This recent horsemeat scandal is pretty horrifying, isn't it? It makes me enormously glad I rarely, if ever, eat pre-prepared food. I really enjoy cooking and one of the main reasons is I like knowing what's in my food and controlling what goes in. Sure, I ate microwave meals as a student, who didn't?! But I never find them very tasty or satisfying.

I'd like to show you that making your own meals is infinitely more satisfying than reaching for a plastic tray from the fridge or freezer. My lasagne recipe isn't quick, it can't compete with 4 minutes at 800W, but its 100 times tastier and satisfying and whilst its not a healthy recipe per se, it's got to be better for you than horsemeat which may or may not have been injected with vetinary drugs that make it unsuitable for human consumption! If you're organised in the kitchen and willing to prepare in advance, whilst it takes a while to cook, you don't have to be in the kitchen watching everything like a hawk.

I've spent quite a lot of time at home in the last few months and have become a bit of a housewife. Don't get me wrong, I'm still horribly disorganised at home. My home will never be perfect, but I've found some good products and tips along the way that I'd like to share with you, and hopefully you'll have ideas to share with me too!

The first flat we lived in was lovely, but it was cold. It had 2 storage heaters in the whole place, one in the front room and one in the hallway. Our bedroom had an oil filled heater and there was an electric fire in the front room too and that was it. It also lacked good insulation so condensation mould was a major problem. This made drying clothes a nightmare. So we invested in one of these:



The Lakeland Dry Soon 3 tier heated tower airer. This helped enormously, I can't begin to tell you. We used to stick it in our hallway to try and help heat the bathroom too. Things still took a little while to dry as the flat really was freezing but it chopped the drying time in half for sure.

2 years ago we moved to a house with gas central heating and better insulation but we still use this airer all the time in the winter when we can't put our laundry outside to dry. Its quite expensive but totally worth it. Its a lot cheaper to run than a tumble dryer (which we couldn't fit in our house even if we wanted one!) and totally silent. One trick I've learned with it is to maximise the heat, throw a sheet over the airer once you've put your wet laundry on it, this will help keep the heat in around the damp clothes/towels/bedsheets and help them dry quickly. It has the added bonus of keeping the room you use it in lovely and toasty. I'd advise opening a window when you use it to help moisture escape. As I said, in the summer we get all our clothes outside on the washing line whenever its not raining because nothing is as good as line-dried clothes, they're the best aren't they?!

The only issue I have with the airer is it is quite big and so gets in the way a little. However, you don't have to pull all of it out, you can easily just use one side of it. And if you do your laundry more regularly than me and have smaller loads, you could buy the two tier one which would help a bit. The Dry Soon is great for drying towels. Ok, its not as good as a tumble dryer but much better than them hanging around on a non-heated airer for days on end.You can also dry items flat as well like jumpers, which makes it versatile. It also goes without saying that in warmer months you can use it without plugging it in if you just need to give clothes a little more airing time.

Lakeland are one of my favourite companies and their customer service is second to none, so I'd always recommend their products! I bought one of these for my mother and hers arrived damaged and Lakeland replaced it immediately with no questions asked. Mine has now lasted for 2 1/2 years with pretty heavy usage and shows no signs of giving up. If it does, I'll be right back to Lakeland to buy a replacement.

This is the first in a series of domesticity posts. Over the next few weeks I want to continue sharing my tips in the hope of us all having an easier home life! What sort of tips would you like to see in the future?

This is not a sponsored post. I have not been asked by Lakeland to provide this review and paid for the airer myself over 2 years ago. I simply want to share a great product with you all!