Blog Archives
Counting down to Christmas
I was hoping to be writing today as one proud Mummy beaming at her daughter’s first ballet show but a vomiting and diarrhoea bug put paid to that so instead we move onto the festive season.
For me December 1st marks the start of this, where we clamber in the loft for the Christmas box and deck the halls (can it really be a year since we last did this?). I usually make the unspoken promise to myself that no Christmas songs will come out of my mouth until this day but as we were driving along with ‘Do they know it’s Christmas time’ blaring out of the radio last weekend, my lips felt a distinct tingle and I couldn’t help the notes that bellowed out (those that know me, know I can’t sing).
Anyway I digress. I had intended to avoid buying chocolate advent calendars for the children this year, as we do have a fabric Father Christmas stocking come advent calendar, where we could put our own treats in each pocket. When Andy pointed out that doing this times two would cost more than two chocolate advent calendars, particularly from Poundland, I bowed into pressure and made what I considered at the time a necessary purchase. If only today’s post on Wokingham Gossip Girls had come a week earlier. One of the gals was asking for suggestions for a note for each day with Christmassy things to do for the children. One lady said that there are some great ideas on Pinterest which I have recently started using (I fear another time suck), so inspired, I logged in and have come up with the following notes that the children will hopefully enjoy ‘reading’ (neither can read yet at Age 4 & 1). Perhaps this will become a new Popple Christmas tradition.
‘I Did It Mummy’ fundraising for BIBS – https://www.justgiving.com/IDidItMummy
136 sellers, 445 shoppers and £4.5k raised for the NCT
Back in July when I jointly agreed to run the NCT Wokingham Nearly New Sale with a good friend, I had no idea quite what I had let myself in for. My good friend had offered to co-run the sale prior to going back to work but a high profile promotion later and I was pretty much flying solo. This was going to be a baptism of fire.
So I set about doing what I do best, getting organised and getting the job done. I started by contacting a veteran of NCT Nearly New Sales who had organised four previous sales and met with her to get down to the nitty gritty. It’s fair to say by the end of this meeting, I was pretty overwhelmed with the sheer enormity of the task ahead. I’m a natural born worrywart and the only way I can curb my anxiety is to pro-actively do something about whatever is concerning me. This meant taking control so I armed myself with my master document, detailing all the tasks that needed doing, by whom and when. If it wasn’t on the list, then it wasn’t getting done.
When people ask what I do, I usually say that I don’t work at the moment and am a Stay-at-home-Mum who dabbles in various things, the NCT, being one of those things. If organising an NCT Nearly New Sale isn’t work, then I don’t know what is, albeit it is voluntary work, i.e. no pay cheque at the end of the day!
Heading up a team of volunteers is a very different challenge to heading up a project team at work. At work, there are roles and responsibilities which come with accountability. At work you can hold weekly face-to-face meetings , check on progress, set expectations and delegate. In the volunteer sector, there is no such thing as delegation, you can ask for help and pray that the job gets done.
I was fortunate that there was already a core team in place – I certainly couldn’t have done this without our Volunteers Coordinator, Seller Registration Coordinator, Till Coordinator, Treasurer, PR Coordinator, Café Coordinator, ‘Costco’ Coordinator (who got all our supplies!), not to mention the 40 plus volunteers who helped out on the day and 3 husbands (including mine) who were in charge of parking and queue management. To top it off, we had a great site manager who made sure that all our needs were met and my good friend was invaluable on the weekend of the sale, helping to set up and cart equipment about.
So the results are now in (drum roll please…) and the sale was an overwhelming success – 136 sellers, 445 shoppers and £4.5k raised for the NCT and I made £80 as a seller – not bad for a first time NCT Nearly New Sale Coordinator!
‘I Did It Mummy’ fundraising for BIBS – https://www.justgiving.com/IDidItMummy
First steps
I have thought for a few weeks that I have spotted the odd solo step by young Master Popple out of my peripheral vision but wasn’t totally convinced until the other day when he did this…
It has only taken him 15 months but he’s done it and he’s jolly pleased with himself too! Now where did I put those reins?
‘I Did It Mummy’ fundraising for BIBS – https://www.justgiving.com/IDidItMummy
Halloween Pumpkin Carving
Until today I’m slightly ashamed to say I didn’t actually know why we celebrate Halloween but thanks to Wikipedia, I can now consider myself informed. For anyone else who is also in the dark about this spooky celebration, here are the details – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween
When I was a kid we never carved a pumpkin, never mind dressing up and being let out to go trick or treating…ahhh, I hear you cry! Ok, we were in no way deprived (not in the real sense of the word) but all Halloween used to mean to me was eating all the leftover sweets and hey that wasn’t such a bad thing!
This generation of Collins-Popples get the whole Halloween treatment and this year I actually carved my first Pumpkin and my second too!
Next year I may even work out what to do with the contents of the pumpkin, other than throw it out – anyone have any good recipes?
‘I Did It Mummy’ fundraising for BIBS – https://www.justgiving.com/IDidItMummy
Just call me Miss Marple
Murder mysteries have always been right up my street. Thanks to my early exposure to Miss Marple and Inspector Morse (there were no parental TV controls in our house), around the age of 8, I was pretty convinced that I was going to be either a forensic scientist, inspector or hairdresser (okay the hairdresser is a little random). In fact, when asked to come to school as my favourite character from a book, I transformed myself into Miss Marple by donning an old, flowery blouse, a grey skirt that sat just below the knee and my mother’s beach hat. I even sprinkled a little talc in my hair to make it appear grey for extra authenticity. It wasn’t long before I realised that blood and gore wasn’t really my thing but when I was recently invited to a 1920’s murder mystery evening to celebrate my Aunt and her friend’s 60th, my little notepad was twitching at the prospect. This was my chance to be the super sleuth I had always dreamt of.
The evening started with a few casual drinks and mingling but it wasn’t long before the actors were circulating amongst the guests and Colonel Charles Colman was introducing his downtrodden wife, Mrs Blanche Colman to us. Before dinner, a murder would take place and we had to determine who had performed the murder and more importantly who had planned the murder. After dinner there was time for cross-examination of all the suspects which is where as an amateur sleuth in the making, I should have taken centre-stage but instead followed Andy round like a lap dog while he asked ‘where were you at the time of the murder?’ and ‘why were you carrying a pistol bullet?’. Andy always fancied himself as an MI5 agent (Andrei Popplovski would have been his spy name) which I guess trumps amateur sleuth. Anyway we reconvened at the table and compared notes with our team. The murderer was fairly obvious but who had planned the murder? There was one important clue we were given and that was ‘it will be impossible for the person who planned the murder to lie to you’. Admittedly it took a while for me to twig but I (there is no ‘I’ in the word ‘TEAM’ Andy!) worked out that in order for it to be impossible for the person who planned the murder to lie, that person must be…dum dum dummmmm…dead! So just call me Miss Marple!
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- The cast
‘I Did It Mummy’ fundraising for BIBS – https://www.justgiving.com/IDidItMummy
I Did It Mummy 