What’s my beef with awards all about!

The first award I ever won was a Tiny Tots Judo Award. I was six, very cute, two little plaits, white judo suit, quite shy (believe it or not) but put me in a judo ring and I became alive. Here I could fight with the boys and it was ok (there was only one other […]

The moment of truth #hairhack

Wow, what a day. I pride myself on being quite good with words, they’re my preferred tool, and usually I can sit down, think for a moment and the fingers just start typing and the words come. Not today. Today I can’t find the right words, or rather I can find the words, but not […]

Liberation promised #hairhack

Today is the day, at 2pm my hair will come off. All of it. I’m completely delighted to share that the running total of funds raised for Rowcroft Hospice and JusticeforLB is £5,380, a huge amount of money that will support the great work of both causes. There’s still time if you want to give […]

Three hairy days left #hairhack

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged, been off grid for most of June. Not before the #hairhack fundraising target was smashed though, thank you all so much. We’re past £5k now, beyond my wildest dreams, and it’s such an amazing feeling to know I can donate a decent pot of cash to Rowcroft Hospice […]

A good death, a bad death. It matters.

It’s 581 days since my Dad died and I can honestly say there is rarely a day that passes where I don’t have a fleeting thought of gratitude for Rowcroft Hospice, our local hospice who supported our family in Dad’s last year of life, especially in the weeks up to his death. I often think […]

Life after Bobby: Father’s Day

I can’t remember Father’s Day last year, I suspect I dismissed it as a hallmark holiday, a little grumble and moved on. This is my second Father’s Day since Dad died and I’ve been raging all week when I open my inbox!! Lots of really drossy, ill considered, spammy emails…earn extra [insert generic loyalty brand] […]

Social Care Curry Club’s 1st birthday

One of the first tweets I saw today was this one, from my mate Matt Bowsher: Just over a year ago we got into a conversation on twitter about curry and who we’d most like to have curry with in the social care world. The twitter account was the first development, followed by a gmail […]

A month to go #hairhack

If you missed it at the weekend an amazing thing happened and Amanda Palmer, musician, connector, gracious lovely person shared my blog post on facebook with her fans, adding a commentary and exploring the point I made in the last post about people choosing to focus on her eyebrows, rather than her talk. I added […]

Asking for help

I watched a TED talk by Amanda Palmer last week, it was doing the rounds on facebook in one of those articles that is guaranteed to put me off! Enough people I respect commented or shared it for my interest to be peaked and I’m really glad I watched it. I would highly recommend the […]

Attention seeking

I was about eight when I realised I was never going to be a leading lady. For years I’d auditioned for school assemblies or plays and without fail Maria or Sam or Joanne got the main female part, and to add insult to injury nearly every time I was cast in the same role. I […]