New chalk board lunchbox

UK based lunchbox manufacturer Lunchboxesetc.co.uk have introduced a new chalk board lunchbox. 

Made in the UK the chalk board lunchbox is made from hard plastic (food safe) and opens flat for easy use. 

The lunchbox measures around 23cm by 19cm by 10cm and so is plenty big enough for a man-size packed lunch.  The chalk board lunchbox is even supplied with a pack of coloured chalks to allow you to get decorating straight away.

Lunchboxesetc produce a large range of unique personalised lunchboxes priced from £9.99 plus postage and packing

Fun with lunchboxes

We've been having a bit of fun recently creating fantasy lunchboxes - these are the lunchboxes your child (or you) really wants but no-one seems to have actually made yet.

A recent favourite movie for our kids was how to train your dragon 2.  However we didn't seem to be able to find just the right lunchbox for them featuring Hiccup and toothless, so we made one:

We found the image on one of the many HD wallpaper sites around the internet.  Check their copyright policy before using an image but many allow private use of such images without any problem.

We then used the photo lunchbox service from lunchboxesetc.co.uk.   It was simple to upload our chosen image  and choose the colour of the lunchbox we wanted.  Just a few days later our unique lunch box arrived and we had smiles all round!  The lunch box it self was a great size, plenty big enough to hold a substantial packed lunch.

Lunch boxes - sweet!

We all know that the healthy eating police are keen to monitor what we put in our children's lunch boxes...No doubt it will only be a couple of days into the new school term before the Daily Mail has a headline about a school banning crisps or some such infringement of our human rights.  Still whilst they may be able to control what you put in the lunch box you can still exercise your right to dsplay a sweet tooth with lunchboxesetc's sweet lunch boxes.

The marshmallow lunch box is oozing with soft fluffy pink marshmallows and can be personalised with a name or message of your choice:

Alternatively you could choose the jelly bears lunch box (my favourite):

 Both of these personalised lunch boxes are available in a choice of colours, and lunchboxesetc.co.uk will add you name or message in a large font in the middle of the picture.  These super hard plastic lunch boxes, perfect for school, are only £12.99 plus P&P.

Battle of Britain lunch boxes

We enjoyed a fun 1940's themed afternoon recently at the former RAF Harrowbeer airfield, just a stones throw from lunchboxesetc towers here in Devon.

Now reverting back to moor land the base was home to Spitfires and other RAF planes during WWII and the RAF Harrowbeer volunteers did a great job evoking the sights and sounds of the era with a full size replica spitfire powered by a genuine Merlin engine being the highlight for this visitor.

The history of the area is written large on the landscape with hard standing, sentry boxes and dispersal shelters still visible around the base.  One of the dispersal bays has been restored and can be visited when open.  A low key but very satisfying afternoon.

Lunchboxesetc.co.uk now has two spitfire lunch boxes that are inspired by the heroism and bravery of "the few".  There is still plenty of time to order one in time for the start of the new school year.  Or, if you don't have a packed lunch why not use it for storage at home?  We have one very useful spitfire lunchbox to hold all our airfix kit materials - glue, scapels, paints etc.

 

Both lunch boxes are made in the UK from hardwearing plastic and feature a white handle and an easy to use clasp to securely close the box.

Lancasters and lunch boxes

Lancaster bombers have been much in the news recently, what with the Canadian Lancaster Bomber joining the Battle of Britain Flight Lancaster in the UK this summer.  The iconic British Bomber from WWII inspired one of Lunchboxesetc.co.uk's military aircraft lunchboxes

The lunchboxesetc Lancaster lunch box is available in pink, blue, green, red and yellow plastic.  Appropriately enough all lunchboxesetc lunch boxes are moulded in the UK, and meet all UK safety standards.  Perfect for taking a packed lunch to your local airshow so you can enjoy a sandwich whilst admiring the real thing!

Back to school is nearly here

Despite the fact that all ks1 children will qualify for free school meals from September at http://www.lunchboxesetc.co.uk it's been another bumper back to school season. Maybe even the prospect of free school meals can't persuade every one that school dinners will be edible! 

Lunchboxesetc's British made plastic lunchboxes can be personalised with a photo or piece of artwork or simply by adding a name to one of their many designs.  They also produce a number of off-the-shelf designs such as this amazing spitfire lunchbox:

All their lunchboxes are made in the UK from food safe plastics and meet all applicable safety standards.  Measuring approximately 23cm x 19cm x 9cm they are plenty big enough for a large pack lunch and drink plus snacks, and the hard plastic handle makes them easy to carry.  Best of all a unque personalised lunchbox is easy to spot in the melee at school and they are superbly easy to clean!

More astronaut sandwiches

After the revelations a couple of weeks ago about the packed lunches on the space shuttle, I was idly googling space sandwiches the other day and came across this story of what must be the first sandwich in space.




Now I'm not sure that, as a retailer of lunchboxes, I can condone keeping your packed lunch in your trouser pocket, it seems like a recipe for complete disaster to me, how much better to have a nice easy to clean plastic lunchbox. I imagine its not that easy just to chuck a space suit in the wash – its probably even worse than trying to keep those insulated lunch bags clean... Why the man could not have just popped it in one of our out of this world space lunchboxes is a mystery to me!

Pink lunchbox or blue lunchbox? When to decide, or do you have to decide at all?

The happy news that my sister in law is expecting her second baby in a few months got me to thinking over the weekend about matters pink and blue .

 

Over the last few years there has been an increasing amount of anti-pink publicity regarding toys and I think thats fair enough – why should all girls clothes and toys be pink and all boys stuff be blue? At lunchboxesetc we are proud to offer all our designs on both pink lunchboxes and blue lunchboxes, not to mention all colours in between (well: lunchboxes in red, green, yellow and sky blue, if we're being accurate).

So, if your daughter does want a pink lunchbox she can have a racing car lunchbox

 

 

 

or a space lunchbox:

 

 

 

 

 

 not just an owl lunchbox or a cupcake lunchbox. Equally, you can have a blue fairy lunch box:

 

 

 

 

 or a green marshmallow lunch box. That's the beauty of the custom lunch boxes at lunchboxesetc.co.uk: You decide what you want on your lunch box, You decide the colour of your lunch box so anything is possible and it will be our pleasure to turn your ideas into reality.

 

Anyway, here, specially for my sister in law are our scan photo lunch boxes (just upload your scan when ordering), they could come in very handy during a long labour on the maternity ward!

 

 

 

 

 

 

More insulation

With all external walls now covered in external insulation we are waiting with baited breath to see what difference it's going to make to the climate in the house.  

On Friday my wife was convinced she could already feel a difference in the back bedroom (which was notoriously chilly previously).  

We've been told that it could take a few weeks for the full effect to become apparent due to the thickness of our walls - meaning that it takes time for the walls to heat up.  Still the early signs are encouraging; it definitely feels as though the heat in the house is being retained longer once the central heating turns off.

Anyway I promised some pics of the front of the house as the insulation was applied so here they are:

Before:

Here is the front covered with the insulation boards.  The pic below give an idea of the thickness of the boards that have been applied.

And here you can see the fastening system.  

This is then covered with 3 layers of render and mesh to provide a waterproof external surface.

External wall insulation. Installation week

Time seems to have telescoped somewhat with both ours, and our installers minds concentrated by upcoming grant deadlines.  

And so it comes to pass that only a few days after finally getting all the figures through on costs for our proposed external wall insulation, we have scaffolders, plasterers and assorted other trades on site as we go full tilt on installation week.

This is a before shot.  The render is nothing special, and we have a problem with water ingress due to a botched installation of the window on the right some years ago (which as a happy by product of the current work has been correctly diagnosed and sorted).

This picture shows the back of the house part way through the application of 90mm expanded polystyrene insulation which should give our solid walls a U value equivalent to a new build house.    

We are promised that it will transform our house from a freezing Victorian semi into a cozy warm home!  I will of course be reporting back over the next few weeks as the walls gradually heat up.

In the next couple of days the plasterers arrive to cover the insulation in a waterproof coloured render, and at that point our house should look as good as new.  

The same process is being undertaken o the front aspect of the house.  Again here is a before shot:

And I'll post the mid-work and after shots in a couple of days.

astronauts need lunchboxes too!

There I was thinking that astronauts existed only on freeze-dried powders and tubes of food paste, but apparently not.  Watching a documentary about the space shuttle I was interested to find out that the astronauts all got to choose their favourite sandwich to go into space with them.  The "house mother"  who looks after the crew in the days preceding the launch then ensures that each astronaut has a packed lunch under their seat at lift off which they can then tuck into when they reach orbit! 

What a pity I hadn't known sooner I could have sent NASA a full set of our space lunchboxes perhaps even lunchboxes personalised with each crew members' names and photo.

I guess its too late now the shuttle programme has stopped.  Maybe Mr Putin would like some for the Russian rockets?

green deal assessment day part II

So, actually our green deal assessment and epc were completed some time ago now (it was November I think), its just that I hadn't published the post for some reason, and when I did I could not be bothered to re-write it to reflect the passage of time.

So, in the intervening period has anything happened as a result of the assessment?  Well, yes and no.  Nothing has actually happened yet (apart from the installation of 9 LED spots in the kitchen), but progress is being made to a point where next week we will be having external wall insulation installed.

I'm sure this type of delay is not typical amongst people going through the green deal process but I would not be surprised if a fair number of people take at least this long to actually achieve anything or just give up entirely because I have found the system complex and offputting to say the least.

To be fair a large chunk of the delay was caused by a requirement to obtain planning permission from Dartmoor National Park Authority for the proposed insulation.  This took us to mid January to obtain (and added a couple of hundred pounds to our costs).  But once that was received I thought it was going to be a straight forward matter to press ahead with the insulation.  HOW WRONG I WAS!

Green deal assessment day

So today we had our green deal assessment.  This actually comprised a two part process in which the assessor first produced an epc for the house and then went on to produce our green deal assessment.

Well, he would have if technical problems had not intervened to prevent the completion of the actual green deal assessment.

It was a lengthy, albeit painless process.  The assessor arrived at about 9.15 and left just after 2.30 (with a half hour break).   Substantial time was taken to record the number of light fittings, completing a floor plan of the property, check walls, windows, chimneys, floors, loft and our boiler and central heating system.

The outcome of the epc process was not a surprise, the house sneaking into the D category.  Energy saving recommendations included fitting low energy bulbs (which I have now done in the kitchen (Ill pot about this later), topping up the loft insulation and more interestingly, installation of external wall insulation.