The prize is a beautiful sterling silver Nicole necklace by Lily and Lotty, with an RRP of £62. The smaller heart on the double pendant is set with a tiny diamond for a little sparkle, and I like it so much I almost don’t want to give it away…

To be in with a chance of winning this lovely prize from ACHICA, all you have to do is leave a message in the comments box below, saying ‘pretty please Penny’. One lucky winner will be chosen at random next Friday.

Please note that the winner’s prize will take up to 20 days to arrive, as it will be shipped from France.

T&Cs: UK entrants only please, winner chosen using random.org, no cash alternative. Winner chosen on 25th May. Multiple entries will be disqualified. Only the winner’s contact details will be used to award them the prize, entrants’ details will never be added to mailing lists or passed on to third parties.

It’s heavy on the zingy ginger, and the lemongrass is a back note, plus it isn’t too sugary sweet. This makes it more versatile than many cordials and so far it’s mixed well with sparkling water, tonic, and orange juice. If you’re fed up with the cold weather or even feeling a little under the weather, it’s also very good with hot water.

I’ve also put it into a gin martini along with some fresh lime, and I’m pretty sure you could blend it successfully with light or dark rum (think Dark & Stormy, Zombie, Mojito) or cachaca (for a twist on the Caipirinha).

The manufacturers suggest you can mix it into stir-frys and salad dressings, and it probably would be good in a coconut milk based curry too. I’m also thinking it would make a really good granita or sorbet flavouring if the sun ever comes out again.

Once opened it will last for at least a month in a cool, dark cupboard, probably longer if kept in the fridge.

A large 500ml bottle contains approximately 22 servings, so a little goes quite a long way. It has an RRP of £3.15, and it’s widely available in supermarkets – currently on offer in Waitrose for £2.52, if you’re passing by a branch.

• I’ve just tried DropGifts, a new app and site for sending free gifts to your facebook friends (one gift per friend). Seems to work pretty well, and freebies include £10 cinema vouchers, 2 month Tastecard memberships (50% off food) and others. Send one to a friend and get them to send one back to you.
• Free Clinique mascaras at Debenhams between 14th and 20th May, just take any old mascara in for a swap.
• Free samples of redbush tea, different flavours.
• There are 10,000 free packs of 20 Fairy Platinum dishwasher tablets up for grabs.
• Free £10 travel credit/voucher with RedSpottedHanky and TheSun, 10,000 available.
• It’s also free listings weekend this weekend at eBay, so sellers can save a few pence on insertion fees for up to 100 items.

One lucky winner will be getting the following seeds to make themselves a mini food garden:

• Flat leaf parsley
• Chives
• Basil
• Coriander
• Blue Lake french bean (climbing)
• Bush borlotto beans (non-climbing)
• Peas
• Rocket
• Little Gem lettuce
• Radicchio
• Mixed radish
• Perpetual spinach
• Mixed stir-fry greens
• Spring onion

They can all be grown in the ground or in pots. Even if you only have a windowsill you’ll be able to get sowing and growing.

To enter, just leave a message in the box below saying ‘Grow with Golightly’. Winner will be chosen using random.org at lunchtime on Friday 18th May.

T&Cs: One entry per person please, multiple entries will be disqualified. Prize draw. No cash alternative to prize. Details of entrants will never be passed on to any third party, or added to any mailing lists etc. Only the contact details of the winner will be used, in order to send them their prize.

I’ll be growing two main types of crops. Firstly, high yielding veggies, ideally ones that crop over a long growing season and don’t take up too much space. Secondly, ‘delicacy’ veggies that are expensive to buy but cheap and easy to grow.

Here’s the plan so far…

Sown in salad boxes and hanging baskets:

• Mixed baby leaves (sown as ‘cut and come again’)
• Rocket
• Mizuna
• Radiccio
• Red & green Salad Bowl lettuce
• Tom thumb lettuce
• Little Gem lettuce
• Land cress
• White Lisbon spring onion
• Shimonita spring onion
• French Breakfast 3 radish
• Globe radish
• Random mixed radish seeds
• Edible nasturtium

Seedlings currently indoors:

• Tomato (Gardener’s Delight, Marmande, Plum Roma, San Marzano II, Tigerella, Gartenperle, Yellow Pear, Sunrise)
• Marketmore cucumber
• Chillis (Cayenne, Hungarian Hot Wax, Early Jalapeno)
• Sweet peppers (mixed Romano, mixed Colour Spectrum)
• Courgette: Tromba d’Albenga, Tondo (round), Yellow Crookneck squash
• Pumpkin: Red Kuri (‘onion squash’)

Outdoor seedlings:

• Brussels sprouts
• purple sprouting broccoli

Sown in small raised bed:

• Blue Lake climbing French bean
• Rainbow chard
• Pak choi
• Yu choy
• Primo cabbage (compact, green)
• Beet leaf Perpetual Spinach

Sown in large raised bed:

• Paris Market and Nantes 5 carrots
• Lazio spinach
• Dwarf kale
• Autumn Spear calabrese
• Fennel
• Parsnip
• Turnip
• Beetroot
• Climbing borlotto bean
• White sprouting broccoli
• Baby leeks (Musselburgh)

On my wish list are seedlings of black cherry tomato and Thai bird eye chilli, but there’s nothing left in the budget for them. Maybe I’ll be lucky and get some in a swap.

Think I have my work cut out here!

Are you growing anything different?

It’s described as a lip gloss, but it’s more like a tinted lip balm as it’s nicely moisturising. It contains soothing ingredients like almond, jojoba and avocado oil, and has the added protection of SPF15 to reduce sun damage. There are none of the usual suspects such as camphor or menthol that can irritate very sensitive skin either.

I have this in Peach Perfection and Electro Peach, but there are lots of other colours to choose from, depending on your skin tone and the level of pigmentation in your lips. They go on fairly sheer.

You get a lot of product in each pot, and the RRP is a very reasonable £4.30. You can also sometimes buy them as part of 3-for-2 offers and other promotions at Superdrug if you’re looking for an even cheaper deal.

• Free samples of the new Agent Provocateur fragrances
• Free water saving devices, fat traps and labels for Yorkshire Water customers
• Free samples of Carte Noire wholebean instant coffee
• Ten free bags of Clipper tea in their Cup Conga promotion
• Free sample of Gucci Flora Garden fragrance (scroll down their page for the form)
• Free Gillette ProGlide razor ’birthday gift’ for 18-year old males
• Free drink this bank holiday at Greene King pubs (G & T, vodka & coke, Pimm’s or soft drink) – printable voucher

Enjoy your bank holiday!

One lucky winner will receive:

• Simply Pure Aqua Hydrating Night Cream 75ml
• Simply Pure Oil Balancing Serum 50ml
• Simply Pure Oil Balancing Moisturiser 75ml
• SPF15 Light Texture Moisturising Lotion Spray Mist 150ml
• A chic printed shopper bag

If the winner is also a @PennyGolightly Twitter follower, they’ll get a couple of extra surprise beauty treats included in their parcel too. Mention your Twitter name when you enter and you might be doubly lucky.

To be in with a chance of winning, leave a comment in the box below with your best, most interesting suggestion for improving this site. You never know, your idea might be included when we have a little revamp over the summer.

T&Cs: One entry per person, multiple entries will be disqualified. Prize is as stated, no cash alternative. Winner will be chosen at noon on Friday 11th May.

Fruit: Rhubarb (first non-forced), early strawberries. Imported Alphonso mangoes.

Vegetables: Asian greens, British asparagus, baby broad beans, cabbage (green), chervil, chives, cucumbers, Jersey Royal potatoes, lovage, lettuce, mint, morel mushrooms, parsley, last of the purple sprouting broccoli, radishes, rocket, samphire, sea kale, sorrel, spinach, spring greens, spring onions, summer savoury, watercress, wild garlic. Imported Hass avocado.

Fish and shellfish: brown shrimp, crab, cuttlefish, haddock, mackerel, pollack, prawns, sardines, sea bass, sea trout, signal crayfish, Spring lobster, wild salmon.

Meat, poultry and game: duck eggs, new season lamb, poussin (Spring chicken).

Cheeses: ewe’s milk cheeses, Stinking Bishop, Bonchester, English soft cheeses, Sharpham, Wheatland. Bleu d’Auvergene, Chabichou, Reblochon. Pecorino (early).

What are you going to cook? I’m treating myself to some mangoes before the end of their short season. 

You can buy whole collections of different herbs for as little as £1, and even if you have no outside space at all they will be happy on a windowsill or in a window box. Just snip some off as and when you need it, and there’s no waste.

The aim at Golightly Gardens this year is to become completely self-sufficient in herbs, and to keep this up all year round. That includes growing outdoors, in the greenhouse and on the kitchen windowsill to extend the growing season. The only exception is lemongrass, which M-Cat helpfully chews to death every time I try to plant some.

Here’s what’s growing outside right now:

From last year, the following plants survived the winter:

• rosemary
• thyme
• oregano
• chives
• Moroccan tea mint

I bought three small seedling plants that are a nightmare to grow from seed:

• bay tree
• sage
• French tarragon (so small it’s hiding under a makeshift glass ramekin cloche in the pic above)

Early outdoor sowings:

• curly parsley
• leaf celery, also called Par-cel

Indoor sowings made in March and April:

• green mint
• Sweet Genovese basil
• Thai / holy basil
• new chives
• coriander
• lemon balm (old seeds that might not germinate, still waiting…)

End of May outdoor sowings to come:

• chervil
• flat leaf parsley

To make it a year-round crop, there will have to be a few sequential sowings of coriander and basil, as they tend to go to seed in warmer weather. I’ll try to collect any seeds to use the following year.

Then, in September/October I’ll sow a new batch of soft herbs for the windowsill and the mini-greenhouse. I still have basil and flat leaf parsley plants alive in my kitchen from doing this last year, and hope to expand the range this time around.

Garlic chives or wild garlic are on my wish list too, but the budget pot for herbs is now completely empty. Maybe I will be able to get some in a swap, who knows.

Do you grow your own herbs, or are you thinking about starting? Which ones are your must-haves?