Reasons to be Cheerful: Marching onwards #R2BC

Thanks everyone who joined in last week sorry if I haven't read and commented on everyone's post yet... I look forward to reading and sharing more of your happy posts this week.

1) Mother's Day treats

My children started Mother's Day well with breakfast in bed and lots of goodies:

2) Proud Mummy

My daughter and I were interviewed by BBC Radio Cumbria about the dangers of dog fouling due to her eye being damaged from it:

Post by BBC Radio Cumbria.

3) Community Spirit

My online photo community of Blipfoto has been feeling threatened this week after the company went into liquidation. All of us took part in a #BlipfotoForever meme to try and share a hug with our fellow blippers:

Please join us and share your happiness and grab the badge if you would like it:

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Reasons to be Cheerful XXXIV ( #R2BC )

I am feeling very positive at the moment so looking forward to sharing everyone else's R2BC this week!

1) Getting on my soap box

I had a chance to talk live on BBC Radio Cumbria about the impact of toxocarra on my daughter's life as part of a debate on dog fouling. Anything I can do to make people aware of the potential devastating impact of not clearing up after their dog is a good thing. There is more about this on yesterday's post.

2) The great Lake District countryside

It was a marvellous weekend to get out hiking up the fells. I wrote a long piece about Loughrigg on Saturday and being able to be out of doors enjoying the wonderful landscape and stunning views whilst hiking with the family is definitely a top reason to be cheerful.

OK I just can't resist re-using this one again!

I don't anyone could fail to get a smile on their face walking along the banks of Grasmere on a perfect winter's day.

3) Family

My granny has moved to Kendal from Appleby to she is now really close by and I can visit her much more easily. Hopefully my children will also have more time to get to know their last remaining great granny.

4) Me

I've been good again this week and lost another 2 lbs making a total of 7 lb this year and an overall 1 stone 10 lb since I started at Rosemary Conley. This time I am determined to stay focussed and continue losing weight steadily and not have the yo-yo effect I had last year! The carrot of a 2 stone certificate for losing the next 4 lbs is a great incentive to look forward to.

Please go and see the other lovely people on the linky:

My blog year in review: Part 1

It's been an amazing year for my blog which I started back in 2008. This was definitely the year that the blog switched from being purely personal to including reviews and actually started earning me some much needed income.  So much has happened over the last 364 days that I'm breaking this review over 2 days to make it more manageable. 


Part one is the first half of the year from January to June and how I saw it from my blog:


January


This was the month for resolutions and new challenges. These included:

1. 100 Books in a Year - hoping that if I add all the books I read to the children at bedtime I'll have completed this!
2. Fitness Friday - this was a great supportive blog hop that unfortunately dwindled as the year went on but it did help me do really well getting in shape at the start of the year. Lots more work to do! As part of this I became an ambassador for Change4Life
3. I also pledged to work on becoming self sufficient. I haven't 100% succeeded in this but things have improved
4. This was the month I joined Reasons to be Cheerful for the first time. A great blog hop that helps to focus on the positive not dwell on the negative.

The high point of the month was appearing on BBC Radio Cumbria. Amazing where blogging can lead you! The low point of the month and indeed the whole year was the loss of my Granny at the age of 98. A much missed lady she will never be forgotten:

February

I have really tried to use this year to showcase my photographs. Not only through The Gallery and Silent Sunday posts but through stand alone posts such as this one from Bowness. I carried on my great relationship with Treasure Trails Cumbria with their fabulous murder mystery walks.

Karin started a Flashback Friday hop which I really enjoyed taking part in. This was the month I started reviewing iPhone apps with a debut from Peppa Pig. I did also manage a rant about the National Health Service. After signing up to the Become a Mumpreneur course I was quite happy to promote it.

#SilentSunday 24th April 2011

BBC Local Radio

The BBC have got to save £400 million due to funding cuts and are apparently looking to take the axe to most of the local radio output and replace it with 5 Live coverage for the majority of the day. Apparently as only 7.4 million people listen to local radio its an easy thing to cut.


Now I have to admit to only being a recent convert to BBC local radio following my appearance on BBC Radio Cumbria. In my late 20s and early 30s my car and home radios were almost always tuned to 5 Live as I enjoyed the mix of news and sport. Then I wanted to have some music so combined Radio 2 and local commercial radio with BBC local radio when my car picked it up on long car journeys.


When I moved to Cumbria in August 2010 I found that Radio 2 doesn't have a very good signal so re-tuned the car to a local commercial station. My home DAB radios were still stuck on Radio 2. Then I was called by BBC Radio Cumbria and re-tuned both car and home radios to listen in.


Since then I have come to really enjoy the mix of music, local news and everything else that comes with BBC Radio Cumbria. When I am home alone I have the kitchen radio on with the channel keeping me company. I don't want to listen to just talk, talk, talk like you get on 5 Live. The music and local information really keeps me listening. It is also the only place we get to hear about the local sports clubs such as Kendal Town FC.


If the BBC axe everything but breakfast and drive time shows produced locally with 5 Live coverage then they will be losing me as a regular listener. In counties like Cumbria we are so different from a lot of the country and we want to have shows that our about us and not London biased.


So vote with your radio dial and let the BBC know that local radio shouldn't be cut but is a vital service especially to areas far away from London!

Family Fun at Keswick, Cumbria

The lovely Sean at Treasure Trails Cumbria kindly let me try out another of his family trails to review on the blog so I selected the Keswick spy trail. This was a bit different from the Kendal murder mystery one we did last month. Instead of eliminating suspects and weapons we had to use clues around the town to crack a code. Once again I recruited some willing volunteers from the senior generation to assist in completing the trail and took the drive from Kendal to Keswick through a very murky and chilly Cumbria.

When we reached Keswick it was still quite early in the day and chilly so we decided to visit the Puzzling Place first in the hope that the weather would cheer up.

BBC Radio Cumbria - my radio debut!

When I started blogging 2 years ago I never expected to get a telephone call from a BBC local radio station asking me to read out some extracts on air! But that is exactly what happened back in December, when, out of the blue a lovely producer from BBC Radio Cumbria called and asked if I would like to do just that for the Little Cumbria slot on the Ian Timms' show. Having agreed to do so I then had to re-tune my radio to the right frequency to hear the kind of thing that was on the slot. Until then I had been listening to a local commercial radio station (my youngest thought we lived at Ken-dal Col-lege and that the place to shop was K K K K Village!) and I was glad to find a good BBC alternative.