The long haul of the school summer holidays begins in just three days time; I know a lot of parents who are already beginning to feel the strain and schools haven't closed their doors yet.

It wouldn't be so bad if the weather was a little more reliable, at least you could turf the kids out into the garden and let them burn off some excess energy.

The bad news is the changeable weather is set to stay for at least the first week of the school hols, but after that it should warm back up  and be a little more settled; hurrah!

There are only so many expensive trips out you can do between now (just pretend it's Friday) and the beginning of September.

Even a family trip to the cinema is now a bank-balance-busting experience, so when find-me-a-gift.co.uk asked if they could send us a couple of inexpensive summer toys to review we were happy to oblige.

A big bubble wand and water bomb catapult set duly arrived and, despite the temptation to launch a few water bombs across the PlayPennies office first, we sent them off to PlayPennies mum Laura and her six-year-old son to play with.

Bubble Wand

The Big Bubble Wand retails for £2.49.

You know how it often is with toys, if they don't cost a ton of money you don't really expect them to last that long, or be of very good quality; in my opinion, a toy with a £2.49 price tag tends to fall into that category.

Louise thought so too.

"I am surprised this is only £2.49," she says, "It is better made than other bubble wands I've tried, mostly from the pound shop, and the quality of the bubble mixture is much better too."

Louise tells us that her son has been playing with the big bubble wand for a month now and still hasn't used up the bubble mix, "You get a LOT of bubbles from just one dip!"

Apparently, though, the reason he really loves the big bubble wand is that it has become a sort of light sabre - a boy after my own heart!

"There's something about the sturdy build, the colour, and the way the bubble mix swishes about inside it that seems to have some sort of appeal for him," Louise explains.

Louise also reports that the big bubble wand doesn't come with any instructions.

"I did expect this to make large bubbles," she says, "and maybe it does and I just haven't worked out how!"

But fear not, it transpires you don't need a degree in bubble science to enjoy the big bubble wand.

Louise  tells us that it makes about a zillion bubbles just by waving it about, or blowing on it, "Good bubbles too, that kept my son happy by floating way, way, way up in the sky."

"This was an excellent toy to take to the park," concludes Louise, "It worked as a play sword and kept us all amused with the bubbles. It's especially fun with lots of space to run around in making bubbles, and chasing them."

Quick Knot Water Bomb Catapult Set

There's something about water bombs and a catapult  that brings out the 'Dennis the Menace' in us all.

It really is very satisfying when that balloon makes contact with its target (preferably a human target on the target on the run) and EXPLODES!

The Quick Knot Water Bomb Catapult set also retails for £2.49 and, again, earns high praise from Louise.

"Now this was amazing! For the price I really wasn't expecting much," gushes Louise, "but you get a sturdy, plastic catapult that will take a good pounding, a net to put the water balloons in, water balloons, and a little funnel to make it easy to fill them up."

Marvellous! All you need for water bomb chaos in one very reasonably priced package.

Louise confesses that there isn't really very much she can say about the Quick Knot Water Bomb Catapult set, without sounding almost evangelical.

"It is easy to use, and the catapult can be pulled back and released by even tiny hands." This is good news as, often, little ones want to play with things like this and end up getting upset, and frustrated, when they can't do it properly.

"We had a lot of fun with this at our local park, which has a water play area. I would suggest that you buy two of them though, so you can chase each other!"

Louise was concerned about the natural rubber latex used to make the water bombs.

She says that although there's a very clear warning on the back to always clean up the burst bombs, she does wonder how many people actually do.

"Also, when we used it in the park, I worried about pieces that we might miss," she admits, "especially if they get eaten by wildlife, like ducks!"

And finally...

As far as Louise is concerned both the bubble wand and the water bomb catapult are fabulous and fun.

The price is more than reasonable; in fact, she's still not quite over the fact they are so cheap compared to their quality.

"Both of these toys were a HUGE hit with my six-year-old son," she concludes, "...and me!"

www.find-me-a-gift.co.uk

Everyone's going a bit Halloween mad here in the PlayPennies office - plates with the remains of Lynley's pumpkin pie, weird and whacky teeth, fake blood (at least I hope it's fake) and other such ghoulish things litter our desks.

It's all a bit too much fun really, so we shipped out some Halloween bits and pieces from findmeagift.co.uk to our reviewing mum, Sam.

"I was rather excited when I found out I was getting some Halloween things to review," Sam told us, "when I was little we used to have family parties on Boxing Day at my nan's house, manky false teeth and big hairy werewolf feet were the order of the day."

We knew that Sam wouldn't be disappointed with the halloween gifts we'd sent her from findmeagift.co.uk because the main theme was...TEETH!

"The box arrived; I opened it and there were TEETH! LOTS of TEETH! I was back in Boxing Day family party heaven. In the box was also a skeleton hand spatula, some special effects vampire fangs and a vampire teeth ice 'cube' rubber mould thing."

The spatula retails for £4.99, the ice-teeth mould £6.49, the vampire fangs £7.99 and the gnarly teeth £3.49.

"The first thing we (me and the kids) did was fill up the ice cube teeth tray and put it in the freezer - the mould makes five ice teeth things.

If you're going to have a halloween party or your kids go through ice cubes at the same rate of mine, then you'll have to make lots in advance," Sam suggested.

We thought this was an excellent idea, failing that...have more than one cold blooded ice-teeth trays.

We weren't really sure why on earth you'd want a skeleton hand spatula, or whether it was any good, Sam soon put us straight on that,

"The skeleton hand spatula...GENIUS! Not only is it far more fun than your bog standard plastic or wooden one, but it's one of the  most EFFECTIVE spatulas I've ever used!

I don't know if it's something to do with the angle and contours or the handle, but it's fabulous for flipping omlettes (not very halloween I know!)."

We were all very intrigued to hear about the special effects vampire fangs, because they actually came with proper detailed instructions as to what you had to do with them!

"I found the vampire fangs quite tricky.  Basically, they have two 'grips' that contain dental putty and a frame that the two front fangs attach to," Sam explained.

"The instructions say you mut put the fangs into a glass of hot water to soften the putty, then position everything correctly in your mouth, bite down, take them out and put them into COLD water to set the putty hard again."

Well we were exhausted just listening to that lot!

Sam went on to tell us that it was more than a bit fiddly trying to make sure everything was in the right place in your mouth, and that she had to use boiling water to get the dental putty to go soft -  you know when this is happening as it goes clear instead of white apparently.

And finally...

"If you just want a few cheap bits and pieces to mess around with on Halloween then all of these things are perfect, the gnarly teeth caused a great deal of hilarity and provided us with hours of amusement," Sam concluded, "the kids kept coming up to me with daft looks on their faces, not saying a word, then grinning to reveal the most hilarious teeth!"

Well there you go then, if you want some Halloween fun that won't break the bank then hot-foot it over to findmeagift.co.uk.

It was a most excellent day at PlayPennies HQ when two rather fabulous products landed on our desks from Find-Me-A-Gift. These two products took the reviewers by storm. In fact, there was yet another kerfuffle in the offices over who would get to review them. So much so, that we just sent them off to our awesome Parent Panelists instead. Lucky things!

Big Trak

It was our mum of eight year old Damien who got sent the Big Trak for review. Amelie was not sure what a Big Trak actually was but she says that everyone else did.

The whole Big Trak phenomenon, when I was a kid, had totally passed me by. I had no idea what one of these things was when it arrived for review from FindMeAGift.com,” said Amelie, “But, wow, the excitement of everyone else. It seemed like most people had some story or other of a friend's big brother who had one, or coveting their cousin's Big Trak.”

A Big Trak, for those of you who don’t know, is essentially a programmable electric vehicle that was created back in 1979. It was, back then, the equivalent Christmas gift that the Go-Go Hamster was last year.  Amelie felt that these were just one big trip down memory lane.

“One look at the style and design, and I was whisked straight back to 1980 watching Logan’s Run, Buck Rogers, and Battlestar Galactica on the telly,” she said, “I could almost hear the ping-pause noise of Pong  and I swear that a top-loading VHS VCR appeared in front of me!”

Well, if you coveted one of these babies back when, then you’ll be delighted by the fact that they’ve brought them back in all their gorgeous glory. It comes in white, looks fantastic, and definitely smacks of the 80s.

“It takes three D batteries, and these are not included. You can enter up to 16 separate commands on the 23 key keyboard,” said Amelie, “Rather cool is the front mounted blue photon beam headlamp used for firing. There are also stickers to put on the vehicle. These are dead easy to do, but I was left wondering why they weren't simply put on the chassis at the factory. It seemed a bit pointless to me. And, just like all my childhood toys, the stickers never seemed to line up properly when doing them around the corner bits, no matter how many times they were peeled off and reapplied.”

I have to admit that I disagree with her here, I loved that customising bit even though the stickers never lined up. It gives your toys character!

Amelie said that her godson, aged 5, was happily playing with it as well as her son. It is recommended for ages eight and up, so as long as there was an adult handy, this was fine for the younger child. She felt that the instructions were clear and simple but that figuring out the programming took a bit of patience and practise.

“Manually programming in a sequence, and remembering what you had done, and how to do it again, was something that was quite new for my son,” she said, “At first he thought it was stupid. Why couldn’t he just hook this up to the USB port on the computer and programme it using software?”

At this point I allow all of you born in the 70s and 80s to have a quiet, reminiscent, chuckle.

“My son soon changed his mind as he could see the benefit of not being tethered to the computer. Plus there must have been something satisfying in the manual programming as this toy is now qualified as ‘awesome’ in his books.”

She did wonder what he would do if confronted with an old Atari, though.

The Chatimal

The mum we sent the Chatimal  Hamster to, Andrea, was very, very sceptical when we tried to explain it to her. I said, “It repeats everything you say, see?”. She said, “Yeah, and then what does it do?”

That’s ALL it does. But wait, before you amble off in disgust, let me tell you that this toy has given Andrea so much fun that I am rather annoyed I didn’t keep it for myself.

“When I first got told about the Chatimal, I thought it was a load of rubbish,” said Andrea, “I mean, seriously, this was a toy that just repeated what you said, verbatim, on repeat. How could it possibly be entertaining beyond a few minutes?”

Then Andrea received the box with the hamster Chatimal inside and all hell broke loose.

“I had barely pulled it out of the box when it was wrenched from my hands by my daughter,” she said, “I haven’t seen her that excited about a toy since she got Jessie from Toy Story. Once I’d switched it on and shown her how to press the button that was it, she was off.”

Andrea is now as in love with the Chatimal as her daughter.

“It has given us hours of fun. And I mean hours. When you first press the button on his hand a red light goes on. While this light is glowing he is recording everything he can hear. Then it switches off and he repeats what you said in a variety of weird and whacky accents.”

Andrea had to endure the Chatimal going with her to the supermarket, the beach, the bakery, the grocer and all other such parental shopping places.

“The LOOK on people’s faces when Beth spoke and had her words repeated were priceless,” said Andrea, “Often people would look around to see what made the noise. You see, the accents used by the Chatimal vary so much that it can really have you looking around for the weirdo with the strange voice.”

“My best part, though, has to be when I put the Chatimal in arms reach and waited for my husband to come home. I hid behind the sofa, pressed the button, said something like ‘Why, hello there, handsome’ and nearly cried laughing when my husband jumped out of his skin as the hamster repeated what I said in this deep and terrifying tone.”

The Chatimal hamster was a huge success. Although Andrea says it does eat batteries a little bit and sometimes doesn’t quite record things perfectly.

“Overall, I have to say that it is a fantastic gift for a child, especially an older child who can find all sorts of inventive ways to use it,” she said, “But it does have a hungry battery life and sometimes doesn’t catch what you’re saying perfectly.”

And Finally

Amelie’s final words on the Big Trak were, “The Big Trak is on sale for £33.90 with £3.95 shipping in the UK. Frankly I think this is pretty good value, as you feel like you’re really getting something for your money. This is a toy that is rather cool and retro, is robust looking, fun to play with and educational too!”

Andrea’s thoughts on the Chatimal hamster were, “The Chatimal is a quirky gift. Very quirky. My daughter loves it and still plays with it on an almost daily basis. It costs £19.99 which, I find, a bit pricey but possibly worth it in light of her appreciation. She gets more out of this toy than she does from the Buzz Lightyear we got her for her birthday. It would also be a great gift for that adult who has everything. It would, seriously.”

And on a Fun Fact Note. You can see from this photo on the right (that Amelie kindly discovered for us) that the Big Trak featured in none other than E.T.! Look closely under Drew Barrymore's chin...