Centrepoint ‘More than a Gift’

Centrepoint relaunches ‘More than a Gift’ to support growing numbers of homeless this Christmas

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Last Christmas, the number of people experiencing homelessness in the UK jumped by 15 per cent from the previous year, and more than a third of this increase was made up of young people between the ages of 16 and 24.

This year, Centrepoint – the UK’s leading charity for homeless young people – is urging others to support those who will find themselves in this difficult and often frightening situation by purchasing a gift for a homeless young person from its new ‘More than a Gift’ site: www.centrepointgifts.org.uk

Centrepoint has now launched its ‘More than a Gift’ website for 2011 with a number of new gift options to choose from, either for or on behalf of a loved one this Christmas.

You can help Centrepoint to ensure a merry Christmas for all with ‘virtual presents’ that will mean that a real difference can be made to the young and homeless. From as little as £5, you could give a meal; a book; a bed for the night and so much more to those in need.

Stowells Light and the best laid plan.

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The idea was simple.

Ask some of our best friends round – the kind that know us well enough to be unfazed by the ‘take us as you find us’ – and ply them with wine and some food. Surely, since we so often say, “Let’s get together – anytime….” It ought to have been an infallible no-plan, I thought.

This is a sponsored post for Stowells who need me to get the message out there nice and quick, especially if you’re wondering what wine to buy for Christmas.

“How about meeting up for something to eat?” I asked each one in turn.

“Oh, yes!” they’d say. “We’re free maybe on Tuesday next week….” and I’d have to answer,

“Sorry, that’s too late. This is a, now or never, this weekend ONLY offer if you’re hoping to share my Stowells Light with me.”

Thankfully they know me well enough not to take offence…(I hope).

It so happens, that we will be sharing our Christmas dinner this year with some friends. It has become a bit of tradition with this particular family to do so if we can. Perfect timing, I thought since wine and catering and trimmings is something we need to discuss… diplomatically working out ‘who has the responsibility for cooking the turkey?’ would have been perfect over a bottle of Stowells Light. With its low alcohol content, at 5.5 percent, we’d have been able to keep a sober head on the matter. Plus, I need to remind you, dear readers how much we need to drink responsibly!

As ever, kids (in both families have plans of their own) and in one way or another put the kibosh on the idea of a pre-Christmas get together. So, we resorted to a ‘dinner party’ in remote halves. My husband I quaffed the Stowells Light Rosé, while my friends took home the Stowells Light White to enjoy. The plan was to compare notes, and say ‘cheers’ via phone, facebook, e-mail and twitter and banter with one another (the prequel to Christmas Day when will do it for real) making ‘nom nom’ noises over our wine and food.

To raise our half of the ‘dinner party’  out of the ordinary ‘family supper’, I super-chilled our bottle of Stowells ’Shriaz’ rosé  and bought a chocolate mousse dessert out of the freezer. I’ll have to apologise for my youngest child’s insistence on tomato ketchup (they do like to lower the tone!) He was having none of that ‘drizzling of pesto and wine vinegar’ over his ‘bangers and mash’.

As seen on TV

In case you missed it, here is Gareth Malone‘s Big Choir of 2,000 across Britain performing simultaneously on the Children in Need broadcast.

I say performing, as not all 2,000 were singing. My son, since he can’t speak let alone sing, was signing. I’d like to add that he really enjoyed himself; so thank you to the BBC and Children in Need who gave him the chance to take part.

It’s important to remember (even if the performance was as harmonious as the other choirs) that the taking part for a ‘special needs’ children such as my own is as amazing as is the money raised

The Eden Project is a fantastic venue for many things, but maybe not for a choir.  I was hoping to get a good view, give him a wave and the thumbs up so that he knew I was supporting him. If you look at all the other choirs, performing in well-lit spaces where the camera can pull back and get the whole choir in shot you can imagine the live audience has this view too. However, the Mediterranean biome at the Eden Project  is  jam-packed with lovely trees and shrubs (as a garden should be) and the only glimpse I could get  was of the back of his head if I crouched low enough to see under the green foliage that you can see here in this screen shot. However, thanks to similar wonders of technology that could enable a video link up to enable 10 separate choirs to sing together as a whole on Friday 18th November at 8.30pm. I was also able to record the whole thing on my TV at home to see it all when we got home.

So the view that you have of my son on TV is just as I saw him. And that was my teary proud mummy moment too.

Related articles

• In praise of … Gareth Malone | Editorial (guardian.co.uk)
• The Stone Bake Oven Company Enters the Garden of Eden (prweb.com)

Ladies that tweet (warmly)

I’m knackered. Exhausted, worn out, past it, no longer good to go and totally flat with any sign of a spark left.

So that’s menopause for you.

Most of the time I feel like chewed string. Limp and flaccid and slightly soggy. Concentrating on anything is tricky because all the time I feel a bit wobbly and desperate for sugar and coffee to stimulate some energy. Sleep…sleep…sleep that’s all I can think about.

And I have dropped into my mother’s shoes. I am the same grumpy, critical, self-sacrificing martyr we thought she was when she was the age I now am. Pummelled and punished for being ego-centric in my youth, it’s my own kids who are wrecking havoc with my liberty and acting out my parent’s revenge for all the grey hairs I inflicted on them.

‘Feeling like chewed string’ was my mother’s expression. I get it now. It’s when the head doesn’t feel fully connected to the body, but feels wobbly and is spinning a little like a gyroscope. It could be because I don’t know how to pace myself. The common dilemma (I’ve discussed this with my pals) we don’t go to bed early enough. The older the kids get, the later they go to bed, and what was always important after the frenetic energy of food, baths and bedtimes was unwinding time and thinking space at the end of the day. That chilled glass of Chenin Blanc and feet up on the sofa time I imagine myself having at 8 o’clock, is actually a large glass of cheap red gulped down desperately during the washing up at midnight.

My mother took her time out at the WI, learning new skills and listening to women’s twittery talks on topics pertinent to women circa the 1970s. My sisters and I regarded the mere mention of the Women’s Institute with sneering cynicism as silly rubbish.

Last night, I went to the first ‘Ladies that Tweet’ event at the Eden Project. I shut the door on the sounds of cynical mutterings from my own family and tripped out with escapist glee in my heart.

Stepping out from the on-line world to the real life, flesh and blood, chatty world to meet women I only knew as @… was lovely. In spite of my on-off hot flush cardy fidgeting, and the fact the inspirational speakers Molly Flatt and Daisy Griffith (damn them) were young, beautiful and dynamic, I was relieved to discover lots lovely women who knew who I was and were pleased to meet me. I had a reputation, albeit as @Fishwifemark2.

Twelve months ago I also considered ‘twitter’ as silly rubbish. I passed judgement on ‘twitter’ as nothing more than millions of people all shouting random things and nobody listening? Nevertheless, in order to understand the social media age and to keep up to speed, I knew that I needed to create a twitter account and force myself into the conversation.

Tweeting for my employer changed that.

Fewer calories and fat in 10-inch pepperoni pizza than plate of children’s party food

I was passed this as a press release but I have no personal opinion or agenda to push…

Heart charity helps parents & teachers dish up healthier treats

As the new school term starts children throughout the UK will be bringing home invitations to attend birthday parties and school events. But while parents will be pleased to see their children making friends and socialising they may be shocked to learn that a standard plate of children’s party food could be more calorific and laden with saturated fat than an entire pepperoni pizza (1).

But a new party pack from the British Heart Foundation (BHF) shows how they can still lay on tasty treats without the usual gut-busting nutritional content.

British Food Fortnight from a Cornish perspective

Why you should Vote for Cornwall if you love good food. Just click here if you do

I’m not a calorie counter or careful about what I eat. If I’m happy, I eat. If I’m bored I eat… but eating for the sake of it, on any old rubbish that comes to hand makes me desperately unhappy.

I like dollops of Cornish clotted cream on my puddings, in my cooking and sometimes – my guilty secret – I’ll take scoops of it on a spoon and eat it straight from the fridge. In the winter, nothing’s better than a warm Cornish pasty to warm my hands or hot toasted Saffron cake with lashings of yellow churned Cornish butter.

I eat fish whenever I eat out in a Cornish restaurant by the sea, or cook it at home fresh quickly fried in a pan. I’ll buy local Cornish food in preference every time over any alternative and since there is so much to try, my waistline is growing in appreciation of this good stuff. However, I’m generally a pretty mellow, laid back sort . Happy from the inside out.

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the British Food Fortnight there is a sizzling campaign raging across the county to get us to vote for our favourite food location.

If Cornwall wins it will be good for everyone. The recognition will help to put Cornwall in the national spotlight for the food and drink we produce. It will help the small food producer, the farmers and fishermen. It will support our chefs, our restaurants and hotels and jobs in related industries for local people. It’ll also be something else to look forward to – the fantastic food – next time you come to Cornwall.

Parallel Universe

I read one other blogger’s posts consistently, with voyeuristic interest.

On the face of it, we have nothing in common. Her whole blog talks about experiences I’ve never had and that makes me feel human and humble and hugely grateful.

I’ve been mostly spared having my nether regions over-exposed and prodded by countless instruments wielded by men-in-white-coats who are more likely to recognise me once my pants are down by my ankles. Her blog leaves me embarrassed by my own fecundity. It is agonizing, as no amount of good will wishing can change a thing. This poor soul is tormented by the need to be what I’ve been for the past fifteen years. Namely, a mother and a lucky cow.

Kids – with or without them – they’re an open wound of agony, grief and regret. You think that the joy that children bring makes up for everything they ruin, break or destroy. Don’t get me wrong, mine have shown me how the capacity to love keeps growing even though I blame them entirely for the loss of my figure.  They’ve also made me more selfish and time poor. They absorb so much of my energy and waking hours I can’t be as charitable and altruistic towards the wider world  in the way I would like to be.

Vampish tips.

I’m having an odd experience here at the keyboard. It appears that someone else’s fingers are doing the typing. The hands that tap and flit before me have shiny red tips that belong to the very glamorous. My own nails, the last time I gave them a cursory glance, were hard-worn, chipped and uneven.

It so happens that us girls generally sit in two camps. As if there was invisible dividing lines between those who’ve had certain experiences and those who have not. From childbirth, which is huge, to the seemingly most trivial. I’ll dare to admit that even first waxings, eyebrow plucking, hair-colouring moments have felt like mini rites of passage. After you’ve sat in both camps and passed from one to the other, you never quite relate to the old self again. How could I have thought that having children would spoil my fun or that an interest in making myself look and feel better was just silly vanity?

I’ve just had a proper nail manicure – the first in my life as it happens and, frivolous though sounds, there was a tiny life changing moment even in this.

The Meanie Mummy

My penny-wise tips to saving money…..

Saving money is easy if you’re the tight-fisted, parsimonious type of parent that I am. Of course, I blame my own mother who was raised during the 2^nd World War and then raised her own family through the hard times of the 60s and thrifty 70s. She could never rid herself of the ‘mend and make do’ obligation. I suspect that all the offspring of wartime generations have had the same compulsion instilled in us too. We can’t relegate anything to the bin until we extracted every possibility of repair, recycling, or reusing usefulness out of it.

We were always enthusiastic collectors of tokens even though it took us years of patient saving to have enough Green Shield stamps or Robinson ‘Golly’ Tokens to save up for anything really useful that was free. We’d also enter every competition going as the thrill  of maybe winning was irresistible…

I’m trying to win an iPad 2 in the iSave, iWrite, iPad competition from PlayPennies.com!

Can you tell?

In fact the easiest way NOT to part with money is to be careful about the places we take the kids. I’ve become very clever at avoiding places with expensive gift shops and cafés that I know will entice me to part with money…

If only I’d seen what a year of blogging would do to me.

I started this blog because I wanted to learn more about ‘blogging’… 

Because, I’m not someone to dismiss a thing unless I’ve given it a go…however, I’m immensely tight-lipped about my own life.  The shitey fact I’m now 47 and feeling reluctantly middle-aged, and that my mother has dementia.  So, the mere idea of revealing bits and pieces of who I am , what digs, little life experiences and what I think has been mostly veiled under ironic references and satire.  Most difficult of all is referring to my children. I managed to create a special post for number 2 and number 3 as celebrations of their individuality, but my first born I’ve still only hinted about. How to I make a post funny, touching, but not ‘poor me’ when talking about his disabilities which frankly make me feel pretty bleak if I give myself time to dwell on them?

That, and I thought it would be a good idea to give the ‘mum’ testing for the Mother & Baby Awards a bit more of a personal dimension.

Then surprisingly I discover I’ve been nominated in the MAD Blog awards for UK parent blogs. It took me a while to find which category: Most Inspiring Blog apparently. Thank you to whoever nominated me, you are too kind. Of course, what should have done is begged for more nominations but I forgot and failed in self-promotion. Too late now