Reasons to be Cheerful

It has been a good while since I joined in with Reasons to Be Cheerful over on Michelle’s blog, but after reading her post last week about why it’s the best linky out there I felt inspired to give it a go again today.

I have a lot to be grateful for this week, and a lot of things making me happy.

A valve broke in our heating system last week, so we went from Friday night to Tuesday afternoon without any hot water in the house. Monday night chez Dorky was like a scene from a comedy film, as we spent an hour boiling saucepans of water on the stovetop to fill up the bath with. Our cruddy old hob is so slow that by the time we got through to the bathroom with a new pan full, the water from the last batch of pans was already cold, but eventually we managed a tepid six inches in the tub, which the three of us shared. Thankfully the plumber managed to get things fixed on Tuesday afternoon, and I have taken a moment to feel very grateful for every lovely hot shower I’ve had since. Continue reading →

Volunteer Champions

CSV Volunteering campaign

CSV, the UK’s Volunteering and Learning charity, have just launched a lovely campaign that I wanted to share with you.

The campaign is called Volunteer Champions, and has been launched to celebrate the people all over the country (and indeed the world) who quietly give up their time to try and make the world a better place.

Continue reading →

App Review: Miffy at School

There is an important birthday coming up next month…

Someone I really like a lot is going to be reaching the grand old age of 58.

Can you guess who it is?

It’s MIFFY!

Sweet little Miffy, Dick Bruna’s creation, has been around for nearly sixty years – isn’t that incredible? It brings me no end of joy that the same simple, brightly coloured books that I loved as a little girl were also enjoyed by my Mum before me, and are now being enjoyed by DorkySon too.

We were delighted, then, when we were asked to help celebrate Miffy’s Big Birthday by reviewing the Miffy at School iPad App. Continue reading →

Tuesday Treats

So Chris, Becky and Lizzie have done a great job with their Tuesday Treats posts over the last three weeks, and now my turn has come around again – hurrah!

Without further ado, here are some of my favourite blog posts that I’ve read recently and would like to share with you.

We try not to include each other’s posts in the roundups – nothing worse than blogger nepotism – but I’m breaking that rule this week to include a brilliant post from Chris called Blogging Is A Minefield. It deals with some of the big questions that every blogger has to answer about whether their blog reflects their values, and she’s had a great reaction to the post; rightly so. Continue reading →

A Midwife For Me

A Midwife for Me campaign logo

I have already written more than enough on here about DorkySon’s birth, and how different the experience was to the one I had imagined and hoped for. There is no need to go over all of that again.

But I’m very pleased to have my blog as a space to mention a campaign that has recently been launched – A Midwife For Me – which I think is doing a lot to address some of the issues I encountered.

Continue reading →