I love it when my blog allows me to spend time with friends, learning about their passions. My evening with Ruth, trying some mandala painting, was brilliant. While stone painting itself isn’t completely new to me, it was the first time I’ve tried to paint a mandala pattern; in fact, any elaborate pattern at all, so it was always going to be challenging.
As children get older it becomes harder to know what to buy them as gifts. I have a group of friends whose children are the same age as our two, and the year when our eldest children were turning seven, the idea of a book voucher, or gift card, came up.
When I was young I loved getting book vouchers (back then they were actually vouchers, like paper money!) as the whole experience of browsing a bookshop was something I loved – and still do! Nowadays, book vouchers tend to come as a gift card and while it is a great present, it may be a less exciting prospect for a child than something big to unwrap 🙂
As we head towards the end of 2017, it’s a time when many will reflect on the year gone by and look to the year ahead. It’s the busiest season of the year with so much going on every single day – we know that this time of year can be particularly daunting for people living with mental illness, in its many forms. Fortunately, there is help out there for anyone who needs support.
On Day 38 of #100DaysNoTV we left some festive-themed painted pebbles around our little city of Ely. These are no ordinary pebbles; we hope they will help to spread the word about a wonderful community project, Talking FreELY.
For a festive hit in mid-November, there are few places better than Ely Cathedral. Their annual two-day Christmas Gift & Food Fair is an event attended by people from all around the country. In contrast, the #ElyChristmasCracker was all about local people.
Since the Cambridge blogger community – CambMeetUp – began in March 2015, there have been a number of local meetups around Cambridgeshire, and when Lauren decided it was time that Ely held one, I was more than happy to help organise. On Day 29 of #100DaysNoTV I co-hosted a blogger event for the first time!
It’s not easy to find original gifts, so I was over the moon to discover The Spicery when looking for something special for Rob. Their spicebox subscription is absolutely perfect: it plays to his love of trying new cuisines and his ever-growing passion for cooking. It also gave us the perfect excuse to spend a few hours cooking together in the kitchen; this is something we love to do, but often need a reason to find the time! On Day 13 of #100DaysNoTV we had a ‘Date Night in Bali’.
Some of the best presents are those that are homemade: they show that the person giving it to you has taken time to make something special for you. With this in mind, on Day 11 of #100DaysNoTV we turned freshly foraged blackberries into Blackberry Vodka to give as presents at Christmas.
With the nights drawing in and the autumn chill a nightly feature, there’s something really quite lovely about snuggling up with a glass of warming fruit liqueur.
#100DaysNoTV 