Women, we need to get together

Can you imagine being denied the opportunity to go to school? Just because you were female?

Or what about not knowing whether you would survive pregnancy, never mind childbirth?


But the sad, desperate truth is that two-thirds of all children denied school are girls and every minute a woman with no medical care dies in pregnancy or childbirth.


These are the situations thousands of women living in poverty find themselves in. Of the 1.3 billon people living in poverty worldwide, more than two-thirds of them are women and girls. But Oxfam is hoping to help change that.

Last Tuesday I was privileged to attend the launch of Oxfam's Get Together initiative to find out how I could help women build a better future for themselves. I went along with some lovely Mumsnet bloggers (@pantswithnames, @hackneydoula, @TheLazyGirlBlog and @EleanorMills). But what could we do to help women in poverty?

The answer was beautifully simple; Host an event on International Women's Day and raise money with friends. That's it. No months of training for a marathon, no jumping out of planes (although these are both valid ways to raise money, just not my cup of tea...but tea on the other hand, with cake...now you're talking!). All Oxfam are asking is that we celebrate International Women's Day on the 8th March by getting together with our girlfriends and finding a way to raise some cash at the same time. Any excuse for a girlie get together!

The Mumsnet Bloggers with Carrie Loughton (Mumsnet co-founder) and the captivating Eleanor Mills in the centre. Picture courtesy of Oxfam.

It was a pretty cool evening, I can tell you. Surrounded by strong women, it was difficult not to feel empowered and inspired. And the amazing thing is, you don't need to raise thousands of pounds to make a real difference.

Oxfam's Get Together ambassador, the luminous Lauren Laverne.
Photo courtesy of Oxfam.

Just £46 will fund training for 1 midwife in Ghana. £46 to save the lives of pregnant women and their children. Surely a wee bake sale could raise that? Sell 46 cupcakes to your work colleagues at £1 each and that will ensure that a woman survives to gaze into the eyes of her new born child. Or stick some extra chocolate sprinkles and a dash of glitter on your cupcakes and sell them for £2 each. Even better.

£135 trains 5 teachers in Mali who can teach over 250 girls and provide a whole generation with skills to work their way out of poverty. Invite 15 friends round for some wine and pampering, each donate £9 each and that's the lives of 250 girls changed. Amazing.

Grace Dent and Caitlin Moran (we talked pubic hair!*) added some strong female oomph to the proceedings.
Photo courtesy of Oxfam.

So, on March 8th I'm going to host my own Get Together. I'm hoping my lovely, inspirational, amazing, beautiful (yes, I'm sucking up...) yoga teacher Rozy (@InJoyYoga) will lend her yoga teaching talent to the event, leading us in sun salutations to celebrate International Women's Day. Rozy has this innovative approach to post-natal yoga that sees each session ending with tea and cake, a format that I'm hoping to steal emulate for my Get Together. I'm hoping we can raise enough money to train 5 teachers and a couple of midwives.

Please help us by hosting your own Get Together. If I haven't inspired you, then take a look at this video and see if that does the trick:

Then get yourself over to the Oxfam website and sign up for your own Get Together party pack. There's balloons and everything! 

You too could help women build a better future for themselves.

*this only makes sense if you've read her book. Otherwise yes, I agree, it does sound a bit bonkers.

I 'm part of the Mumsnet Blogging Network, a group of parent bloggers picked by Mumsnet to review products, services, events and brands. I was not paid to attend this event, but simply asked to spread the word. 

Project 366 week 3

Are we already 3 weeks in to January? Crazy. Which is exactly what the past week has been...

The week started with some insane work/childcare juggling. Mr Potato-head came to the rescue as did Twister. Thankfully, both were able to transcend a 4 year age gap and kept 4 children happily amused long enough to cook their dinner. Phew.

Tuesday night was the launch of Oxfam's Get Together initiative for International Women's Day (more about that later when the lovely girls at Oxfam email me some decent pics - my iphone camera was woefully inadequate at capturing all the beautiful people). But I will tell you this: I met Caitlin Moran. We talked about pubic hair (this only makes sense if you've read her book, which I recommend all women do - it's snort tea out your nose hilarious). I gabbled at her. A lot. She was very lovely about it. 

 Then work turn into a crazy crap storm of a week and the photo above and the two below are pretty much symbolic of the amount of quality time I got to spend with the boys. Nada. While they were awake anyway...

I do love how they look almost identical when asleep...sweet, adorable, gorgeous boys.

So we ended the week the best way we knew how: with copious amounts of baking. Mostly lemon drizzle cake (guaranteed sunshine in every bite) and double chocolate cookies from the lovely Mary Berry's Baking Bible.

I think I've almost eaten enough lemon drizzle cake to erase the crapness of last week. Hmm, best go and have another piece, just to make sure.

What do you do...

...when after a month of on and off illness your lovely nanny suffers a family bereavement and is too upset to work?

...when you can't take any time off work to look after your own children because your job hangs by a thread?

...when you feel like the universe is conspiring against you?

...when you've got so much work to do you work late into the night, every night, just to keep your head above water?

...when you realise you've only spent about 2 hours each day with your children?

...when the laundry basket is so full, it's almost overflowed into the washing machine, set the programme and washed itself?

You open a bottle of wine, download episode 3 of Sherlock onto your Desktop iPlayer and forget about it all until Monday, that's what!

Happy weekend everyone.

Oh to be back in Egypt...

Here's looking at you kid

This post is for week 87 of The Gallery, over at Tara's place:

Both my boys have beautiful blue eyes, inherited from their dad. Great big puppy dog eyes that have me running round in circles. Boy, do they know exactly how to use those eyes to their maximum heart tugging effect.

 Bigger sometimes likes to complement his eyes by sticking out his tongue. Odd child. Still cute though (luckily for him).

 Even a mucky face can't detract (much) from those sparkling peepers.

 But sometimes, we have to hide their superpowers beneath some achingly cool shades.

 

Even the eyelashes can slay you at 40 paces. Sadly, to get eyelashes like these, I have to pay for the privilege. Le sigh.

 

Someone pass me the wrinkle cream please? No, not the tube, the giant vat of industrial strength stuff please. Cheers. 

Sunday night musings...

Sometimes, webcams with the in-laws leave me feeling terribly homesick.

Sundays at home with an overtired 5 year old and an energetic 17 month old are both wonderful and horrendous in equal measure.

Feeling like your fate is sealed and people are just waiting for you to slip up sucks.

Knowing people think badly of you, also sucks.

I'm questioning tonight whether I really have the energy to turn it all around.

But in the pit of my stomach I know I must.

Wish me luck lovely readers, I think we're in for a bumpy ride.

Project 366 week 2

Week 2 of January in photos. A bit of allotment love, a bit of spiced bun love.

Plotting

So 2011 was the year of the neglected allotment.

But 2012, I declare, will be the year of allotment bounty!

We managed to pop down to our little half plot over the weekend for a spot of plotting, planning and surveying. Husband even managed to go back during nap-time for some impromptu weeding.

But now we need to get organised and plan out properly what we're going to grow this year, rather than hastily chucking seeds in the general direction of the soil and hoping for the best.

So, on my wish list this year (and coincidentally in my seed stash):

Cauliflower they just look so lovely and neat in a veg patch and I'm rather partial to cauliflower cheese.

Peas great for the boys to eat straight from the pod, which keeps them occupied while I tend to other crops.

Sweetpeas of course.

Snapdragons for filling the house with gorgeousness. I'm giddy about growing flowers for the first time and looking forward to a summer full of fragrant blooms.

Calendula (marigolds) to brighten up the edges of the beds and attract pest-eating bugs.

Potatoes without a doubt one of my favourite crops to grow. They might not be very glam, but nothing, nothing I say, beats tucking in to a glorious baked potato grown on the allotment. Or a lovely, light salad of new potatoes. It's like digging for treasure when you dig these babies up!

Courgettes because we love courgette & brie soup and the plants fill a naked bed within weeks. But this year I'm going to limit myself to 2 plants. Courgette glut is getting boring.

Rhubarb we already have some rhubarb on the plot, but last year was the first year I managed to get hold of some muck to feed it with, so I'm hoping we'll have enough for a good hearty crumble in a couple of weeks.

Sweetcorn last year's crop failed spectacularly due to simple neglect. Those golden ears of corn need a good, regular soaking if they're going to swell into something delicious.

Herbs this year I'm going to try and establish a permanent herb bed. We have fennel already, so I'd like to add some rosemary, thyme, mint and oregano if I can. Probably pop them in next to the rhubarb then it's one less bed to worry about.

Raspberries will this year be the year our fruit canes bear fruit? Please let it be.

I've really no excuse this year. We finally have a shed, so there's no more carting tools between garden and plot and we have a lovely red wheelbarrow because...well, just because...oh yes, because you never know when there's going to be a wheelbarrow emergency or an impromptu wheelbarrow race. *cough*

Anyone else jumping on the allotment wheelbarrow bandwagon this year?