App Review: Miffy at School

May 14, 2013 By DorkyMum in Reviews Tags: app reviews, apps for children, apps for preschoolers, apps for toddler, ipad apps, Miffy, Miffy at School, Miffy at School App 5 Comments

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

May 14, 2013 By DorkyMum in Blogging Tags: blog roundup, bloggers, Blogging, Firefly magazine, good reads, Tuesday Treats 10 Comments

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

May 10, 2013 By DorkyMum in Activism Tags: A Midwife For Me, AIMS, ARM, Association for Improvements in Maternity Services, Association of Radical Midwives, birth in the UK, IM UK, Independent Midwives UK, National Childbirth Trust, NCT, The BIrth I Want, UK midwives 13 Comments

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 →

Things We Love: May

May 9, 2013 By DorkyMum in Reviews Tags: animal welfare, Books About Occupy, Cheeky Shoes, Ibis Sleep App, Ibis Sleep Art, Occupy Movement, Recite, reviews, Scottish review, Springboard Stories, The Happy Orca, things we love, Tim Gee, You Can't Evict An Idea 9 Comments

It’s time for the monthly roundup of things that we’ve been enjoying recently – everything from blogs to books. – and want to share with you. As ever, I’ve tried to make it a diverse collection, and would love your feedback in the comments. Please feel free to share a link or two to anything that has put a smile on your face recently too! Any items that I’ve been sent to review are mentioned in the disclosure statement at the bottom of the page.

Recite: You know how frustrating it is when you see an inspiring or funny quote circulating on Facebook, and it has been spelled wrongly, or just horribly designed? Well here is the antidote – you can make your own! Recite is a lovely free site that allows you to enter any text you like and then see it realised in a variety of designs, all available to download or share on social media. The quote above is from one of my favourite books – A Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh – but you could turn a poem, a line from a film, or your funniest family saying into a work of art too. Continue reading →

A Spring Walk

May 8, 2013 By DorkyMum in Harpenden, Photography Tags: bluebells, Harpenden, Hertfordshire, HIghfield Oval, nature, spring, The Nickey Line, woodland walk 13 Comments

Last week I wrote a post about my aim to do more walking – not just to the shops or on the nursery run, but further afield. I said that I wanted to explore parts of the local area that I haven’t yet visited.

Well, yesterday was a beautiful sunny day, so that’s exactly what I did. After dropping DorkySon at nursery, I came home and stuck an apple and my camera in my shoulder bag – completely ignoring the sideboard full of dishes and the basket full of laundry – before heading straight back out the door again.

Goodness, I’m glad I did.

I went in the opposite direction to usual, along streets that I haven’t walked more than once or twice before, and there were beautiful blossoming trees all along the way.