Last Sunday marked a momentous day for our family. It was the first day so far this year that one of the kids got up in the morning and put shorts on. Without tights. Yes, it was sunny and the temperature hit a very pleasant 19 degrees!

My younger son usually lives in shorts from the end of April until the middle of October, so it's a reflection of our appalling weather that we'd made it almost to the end of May before getting the shorts out. And it wasn't my boy who got them out first - it was my little girl!

All of these items have featured on the blog before worn with tights but it was nice to see them worn 'properly' at last.

I'm ashamed to admit that I get a little bit excited about tweeting and blogging. Probably more excited than is healthy, if I'm honest. Sometimes I'm so excited about it, I wake up too early. Which for an already early bird is not a good idea. Often when I wake up it starts with a 5.

On Wednesday I woke up even earlier and even more excited than usual. It was the start of S2S2D - Shoulder to Shoulder to Day, a month long series of blog hops to keep our blogging friend Emma's (aka Crazy with twins) spirits up while she is in isolation following radiotherapy. I felt honoured to be a part of it and wanted to help get it off the ground and get noticed.

So I started tweeting, using the hashtag #S2S2D, plus the hashtag I created #EmmasArmy - because I'm not part of the team that came up with the S2S2D concept, but I am supporting Emma every step of the way by running Race for Life and just being there for her. I wondered if we could get the hashtags trending. There were a few of us tweeting and lots of retweets going on. Other blogging campaigns have got trending, but Emma herself suggested we needed the radio or a celeb on board to get it trending.

So I started small. I tweeted BBC Radio Gloucestershire, our local station, plus a couple of its presenters. Just to get it trending. But they saw its potential as a story. They wanted to feature the story of Emma's fight against cancer and the support of the blogging community - most of whom have never met each other, but who feel like friends.

Next thing I knew, I was at the radio station doing the interview. I think I was able to talk confidently and passionately about what this will mean to Emma to have the support. Someone who blogs and tweets a lot finds happiness and comfort through doing these things, which may be hard for non-social networking muggles to understand. But I know how much this will mean to Emma.

I may have also slipped two random words into the interview 'umbrella' and 'rhinoceros' as a challenge set by my colleague. He now owes me £10 sponsor money.

In her hospital room, Emma has no human contact. Nobody comes into the room at all, but she has a mobile so she can tweet and a hospital phone so she can speak to the outside world. Physically she is alone, but she can see there are people there for her all the time through twitter.

And she was even able to do a radio interview herself! (But we didn't get it trending.)

If you'd like to hear us - it's here. This is the full version of the programm and you can hear me at 43 minutes and Emma at an hour http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01879yg

This will be her until Wednesday 29th May.

This is a little podcast version, which has a short bit of me and a lot of Emma! http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p019g001

The podcast version will be there forever!

Next up, the regional TV are interested. Emma's going to be a star! Not a bad day's freelance, unpaid PR work for this press officer :) It has been probably my most satisfying couple of days as a blogger to date.

That's our trampoline. Yes, it needs a bit of maintenance. Yes, we will do it one day. But the kids aren't using it right now. BECAUSE THAT'S NOT OUR HOUSE AND THAT'S NOT OUR GARDEN. (OK, I'll calm down a bit and explain that the bit in the foreground IS our garden, but the bit behind the trampoline isn't.)

What you are looking at is our 'sort of' neighbour's house and garden. I don't know a lot about our sort of neighbour. I doubt I would even recognise her if I saw her in the street. I believe she is a middle-aged lady who lives alone with a teenage son. What I do know about her though is SHE TOOK THE FENCE DOWN WITHOUT WARNING OR DISCUSSION. In October.

It was a shock when we got home one day and could see right down into her garden to the closed curtains of her house. Because she keeps her curtains closed so we can't look in. EVEN THOUGH WE WEREN'T THE ONES WHO REMOVED THE FENCE.

We keep ours open because we want light in the house. Luckily it's 'only' the dining room she could look into. Where we don't tend to be naked.

It was bad enough in winter, but it's nearly summer now. Our kids would like to play out in the garden. They'd like to use the trampoline. But I know nothing about those people. How do I know the teenage son won't be perving over my 7 year old daughter's knickers flashing as she jumps or my 9 year old boy's muscular body?

And even if they're not perving, I don't feel entirely comfortable with them being able to see and hear everything we do in our own garden.

We live in a bungalow one a funny-shaped plot. We have two conventional next door neighbours - one joined to us - and two people who live in a different road and whose gardens back onto ours. It takes a good two or three minutes to walk round to their houses.

One of them seemed OK, but took offence when we had the cheek to replace a crap fence with a good one, with her consent and at our expense. Seriously. There's no pleasing some people.

And the other one? Well, after inconclusive discussions approximately once every two years (interspersed with sarcastic 'Oh, YOU'RE IN!' like she comes round to talk about this stuff all the time when actually, there's always one of us here after 6pm and often a lot earlier than that) she just removed the fence. No warning.

And in those seven months since she removed the fence there have been no discussions and precisely no action to replace the fence.

GRRRRRRR!

Regular readers will know I have been testing the SQOOM for some time to help my acne. It's a trendy little gadget, which is rather exclusive and expensive and is all natural. Initially I was supposed to test it for just six weeks, but it's not a quick fix and it was clear I was going to need a lot longer than that, so I'm very grateful that, three months on from the original end date, I still have it to test.


When I wrote last time, my acne had improved a bit, got worse a bit and basically stayed the same. Initially I was also using it to try to improve my exczema on my hands, but I really didn't have time to do it all, so I decided to just focus on the acne, which is my main issue (although the eczema can be really flipping painful!).

After I wrote last time, I stepped things up a gear and introduced anti-ageing. This was pretty full-on. I'd gone from eight minutes one day and 12 the next, to 16 minutes one day and 20 the next. I had to cleanse using the SQOOM every other day, then use two different programmes on each side of my face for four minutes each every day. I also alternated the second programme I used every day to get maximum benefit. I was mixing the gels I put on my face - two thirds anti-ageing (hyaGel xcential) and one third acne (AK).

After three days I noticed the anti-ageing was working. I literally did a double take as I caught sight of myself in the mirror - it was almost miraculous. My eyes looked prettier. I suppose my by getting rid of the fine lines, my eyes seemed to open up more and they looked much nicer.

Although anti-ageing wasn't what I'd originally set out to do, I was very pleased with the results. It wasn't dramatic - it knocked maybe two or three years off me. But when I looked in the mirror, I saw the person I expected to see, the person I saw in my head, not the person who was pushing 40 with fine lines EVERYWHERE.

But there was a downside. A big downside.

My spots were getting worse and worse. Not just more of them, but bigger.

They started on my chin, which is the main place I get spots, but then I got them on my nose, my head and my forehead. I'm not exaggerating to say they were probably the worte spots I'd ever had. I knew I couldn't go on. So I stopped for a couple of days.

I took advice from SQOOM and they recommended I go right back to a very gentle approach. The acne treatment isn't 100% reliable, it works for about 95% of people. I really don't want to be the 5% it doesn't work for. But I guess from the huge quantity of spots on my back and chest (which I don't actively try to get rid of), which are there despite taking oral antibiotics, I might just fall into the 5%.

But I really want to get rid of my acne. For myself, of course, but also because the nice people at SQOOM have been so good to me in letting me test this for so long. I'd love to show them some good results.

So here I am, I'm back to basics. I'm using the SQOOM just twice a week for eight minutes - four minutes on each side of my face. I'm only using the AK acne gel.

A week after I stopped the anti-ageing treatment my old (in all senses of the word!) face was back.

But the good news is, it's early days, but I THINK the acne is looking promising. I'll keep you posted.

This is my drink. It comes in a glass. It comes out of a bottle. It comes out of my filter jug.

But most of all, it comes out of the TAP.


Because I drink water.

Not tea, not coffee, not wine, not beer, not gin, not vodka, not shots, not Coke, not Diet Coke, not lemonade, not squash, not Tango...

At home, at work, in coffee shops, in pubs, in restaraunts...

Wherever and whenever. I drink water.

Still, not sparkling. As the good Lord intended.

Water.



This post was written in response to a prompt on The Gallery at Sticky Fingers Pop on over to see how others have interpreted the theme 'drink'.

She might be 7 now, but my girl still says some daft things. But she's not the only one. Her brother is nearly 12 and he STILL says daft things too. Here's some of their latest classics...

(B1 is talking about camping by a safari park)
B1: I was woken by lions.
LG age 7: (mishears) What are broken lions?

B1 age 11 3/4: What would happen if an insect flew into your ear and touched your eardrum?

B2: I'm going to get a top on.
LG age 7: What's a toppon?

Daddy: These are fresh burgers made this morning.
LG age 7: Were they cut off the pig this morning?

(Her brother is winding her up)
LG age 7 (to me): Where did you get him from? Your tummy must have felt BAD when you were having him.

LG age 7: I don't like drinking water, but water will probably be one of the only things I like. (Yes, I was confused too!)

LG age 7: You know if a person is blind and they have a guide dog? When the guide dog is 17, can it drive a car?

LG age 7: I think nearly every single person in the world has been in a flat.

And, finally, a set of questions from my kids wouldn't really be a set of questions from my kids unless it mentioned Hitler...

B1 age 11 3/4: If Hitler was still alive, would you be happy if I killed him?







I am sharing these questions as part of S2S2D as I'm sure our blogging friend Crazy with twins will find them funny. Emma is currently in isolation following radiotherapy and needs things to make her smile. Let's be honest, anyone would find them funny!

About a year ago, I wrote a post about hoping to go on holiday to Barcelona My daughter, who had previously not wanted to go abroad, had decided she would like to go to Barcelona, so this seemed like too good an opporunity to miss. But then we had a rather 'eventful' holiday on a canal boat - read about that here here and especially here and my husband decided we couldn't be trusted to go abroad if we couldn't even avoid disaster in the British countryside. So Barcelona was, sadly, put on the backburner.

It seems that we're just not that good at holidays. No wonder we go to nice old, safe old Padstow every year. Nearly a year on, the memories of our canal holiday, not to mention our Italy holiday have faded sufficiently for us to think about Barcelona again.

And the good news is, we've booked a holiday for later in the summer!

We're taking no chances. We won't be losing any suitcases (you need to read those Italy posts!). We've got a proper package which will involve us being picked up from the airport, not making hasty, incorrect decisions and getting on buses and off again in a hurry without thinking things through.

We are all very excited. My daughter wants to see the Gaudi architecture, especially the lizard at Parc Guell (and I do too!). The boys want to visit the Nou Camp.



And most of all, we want to enjoy some decent warm, sunny weather. The sort we just don't get in the UK any more.

Now I just have to convince my husband that it really would be a good idea to take a whole suitcase full of food and drink, just in case my daughter refuses to eat or drink any of the foreign food and drink on offer...