Rachel Bustin

Where to Place the Hot Tub in your Garden

Hot tubs are a home accessory that was previously only for the extremely wealthy. You might have been lucky enough to enjoy one in a luxury hotel room. But for the most part they just weren’t an accessory most people could previously afford. Since demand has increased, hot tubs are much more of an affordable luxury and now there are over 300,000 households with hot tubs in the UK, compared to around 100,000 in 2013.

The many benefits of a hot tub are much more recognised and people have hot tubs for socialising, for muscle therapy, for relaxation and as an addition to a swimming pool set up.

Where to place the hot tub in your garden

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There are various different types of hot tub available, including free standing hot tubs, built in hot tubs and even extremely inexpensive blow up hot tubs you can purchase from supermarkets.

Homes are now much more likely to have a hot tub, which presents a whole new area of home decor consideration. Just as you have to plan out how a swimming pool works in relation to a house, or an outdoor seating area, you have to put equal planning into your new, hot, bubbling arrival.

Where will it go? Can it be placed on any surface? How far away from the house should it be? Will it look nice?

Take a look at these handy hot tub placement Q&A’s to help you get your hot tub installation absolutely right:

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3 of Britain’s Most Beautiful Gardens

Spring is here now and Summer is on the doorstep. So now is the time to plan those long lazy days in your own garden. To give you some inspiration you might want to head to three of Britain’s most beautiful gardens to gain ideas for yourself. For this article, we’ve teamed up with Oldrids and Downtown, retailers of stunning conservatory furniture to get you in the mood.

Britain's Most Beautiful Gardens

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The Alnwick Garden

The Alnwick Garden is home to famous fountains, poison gardens and one of the biggest tree houses in the world. This garden is perfect for adventures and lots of fun. Set in 14 acres there is plenty of space for all the family to roam about. You need to be careful though as some of the 200 plant species are deadly. 

The poison garden is locked by cast-iron gates with skull plaques saying “These Plants Can Kill”, the garden includes strychnos nux-vomica, hemlock, Ricinus communis and more deadly plants. However, the garden stands for a much greater purpose as it aims to educate people on drugs by featuring cannabis, coca and papaver somniferum.

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Exotic Destinations to Renew your Wedding Vows

It’s nearly eight years ago we got married. Not sure where that time has gone! People in our position are now starting to think about renewing their wedding vows for the ten year wedding anniversary. Most people like to do this abroad in exotic destinations like the Caribbean, Dominican Republic or Jamaica. That’s where I would love to do mine.

In fact by renewing your vows abroad, you can incorporate it into a second honeymoon. A relaxing holiday on the beach while re discovering your love for each other sounds like a dream. Why not have another special big day in your life?

Exotic destinations to renew your wedding vows

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The Ultimate Easter Chocolate Gift Guide

One of my favourite times of the year – Easter. The Easter eggs and chocolates have been around the shops for a while now so I’ve been looking around as well as online at what’s available this year and come up with the ultimate Easter Chocolate gift guide for you.

This guide contains regular Easter eggs as well as specialty Easter chocolates from some fantastic chocolatiers. There is something for everyone on any budget.

Easter Chocolate

Small Aero Easter Egg 

I’m a huge fan of Aero chocolate and these small Easter eggs are great. The Aero bubbles are found inside the egg. Great tasting and value for money.

Stockists – Found in all good supermarkets

RRP – £1.50

Small Aero chocolate Easter Egg

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3 Hidden Costs That You Need To Be Aware of In Your New Business

People start up new businesses everyday. They can be on a small-scale, like being a blogger which is what I do, or starting up a new venture complete with premises, staff and the bills to pay. I’m writing this post to make sure you are aware of the hidden costs that you need to plan for to stop your business from becoming a failure from the very start. Planning is key to get your business on the way up from the beginning.

These are the top 3 hidden costs you need to be aware of:

Utility Bills

Bills such as electricity and gas can creep upon you if you don’t keep an eye on the usage. Did you know that a micro business based in the UK will use on average 7,500 kWh of electricity per year and face a total bill of £1,062 as a result? According to data from BusinessEnergy. The bill rises to £2,038 for a small business, £3,146 bill for a medium-sized business and a £7,346 bill for an industrial business.

All of this doesn’t include your gas bill costs.

So as you are setting up your business shop around and find the best offers for your needs. Flogas, for instance, offer a competitively priced and reliable gas supply and can help save up to 45 per cent on your gas alone.

Hidden business costs to be aware of when starting a venture

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#LuckyLinky Week 50

Hello and welcome back to #LuckyLinky Week 50.

As you all know I love to enter competitions and have been doing it for years, much longer than I have been blogging! So I want to see all your lovely competitions all in one place. It will make it much easier for all of us who love to enter competitions and for compers who want to find new and exciting competitions.

#LuckyLinky Week 50

The Competition Linky to get your competition more entries with NO comments required!

We run from Monday to Sunday and all bloggers are welcome to add any and all competitions they are running!

 Join Katie (MummyinaTutu) and I in a competition frenzy!

Each week we retweet your posts if you tag us in your tweet (@mummyinatutu & @rachelbustin) and will also enter each and every competition ourselves!

We will also add your post to the #LuckyLinky Competition Page over on Facebook! Please remember to put a badge on it and use the #LuckyLinky hashtag to spread the love.

Rachel Bustin


Instructions: Select all code above, copy it and paste it inside your blog post as HTML

#LuckyLinky Rules:

1. Add the #luckylinky badge to the HTML / Text portion of your post. If you need any help linking up, read the fabulous Linky Guide from Cuddle Fairy or tweet us (@mummyinatutu @rachelbustin).

2. Please do 1 entry on both hosts competitions (if we’re running any) and 1 entry on the 2 competitions after yours (if you want to do more then great!)

3. Retweet 2 competitions of your choice using #LuckyLinky (It helps if you have your twitter handle in your social sharing buttons)

4. Link a maximum of 2 competitions per week.

5. By entering the link you are agreeing to be added to the email reminder list. (You can request to be removed at any time!)

Thanks for linking up!  Katie & Rachel

P.S. Don’t forget to check out our facebook page LuckyLinky Competitions if you fancy entering a few yourself!