BLOG - JUNE 2025

June has been soooo HOT! Trying to come up with recipes suitable for this warm UK weather has been tricky, but hopefully you've been enjoying what I've created. It's been a crazily busy month, so there's lots to tell you about....

ANNUAL HOLIDAY

We are going on our annual holiday from 2nd to 18th July, so unfortunately we won't be here to send out any orders for my 1st book, "99 Ninja Foodi Recipes" during that time. So from 2nd July it will only be available on pre-order for delivery from WC 21st July. If you'd like a copy, you can order it HERE.

4 SEASONS

Please note, my new book "4 SEASONS" will be back up to the full price of £28.99 from Tuesday 1st July as we need to confirm the final bulk quantity to our printing company. So please get your pre-order in HERE at the reduced price before this happens. Deliveries are scheduled from WC 28/7/25 as planned. There's a little reminder video HERE

Henry finished his GCSE exams and he feels he's done well enough to get the marks needed to stay at his current School for the next 2 years of Sixth Form. It's a high achieving school so the entry standard is high, meaning we've had to have back-up options in case he doesn't qualify. He's had taster/induction days for those 2 schools to help make his decision if necessary, but it does seem a bit of a waste of everbodies time if he gets the marks to stay where he is. But life doesn't always go as planned so it's good to be prepared.

I had a lovely Monday Lunch with my Mum & Dad at a local farm cafe/restaurant called the Knead Food Cafe at the Blue Egg. They catered for my Gluten-Free needs and my Cajun chicken sandwich was sooo good. It was nice to sit outside in the sunshine having a nice chat with my parents.

I also went to Bingo as a belated Mothers Day outing with my mum and sister-in-law which was fun - with Michael's dad passing away earlier in the month, it reinforced how important it is to spend more time with my parents whilst I can.

SKY DIVE FOR FARLEIGH

On that note, we had a great weekend near Gorleston at a Holiday Park from Friday to Monday combined with Henry, Michael and his friend John doing their Sky Dive and Parachute Jump raising money for Farleigh Hospice. This was originally done in memory of a friend's wife, but Michael's dad also received the support from Farleigh leading up to his passing a few weeks ago. The boys have done an amazing job raising money for this great charity, reaching over £3,700 at the time of writing. So Thank You to everyone who donated - just £5 (plus gift aid) makes a difference. Michael & Henry loved doing the sky dive and straight away were talking about plans to do it again !

With friends and family supporting them, there were 24 of us in all staying near Lowestoft. We got together and had 4 BBQ's fired up on Friday night, the boys did their jump on the Saturday afternoon at Beccles Airfield. Then we went for drinks & food at a pub along the river which was lovely. Saturday evening more food and played games on the lawn outside our lodges. On Sunday we all went to Gorleston Beach for the day which was soooo hot. The beach was lovely with really fine sand until you reached the sea which became more stoney. The wind was up so we had to be careful of flying parasols every now and then ! On Monday Michael played golf at Gorleston Golf Club with 2 friends whilst my mum, dad, Henry and I went on a boat trip, then drove home a couple of hours back to Essex very happy, but tired after a fulfilling weekend away.

RECIPES SUBSCRIPTION

If you didn't see the last Blog post, we have now stopped offering the SK1 monthly Recipes subscription at £3/month. Existing monthly subscribers can continue with it as normal. We felt that with over 320 recipes available, it was sensible to only offer that amount of content on a yearly subscription going forward. We know some people will be disappointed but I hope you understand. However, we are running a 20% discount offer on the SK2 annual Recipes subscription which ends on 30th June. So buy yours HERE for £24 instead of the normal £30 before the offer ends... ALSO you get 240 SK Loyalty Points giving you £1.20 off your next book purchase, so it's a great deal!

It was Henry's 16th Birthday in mid-June but due to his GCSE exams (the poor boy even had one on his birthday!), we just went to watch a film at the cinema then went for some dinner at Wagamammas. Henry loves the Katsu Curry, Michael had a duck meal and I had a nice Gluten Free Pad Thai, which is one of my favourite meals.

Henry finished playing football with his team and they had their awards presentation day. He's played from football about 8 years old but has decided to just concentrate on his basketball from now on. I love seeing him play, but I won't miss those cold, wintry days watching from the sidelines !

FATHERS DAY

On Father's Day we took Michael, Henry, my Dad and Brother Go-Karting - the boys loved it but my Dad wasn't so sure. It was a bit hard on his arms as they said the steering is really heavy and quite hard to turn. But he was glad he did it with the boys, although they were so competitive, all trying to beat each other's lap times and giving each other the odd bump now and then ! My brother won, but they all had a great day.

For my nephew's 5th birthday I treated him to a visit to AirHop. It's like Jump Street with lots of trampolines and dodgeball, etc. He adores Henry - they are like Little and Large 😂. Then of course they had to have a McDonald’s dinner !!

Michael's been busy making sure his step-mum is ok and preparing for his Dad's funeral on Monday with his 2 brothers. It will be a tough day but we'll all be there to support him and his family.

As Henry has finished his GCSE exams he doesn't have to go into school, so I took Henry and his girlfriend, Fran, to Thorpe Park. It was quite quiet as most kids were still at school. I love rollercoasters and went on most of the rides with them, but towards the end of the day, I left them to it - it was a long hot day of standing in queues and it was nice to sit & reflect for a bit.

This weekend we're holding a belated party & BBQ for Henry's 16th birthday. Plus we haven't had friends over for a garden party for about 5 years now, PLUS it's our 17th Wedding Anniversary on Saturday so it's a good excuse to let our hair down with friends & family. It's always a lot of work but we've had help from friends in setting up for about 60 people - I won't be cooking in the Ninja 15-in-1 for that amount of people (!) but it will definitely come in handy for some of the food. We have booked a DJ too so it should be a fun evening 🥂 🕺🏼

Lastly, Henry has his school Prom on Monday 30th June so we've bought him a suit which he can wear to the Prom and also use it for some work experience we've arranged in July through a friend who works for the CPS. He'll be accompanying her observing in the local courts as he has a mild interest in Law. We'll see if he likes it...

If you got this far, thank you for reading my rambles and Thank You for all your support once again,

Susannah x