The Gallery ... a pic I am proud of

The theme for this week's Gallery is... A photo I am proud of.

I'm cheating a little bit here cause I have already featured this picture over on my photo a day blog. But I have to say I love it - I think it's simply the best photograph I have ever taken.

But then I really love this pic that I took at the top of The Empire State Building on a day out with the very talented Jay. which one do you prefer?

Blogladesh, 8 days and counting

I don't think that anyone involved with our trip will disagree when I say that this has been a pretty out there week. 

We were confident that our trip would be supported by our community but as each day passed we have continued to be blown away by the level of support we have received.

My week began with an (early) interview on BBC Radio Leicester, followed by this...
and then this.....

Since then we have clocked up thousands of tweets, re tweets and mentions of our #Blogladesh hashtag. We trended. We all got very excited. We've had top notch social media celebs including Stephen Fry and the rather lovely Richard Bacon showing their support and not to mention the totally amazing support that we've had from one very special friend and fellow blogger @cosmicgirlie - cause we wouldn't have come this far without her.

Our aim is not to raise money. We are simply asking for your support in raising awareness of the issues that mothers in Bangladesh have to face every day of their lives. Their decisions are not like ours because we have been lucky enough not to have been born into poverty. We don't have to worry about finding enough money to feed our families, or how we are going treat a simple tummy bug. But for the women that we are going to meet these are life or death decisions - and we can help.

Nick Clegg is attending the UN summit in New York at the end of September and our aim is to present him with a 100,000 strong petition in support of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG's) that were set by UN leaders ten years ago. The MDG's are simple really, to reduce hunger, poverty and disease. 

We have till 2015 to meet these goals but in order to get there continued support from UN countries around the world is needed.

And this is how you can help. 

Please, please sign our petition. It's a Facebook app - so if you're not on Facebook please sign up so that you can help. 

If you are a social media geek you can also help by adding our Twibbon to your Twitter and Facebook avitars. 

You can add our Blogladesh support badge to your site. You will find the code here.

You can blog about our trip, but please do add your post to our linky here.

You can follow us on twitter, @porridgebrain @nixdminx @mummytips

Please, please follow our blogs. This is where all of the action will be taking place when we are away. Josie is at Sleep is for the Weak, Eva is at Nixdminx and well you are here, so you know where I am. We also have another very special lady with us in Bangladesh and that is Liz Scarff. She's the mastermind behind our trip and she's a totally awesome photographer who is going to keep us all on our toes. You can follow things from her side on her blog at Liz Scarff and on Twitter @Lizscarff.

I know that lots of you on Twitter have said that we don't need to keep thanking you - but we do because you people, our friends are the ones driving this campaign and we are eternally grateful. I'll leave you with these drawings that my girls have been busy doing all week. I have a huge pile of them. It's their way of giving.

xx

The Gallery.... Memories

I don't know about the rest of you but Tara's holiday last week really threw me. I've come to set my week around her weekly gallery theme and I've been all out of sorts without it.
This weeks theme is Memory.
For those of you who are new to this please stop by Tara's blog for more info.
Memory is such a vast theme that I've had a little trouble choosing my pics... until I read Tara's post on Mothers Guilt last night.

Memory
For a long time there was No1 son and me but I was ill. I was suffering with PND so bad that I nearly didn't live to tell the tale. My actions very nearly left my totally perfect little boy without a mother. That is something that I have lived with for the last sixteen years of my life and a feeling that will never go away.
Things worked out kind of OK. I got better (mentally) and went on to marry the most amazing man and have three more beautiful amazing children.
They know of my past. We don't hide things in our family. They are very aware that they very nearly never came to be and that hurts me too.

This picture isn't great, I've attempted to Photoshop it better but it's more than a little dog eared due to the fact that I clung to it for the whole six months I spent recovering in hospital.
His chubby cheeks, tubby toddler belly and the sheer love in his eyes for me teamed with the love in my eyes for him - is what got me here today.

#Blogladesh on the BBC

I've had lots of messages today asking about my interview on BBC Radio Leicester this morning. So here it is!

Bringing Our trip to life

Bringing #Blogladesh to life. Please follow our blogs and our Twitter streams.
Josie, Sleep is for the Weak on twitter @porridgebrain
Eva, Nixdminx  on twitter @nixdminx
Me, follow this blog and on Twitter @mummytips
Every re tweet, badge download or mention helps.