Whilst on a recent weekend away, we had just arrived in our holiday home after a five hour delayed flight and running off 1 ½hours sleep. One of my fellow travellers had been repeatedly grumbling about how desperate he was for a coffee – however, when I brandished an ancient looking jar of instant coffee under his nose, he looked at me like I had just offered him my sweat-ridden hiking socks in a cup of boiling water. The point I am trying to make here is that just because all coffee has the word “coffee” on the label, doesn’t mean it all tastes the same.

I live with a person that I affectionately call a collector but is, in reality, a hoarder in training. It all started as a child with Kinder Egg toys and has progressed as an adult into vinyl records and creepy ‘vintage’ toys and curios. As you can imagine, his eyes lit up when he saw the Bell Jar Light, as his head flooded with items he could display in it.

I can look back and laugh now about how ridiculous my partner and I were the first time our cat didn’t come home when called. We have two boys who have always been reliable at coming home when we whistle, but on the day that is now known as No Finley Friday I remember me, my partner and the other cat running up and down the road trying to locate the fourth member of our little family. Four hours later, of course, he strolled in like nothing had happened, much to our frustration and relief.

Microplane tools moved their way from the workshop to the kitchen in 1994, after a Canadian woman who was attempting to make an orange cake found her grater simply wasn’t working on the fruit, and grabbed a woodworking tool instead. The blade slid effortlessly across the orange and provided her with the zest she needed, and this discovery laid the foundation for the creation of the Microplane kitchen graters.

In this hot weather, it is difficult to beat a nice cold beer with friends, but if you are anything like my group of mates this often results in a discussion/argument over the best way to serve a beer. Most people will agree that a beer poured from the tap in a pub is the ultimate in taste and condition; the downside to this is having to pay the ever-increasing prices and sharing your relaxing time with a bunch of alcoholic locals that immediately make you reconsider ever putting a beer to your lips again.

When I was little we went on a summer holiday to France. I remember being amazed that the bathroom had what my dad joked was a foot bath. I believed this for two days, until I told my mum I was going to take a foot bath and she had to tell me that it was, in fact, a bidet. Since then, whenever I have the opportunity to use one, I will - I mean, if you get your hands dirty, you wouldn’t just rub them on tissue, would you?

I am a big fan of Lumie products - I get a daily dose of light from my Lumie lightbox every day whilst I work, and I always feel better. I have also studied my sleep patterns to set my alarm at the optimum time for me to wake up - half an hour either side of that and I wake up a sluggish grouch. So, you can imagine my joy at the Lumie Bodyclock Luxe!

When you think of air pollution, your mind probably conjures up images of smoggy city streets packed with cars or huge factories pumping out plumes of grey smoke, but did your ever stop to consider that your home could also be filled with polluted air? Probably not, because you are a normal person, but consider the things we have and do in our house on a daily basis: cleaning, cooking, wood burners, and even outdoor polluted air getting trapped inside. The Foobot is an in-home monitor to give you a greater insight into your rooms’ air quality.

Ok, so some of you will look at this pour-over kettle, then look at your electric or hob kettle (commonly called a tea kettle amongst us coffee snobs), and wonder why you would need another kettle cluttering up your kitchen cupboards. If at this point you are thinking that your supermarket own brand, instant coffee in your Sports Direct mug is wonderfully tasty, you can probably stop reading here.