It’s a mad, brilliant, fresh, changing world!

March 23, 2012 By in Blogging Tags: 2 Comments

Crikey.

It has all gone a bit blog award crazy recently. I’ve been posting bits and pieces on Facebook and Twitter, but thought it might make more sense to do one short blog post bringing it all together. I’m going to pimp the crazy out of this for a day, and drive you all mad, and then I will wheesht about it all. (Until, y’know, the closing dates are all drawing near and then I’ll pester you one more time!)

Firstly, thank you thank you thank you! The short lists for the BritMums Brilliance in Blogging Awards were announced today, and I’m absolutely thrilled to have made it to the short list in not just one but two categories. Wow! Thank you so much for your votes, which have put me in the running for the Fresh Voices category (for newer bloggers) and the Change category (for bloggers who raise awareness of causes).
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The Right to Education

March 22, 2012 By in Activism Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 21 Comments

I saw a wonderful piece of news today about people using social media for good. Take a look at this story about a demonstration of Israeli-Iranian solidarity – started online by ordinary people – that has really taken off.

It has warmed the very cockles of my heart, and provided a very useful reminder that behind almost every news story – good and bad – there are ‘ordinary people’. Every conflict, every crime, and every Government Bill has an impact on folk that more often than not are just like you and me.

Palestine Israel Separation Wall

I haven’t blogged about this before, but a few years ago I was lucky enough to visit the West Bank – part of the occupied Palestinian Territories. At the time, I was President of my Students’ Association, and the student body had voted to twin our university – Edinburgh – with the University of Birzeit near Ramallah.

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My First Ever Craft Post

March 20, 2012 By in Family Tags: , , , , 20 Comments

I am not the craftiest of people. I love to write and take photos, but anything involving more skill or dexterity than that is usually beyond me. At school, I once managed to stitch the fabric pencil case that I was making to my own tights…

But DorkyDad set me a challenge, and I couldn’t resist. He bought me a bottle of champagne for Mother’s Day. After we had quaffed it, and I was tidying up the kitchen, he mentioned seeing something online once about making a chair out of a champagne cork.

“What?” I said, sounding a bit dubious.

“Really.” he said. “You should Google it. It was very cool.”
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The 11 Things Meme

March 20, 2012 By in Blogging Tags: , , , 5 Comments

I was tagged a while ago by the lovely ladies over at Mummy Central to do the 11 Things Meme. Sorry for taking so long to do it! These things always satisfy my inner teenager…

The rules are as follows:
1. You must post these rules
2. Each person must post 11 things about themselves
3. Answer 11 questions the ‘tagger’ listed for you
4. Create 11 new questions, and tag 11 people to answer them
5. Let each blogger know you’ve tagged them

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