Celebrating 50 Years of Volunteering With The CSV
I often blog about charities as I’m in a position as a blogger and frequent social media user to highlight various campaigns and spread awareness.I was e-mailed last week to highlight the importance of volunteers by a charity called CSV who are running a campaign called ‘Volunteer Champions’ where they have a nifty timeline from the past 50 years of volunteering.
My mum has been working as a volunteer at a local hospital for a couple of years since she retired.She works as an admin assistant in the X-Ray department.I myself was a breastfeeding peer supporter for 5 years from when Cat was 8 months old until her younger sister Mouse was 3 and a 1/2 years old, helping out at a local breastfeeding group and a local birthing centre.As I’m still unemployed after almost two years of my work from home job falling through due to the recession, I’m considering going back to volunteering.The CSV by the end of this campaign in June hope to inspire some new people to volunteer.If you want to find out more about how to become a volunteer on the CSV website.
Being a volunteer can mean giving up your time to share your skills, spend time with those with disabilities, homeless, isolated and vulnerable.You could get involved in a local environmental group, reading to children at a school or become a mentor to someone.
You can also learn new skill by becoming a volunteer which could improve your CV when seeking employment.The CSV provides training at a number of training centres around the country.
The CSV have teamed up with Catherine Flood of the V&A to run a poster design competition celebrating the potential of young people. You can find out more on the competition page.
You can find CSV on Facebook or Twitter.
So if the late and great Ian Drury can become a volunteer, so could you.
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Closer To Nature- Peacock Butterfly
After a long break Jayne of Mum’s The Word is back with her Closer To Nature linky.She has some gorgeous pictures of Robins nesting in her garden shed.I’m impressed with her innovative egg box feeders.
As we don’t have a garden we have to rely on going out and finding animals etc.Or we have to wait for them to come to us, as we found a couple of weeks a go when we went to play Crazy Golf on the May Day Bank Holiday Monday.Half way round Cat had a beautiful Peacock butterfly land on her head.The Crazy Golf course is next a large park land, meadow and river so it has many species of butterflies in the surrounding area.this was the best of the photos I took as Cat decided to stroke the Peacock butterfly so it flew off before I could get a better close up.
According to the website UK Butterflies, The Peacock is a familiar sight in gardens across the British Isles and is unmistakable, with quite spectacular eyes on the upperside of the hindwings that give this butterfly its name. These eyes must appear very threatening to predators, such as mice, that confront this butterfly head-on, where the body forming a “beak”.
Have you come in contact with a wild bird, animal or insect? Or perhaps you’ve seen some beautiful wild flowers in a wood near you.Do pop over to Jayne’s to join and share your posts.
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Crock Pot® Rice Cooker Review
Last year I reviewed a slow cooker for Crock Pot® and I’ve been fortunate enough to be given a Crock Pot® rice cooker to review.I wanted to try out the rice cooker at least 3 times before writing the review but during kitchen reorganisation I lost the instructions.It wasn’t until yesterday that I thought to look online and hey presto! I found the Crock Pot® rice cooker instructions .
I have only used basic cheap rice as opposed to the usual brown rice we usually eat, so I’m not sure if that has an effect on the result.As I 1kg of basics rice to use up, I’m not going to test it with brown rice at this time.When I do I will come back and update my review.
The Crock Pot® rice cooker consists of a main heating body, an inner pot for cooking rice, a steaming tray for cooking vegetables, a measuring jug and and a paddle.It’s incredibly small so it sits nicely on the kitchen work top without getting in the way.I found the rice a little too sticky for me and wasn’t fluffy at all but it was cooked so not at all inedible.As I used a basics rice I think I probably needed to wash the starch off first before cooking.As well as plain rice I made rice using a stock cube, which I think would of worked better with a better quality rice.Again cooked and tasted nice.I’ve cooked a number of vegetables, carrots, cabbage, cauliflower, purple sprouting and sweetcorn.
The benefits of having the rice cooker means I don’t have to stand and watch it.I have avoided the the water boiling over or rice catching the on the bottom of the pan or worse burning the rice.There are a couple of things I didn’t like, the lack of handles on the inner pot and I would like there to be a buzzing sound when the 15 minutes are up.All in all I like the product and its become a handy little kitchen gadget.It’s available for around £20 which I think is quite reasonable.
Disclaimer:
I was given this Crock Pot® rice cooker in exchange for a review.
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World Of Beard- Hugh Jackman
I know, I know I haven’t posted anything since last week’s World of Beard.A family party, helping Kip revise for his stats, a whole day following Annie’s latest Word Press Hack and Dream Host admin attack (I couldn’t access my blog for a day) and everything that comes with having 3 kids on your own has delayed me some what.Pulling my socks up today to get some other posts out before the weekend.
So this week we have 45 year old Hugh Jackman.So rating his beard, if you think he should keep it then comment with grow, if you think it’s rubbish then comment with mow.
Oh and thanks to Damien for sending me this link about how awesome beards are .He has just started up a new vegetarian foodie blog called Tasty Veg.
And Annie gave me KRED.
I gave @plus2point4 +Kred in beardy wierdy love community influence kred.com/?pkid=954278
— mammasaurus.co.uk (@MammasaurusBlog) May 16, 2013
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