The Emporium Oundle Friday Giveaway
Local Entrepreneur Rebecca Holder from The Emporium Oundle http://www.theemporiumoundle.com/ winner of the much coverted small business endorcement from the Dragon's Den's one and only retail magnate Theo Paphitis has kindly donated our first every Friday giveaways! What are they i hear you shout! Well:
"A selection of luxury bath melts, hand-crafted in the UK. These gorgeous treats are packed full of plant butters and oils to nourish your skin and fragranced with the finest essential oils. Drop one into a running bath, climb in and let the nutritious oils feed your skin with vitamins and minerals. No need for a moisturiser after one of these luxury melts as the oils sink in to your warm skin and provide all the moisture it could need. For a lighter experience, just use half of these luxurious treats. Scents include jasmine and ylang ylang, sandalwood and vanilla and vanilla delight and you will receive one of each to treat yourself (or someone special) with!"
Not bad at all for just two clicks of your mouse! All you need to do to enter into Friday's Prize draw is either Retweet this on Twitter & make your following @PboroCritic . Or if your more of a Facebook person make your you like your Peterborough Critic & share this link to your friends Page http://www.facebook.com/pages/Peterborough-Critic/156753754404725 or search for the Peterborough Critic page on Facebook & you will be entered into the giveaway on Friday Evening. Two sets to giveaway!
Have-a-go-hero gets £500 judges award – Community News – Peterborough Evening Telegraph
Have-a-go-hero gets £500 judges award - Community News - Peterborough Evening Telegraph.
Fantastic to see a local hero given the acknowledgement & reward that he deserves, his selfless act leading to the arrest of local thief who had stole £25,000 in total with £500 being taken from Charters.
James Gooderson had used pepper spray to take cash from Charters Pub on the 5th July 2010, when he was followed and confronted from Mr Little, although after the confrontation Mr Gooderson had escaped, the hat Mr Gooderson was wearing was snatched by Mr Little which gave DNA evidence leading to the final conviction.
James Gooderson was later sentenced to four-and-a-half years following the robbery.
At what will be a fantastic event at Cambridgeshire Police Headquarters in Huntington local police officers & Anthony Little will be rewarded for there efforts for the community.
Do local Heroes get enough credit in the community & do you think the £500 if fair for the act of braveness & selflessness shown my Anthony Little?
We would love to hear from you!
80 million pounds, Over a year late & previous home to travelers
80million pounds, a year late & previous home to some travelers yet we are still awaiting the opening of the stretch of the New A0173 between Eye & Crowland.
Described on the Lincolnshire council website as an important strategic link between Lincolnshire & Eastern England the new A0173 , ridiculed by onlookers as a huge waste of money.
The new stretch of road which was due to open in August 2010, was built to help divert traffic from the busy stretch of road through the village of eye-green, but ever since the plans got the go ahead t his project has never felt like it was going to finish on time. As i travel between Peterborough & Spalding on a regular basis this new road will be a great help due to the traffic on the road!
How can a such a large investment not be managed better?
If at work your set goals & a time frame that you don't meet & then make up horrendous excuses that you should have foreseen you would expect heads to roll but as of yet all we get is the occasional update that the road will be delayed for another couple of months. With the real reason behind the delays being cracking in the road & workmen causing damage to a Roman monument located nearby. How these mistakes have not ended in the council being refunded money i have no idea, surely a timescale had to be written into the contract signed between the two parties?
What do you think?
Fly-tipping costs Peterborough taxpayers over £500k in a year – Environment – Peterborough Evening Telegraph
500k a year of our hard earned tax is used on clearing up Fly-Tipping costs. What a waste, yet not one person has been arrested or prosecuted for this crime.
How will the council ever start cutting this cost down & frankly wasting our money if they haven't even tried to get tough on people commiting this crime on the public areas of Peterborough & the environment.
It's a disgusting crime these criminals cearly have a lack respect for the community & the people living in it. In my opinion these people should clearing up the mess they have created.
If these people are working should they be taxed more to help the community clear up there mess. If they don't work should they lose any benefits that the tax payer is giving them? What do you think?
Posh 2 Paris Part 2
#POSH2Paris update 27/08/11
Well, in terms of cycling, there is much to report after the doctor told me to take it easy for the knee and then a bout of the flu made sure I did! All in all I haven’t even touched the bike for 2 weeks now but some semblance of normality should prevail next week and I should get some more miles under my belt.
In the meantime look back at the previous blog entry and you will see some of the other riders’ Twitter names. Follow them and you will see occasional snippets of what they have been up to in the bike in between the tweets about POSH!
What I thought I’d do today was to show you some more information about the route itself and its day 3 and 4 I get more excited about once we get off the ferry.
I first thought of the obvious route which was cycling down to Dover and then heading south from there. I then stumbled upon (via Google) the ‘Avenue Verte’, or ‘Green Way’. In a nutshell it’s an ambitious plan to have a cycle route of mainly paths with minimal low traffic roads from London to Paris. It was all meant to be up and running by the Olympics and on the French side there are some impressive 3 metre tarmac section! On the English side we will be lucky to have a couple of signposts up by next year but the route does exist already in the form of some existing national cycle routes.
It is this route that we intend to follow (or at least most of it) to get to Paris. Check out this brilliant report from the BBC and you may see where I get the idea that it will be a great adventure from!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11447348
Watching all the little videos and reading the article is well worth it.
Here is another BBC report from October 2010 about the route.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11448829
In rediscovering these web links I also found a piece in Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avenue_Verte
The article makes reference to the French part being signposted from Dieppe which makes life easier! I know not all articles on Wikipedia can be replied upon but I don’t think the CIA have doctored this one!
There is also this link which has some photos of some wonderful forest routes which makes me want to go now!
https://sites.google.com/site/avenuevertelondresparis/
There is still a lot of planning to do and at the moment it looks like we will end day 2 in Brighton. Travelodge are advertising a stay in Brighton for £23 per night and its only about 10 miles from there to Newhaven for the 09:30 ferry. I will of course be writing to the manager of the hotel to try and blag a freebie or at least a discount! In the meantime if you are the chairman of Travelodge or have some online discount codes then get in touch!
Until next time, Au Revoir!
The 5 Spice
There comes a time after a few weeks of going out for a meal once or twice a week and being social where you just want to sit at home watch TV & not have to do any washing up! After eating at The 5 Spice a few times a few months ago i decided to give there delivery service ago as you can pay by card & it saved me having to get any money out! Which is always a pro point as not many takeaways offer the facilities to pay by card over the phone!
A well run restaurant in a converted pub in Eye Green it doesn't look like your typical Indian restaurant from the outside but it certainly doesn't dissapoint from previous experience!
It took about a hour for the delivery to arrive although the polite man on the phone had advised 45minutes it wasn't the end of the world! We both had a main course with a (huge) Naan Bread each & shared a rice which came in at under £20, which was suprising & great value for money.
They offer a great selection of food at a good price & i must admit I was very impressed with the food. I would even go as far as saying the food they delivered was nicer than when eating in the restaurant!
Tip: Order over the phone & pay by card - don't bother nipping to the cash point!
Drayton Manor
Have you ever been to Drayton Manor, a fantastic day out to take the kids during the current School holidays. Unlike the larger theme parks across the UK this is very much set up for younger families with lots to do for everyone.
I went along this weekend due to finding a two for one offer making it a bargin off £32 for two of us.
http://www.draytonmanor.co.uk/tickets.php?sub=2-for-1-offer
With lots of rides & and an onsite zoo and a great selection of places to eat it really is a good day out & not to expensive.
As a self-confessed wimp i managed to do all the major rides & shockingly enjoyed it labelling myself as a new adrenaline junkie! It offers the first ever standing up rollercoaster in the UK, which is a surreal feeling, with a bike seat style chair to lean on which travelling at up to 5G's.
The onsite zoo is fantastic for those travelling with younger children a day out in it's own it took about 1 hour 30minutes to walk around at a quick tempo so those with Smaller children may take up to 3hours.
I would definitely recommend this for a family day out very relaxed theme park with a great range of rides & attractions. If you are a full on adrenaline junkie this isn't for you with only 3 major rides your better off going to Thorpe Park or Alton Towers!
If you are looking for an over night stay they have recently opened the Drayton Manor hotel located on the Theme Park grounds.
Tip: Don't wimp out try Shockwave the UK's first standing up rollercoaster!
Sundays
Yesterday i was looking for a quick and easy meal in Peterborough in under 15minutes as i was in a rush & without venturing outside too far as it was raining & i didn't have a jacket!
I had a few suggestions from various people on Twitter & decided to give Sundays ago!
It's located near the crossover in the middle of Queensgate just a few damp steps outside.
It's a small cafe style restaurant/take out with plenty of seating which is kept clean at all times!
The theme of Sundays is as you may have guessed its Sunday dinners & offer various Roast dinners or roast meat roll. I was served by a polite young man who was friendly & made smsll talk while i was deciding what i wanted. I opted for a medium roast beef roll which was a reasonable £3.50 for the size of it. I would definately reccomend if you are looking for a quick snack with a bit of a difference, in a friendly atmosphere & alot of choice!
Tip - try the roast beef roll you won't regret it!
The Granary – Friendly Service just a little bit slow
After a long day in the office it was time once again to get out are test the restaurants of Peterborough! This time we ended up at the Granary in Orton, located next to Nott Cutts & the golf course. The layout of the Restaurant is great with lots of cubicles keeping everyone separate & not feeling too crowded even when full!
With the option of either eating in the restaurant or the bar area we opted for the restaurants & were shown to our seats by a polite young man who took drinks orders (& the usual soup of the day that never really sounds appealing!)
After much consideration i opted for the most manly meal on the menu 'the mixed grill' & i wasn't disappointed great food all round - even a little to much food in this case! With a meal for two coming in at under £30 with unlimited soft drinks through your meal it really is good value for money when you’re guaranteed good food!
My only slight moan about last night was that although very keen to sign you up for unlimited refills on soft drinks for £2.25 actually getting the attention of a waiter/waitress after finishing a drink is a challenge in itself!
Tip: If you’re feeling particularly hungry, go for the mixed grill a selection of everything with a side of chips & onion rings. Very manly!
Why not: Why not take the kids along for lunch - cheap day time meal & then have a game of pitch & putt just a 100 yard walk across the car park
Interview with Local Entrepreneur Rebecca Holder – Winner of Theo Paphitis SBS
The Emporium Oundle is an online shop specialising in quality, UK handmade crafts. I source and thoroughly test (very thoroughly in the case of our all-natural handmade soaps and bath treats) unique gift ideas, usually one-of-a-kind pieces or crafts made in very short amounts by very talented real British people. From sterling silver seaglass jewellery created on the shores of Loch Fyne, to highly-scented candles on a dessert theme and everything in between.
I graduated from university last year, did really well in my degree but unfortunately was unable to find work. After a time of endlessly sending out applications and never getting even a reply I approached the Princes Trust, who offer courses and support for young people looking to start their own business. I've always wanted my own shop (although admittedly one on the high street!), so it was a really exciting idea for me to be starting a shop of my own. I chose handmade crafts because I have a few very talented friends who make absolutely amazing things and I wanted to bring these things into the homes of your average person for them to enjoy.
I love social media - I use so many different sites for different things. I use facebook (http://www.facebook.com/EmporiumOundle) for connecting with customers by providing up to date information about the business, photos of new stock and new offers and to find new customers and crafters, Twitter (@emporiumoundle) to bounce back these messages from Facebook to a wider audience, or for quick updates and banter and Tumblr (http://www.tumblr.com/tumblelog/emporiumoundle) as a showcase for my favourite handmade crafts. I also blog regularly at : http://theemporiumoundle.blogspot.com/ which is a very good way of pushing up your site in the Google rankings.
I think we are unique in that we only stock items made by real UK artisans, plus fully credit them for all their efforts. Each crafter has a section of the site with a little biography, plus all our orders are checked and packed with real care - we get so many comments about how beautifully wrapped and presented our pieces are, even after a trip through the mail! We offer jute gift bags, an eco-friendly and re-useable alternative to gift boxes and even our tags are handmade!
I could hardly believe it - first I knew was my inbox filling up with followers on twitter and people messaging me through facebook to congratulate me. It really was a wonderful feeling to know that Theo had looked at my site and felt it had to be shared with his followers, too.
I hope it will help me meet many more talented UK crafters and add to the website, plus get many more customers coming to take a peek! With luck, many more people will be choosing to go unique and UK handmade this year for their presents rather than something mass-produced.
