off an already reduced item!)
• Wait for end of season sales
• Find out if any ex-display items are for sale (I could have bought a Silver Cross Surf with carrycot for £250)
• Use ebay (I bought our Mama's & Papas cotbed, changing unit and wardrobe set brand new and saved £95 on the stores reduced price!)
• Coupons, coupons, coupons, use them or lose them!
• Join up with baby clubs such as Boots, Cow & Gate, Aptamil etc for discounts and freebies

 What were your favourite essentials?

 

 

My first year faves...

 



I'm Hosting #MinuteMonday today :)





The lovely Donna from The London Mum is busy with her move so today I'm hosting #minutemonday for her. Leave your links in the comment box below, I look forward to watching ;)

These are the rules:

• Every Monday I’ll host the linky on TheLondonMum.  All you have to do is upload your vlog to YouTube and post the link in the comments section with the full link.  eg. http://thelondonmum.me/2014/06/15/sunday-vlog-lucca-italy/
• Make sure you visit 2-3 of the links posted and comment on their vlogs and subscribe to the channels.
• If you want to promote your vlog via twitter use the hashtag #MinuteMonday and just include me on your post @thelondonmum and I’ll RT all links.
• The vlogs have to be 60 seconds or less.
• Use the linky badge on your link page

Here's my #minutemonday this week

My Sunday Photo/Silent Sunday

#VEDA 2014

So at the last minute I decided to attempt VEDA ( vlog every day in August). I will be mostly using my phone for the vids as it should be easier to to the whole thing. That means there won't really be any editing but I know it won't be possible for me to vlog, edit and get a video uploaded everyday using my camera.
Leave your links if you're doing VEDA too! :)

Veda Day 2
We head to East London for a freebie lunch...

Here's yesterday's little intro as I managed to delete all the clips...