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anyone for a cup of PG ...

More often than not I 'oom and aah' over making a purchase, but when I saw this set of miniature tins in TK Maxx for the bargain price of £3.49, I didn't hesitate.

Tiny containers of loose-leaf tea showing three Icons of England, a London bus, a postbox and a telephone box.

I most probably won't use the contents, as in our house it's teabags!



Back in the 1960s before Brooke Bond introduced bags, loose-leaf tea was all you could buy.

Mum was always into the latest trends and had one of those plastic wall-mounted tea dispensers, which gave a measure of tea for the pot.



Like many families growing up in the 1960s/70s, money was invariably in short supply. A few pennies could have been saved by buying a cheaper brand of tea, but Mum always bought PG Tips so we could have fun in collecting the cards. The suspense of finding which card was tucked down the side of the packet, and the disappointment when discovering you already had it!

I can't ever remember completing a set?

The Tipps!

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A family of chimps who were made to dress up and drink tea. This long-running campaign of ads are some of the most popular of all time. If you click here it's guaranteed to put a smile on your face. A certain removal man, in the name of Mr Shifter!

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blue domino ware ...

Blue Domino appeals to the house-proud with beauty and utility combined. Who would not delight in the refreshing simplicity of this colour?

Introduced in the thirties by TG Green & Co and produced by Church Gresley craftsmen, blue Domino Ware features regularly spaced white spots achieved by a complex process involving stencils and paper masks. At its peak in the '50s and early '60s, it was withdrawn circa 1966.

I have a small collection, comprising of just three cups and three saucers, all pre the Gayday shape range which was introduced in 1960. I would love more, if only I had a larger kitchen and more shelves!




The advert above features a Man-in-the-Moon chocolate jug, which was made in three sizes.



First recorded advertisement illustrating Domino Ware, published in The Pottery Gazette, April 1934, featuring a young lady of the period enjoying tea and biscuits, in bed of all places!

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it's amazin' what raisins can do ...

Remember the advert from the 1970s for the chocolate bar below.



Amazin' Raisin bar - (cockney pie and mash type song) "Its amazin' what raisins can do/All that goodness and its all fo' you/You just 'ave ta do what ya gotta do/It's amazin' what raisins can dooooooooo... Oi!". A Cadbury concoction of raisins and chewy stuff and rum!

Anyway I am getting a bit side-tracked here, which is nothing unusual. What I was going to start off this post by saying, is that you can't beat the sun shining through the windows to get you motivated. Yesterday was such a glum day and I had no incentive to do much at all, but today, well it's a different story altogether. Already I have commented on some blogs, done the housework, baked a cake and made this delicious flapjack in the photo above. After I have had a quick coffee break, written this post and eaten the piece of the flapjack that is missing from the photo, I am going to get out and attack the garden!

The flapjack is made using Dorset Cereals fruity porridge. Him indoors rarely shops, usually only when he needs emergency supplies for his fishing expeditions, but the other day he came back with three boxes of this stuff, purely because the Co-op had marked it down to half price! I don't like it as porridge with milk but he has a bowlful every day before he leaves for work. Even so it will take quite a time to get through this lot, so I thought I would help out, by making something in the way of naughty.

Well he does need help in eating it before it goes past its sell by date!

well, how did you do ...

Tell us all what you bought yesterday? Remember I told you about Buy Nothing Day a while back, how many of you forgot it was yesterday? I was very good and I just bought a chicken as we do need to eat!

After spending a few hours in Brighton making holiday plans, as we were a bit early for our train home, as it was handy I popped into M&S Simply Food at Brighton Station to pick up something for our this Sunday's roast, to be quite honest I don't often buy food in M&S, I am being contraversial here, but I do find it to be rather overrated, no offence intended to any M&S devotees out there.

I don't think their choice of advertising campaign helps, you know the one 'this is not just food, this is M&S food', I really cringe when I hear these adverts describing their products with the Dervla Kirwan voice over. For example, my chicken was an 'Oakham' one, well, was it bred in Oakham, where is Oakham, and which Oakham are they talking about, on investigation it doesn't come from Oakham at all, it is just a trademark!

the new face of cadbury is a gorilla ...

Cadbury's new advertising campaign for Dairy Milk has precious little to do with chocolate but it will get everyone talking. A man in a gorilla suit hammering on a drum kit to Phil Collins' hit 'In The Air Tonight'. You are either going to love it or hate it, I like it and it makes me and J smile, and now that I have discovered it online I won't have to wait to see it on the TV!

Click on the link below to watch it and let me know what you think?

http://www.aglassandahalffullproductions.com/html_only_version.htm