Mr Fixit & I were lucky enough to get a couple of free tickets via Moneysavingexpert to visit the Ideal Home Show in Olympia last weekend. We’ve been before and it’s usually a fun day out, mostly looking at things we’d like but can’t afford (or don’t have a big enough home or garden for) unless we have a lottery win. This time though, it didn’t seem quite as good, it was very busy, much busier than when we’ve visited previously and there didn’t seem to be quite as many demos and we didn’t see any tasting sessions. On previous visits we’ve done wine testing & whiskey tasting and on a visit with my daughter a few years ago I did champagne tasting and my daughter won a bottle of champers and tickets to an open air theatre for simply answering some questions correctly at the end of the demo.

The demos we did see, seemed to consist of household gadgets that are usually sold on TV shopping channels, some of which seemed quite good but were, in my opinion overpriced for what they were. There were also some talks and we briefly watched a talk on tips for decluttering and organising your home but I didn’t really learn anything I haven’t read in a magazine.

The Eat & Drink Festival which runs alongside the Ideal Home Show was ok, but not amazing. We felt slightly ripped off paying £8 for some unspecified draught lager that tasted a bit rank & £9 for a 175ml glass of white wine, I mean, I don’t pay that for an entire bottle of wine from Tesco’s! Likewise with the food we bought from one of the food traders, it was ok but not amazing. All in all, it was a little underwhelming and disappointing this time, we’ll probably leave it a few years before we return.

Still, it was a day out, we came away with a goody bag each containing a few free samples of laundry products, a pot of protein porridge and a can of matcha latte, and we did see a lovely hot tub which would make a great replacement for our Lay-Z-Spa….one day!