The Knackered Mother’s Wine Club and Instagram Bake-Off and -3 temperatures with winds of 30 mph!

*coughs* Ok so I feel a bit better now thank goodness. Can you believe I have been too ill to blog? Weirdly not blogging feels like letting a side down.  But I am back in the room,so to speak and I’ve got a few things to catch up on so I thought I’d condense them into one post.  I promise not to cough directly over any of you so you are all quite safe I promise. Righty ho *cracks knuckles* …

I’m start off with one of my favourite topics next. Booze. In particular wine!

I’ve been having a great time reading fellow blogger’s Knackered Mother’s Wine Club‘s new book and it has already revoloutionsed how I look at buying wine particularly how much I pay for wine – I’m not going to tell, get the book, you can’t miss it, it’s gorgeous outside and brilliant inside and funny to boot. Trust me on this, it’s a gem and although I’m not a doctor  I am a woman who generally chooses wine on a. the prettiness of the label, b. the price and c. the alcoholic content, so to the change the way I look at things is not to be sniffed at!

The jolly good egg Helen from Knackered Mother’s Wine Club and @Tescowines are holding a Twitter Q and A tonight from 8pm – 9pm. Now I know, I know - I don’t ‘do’ Twitter parties but fear not , this isn’t one. Oh no this is a Twitter Q and A, about vino! Simply tweet your wine related question and pinkies crossed Helen will help solve your wine queries. The hashtag to follow is #knackeredmothers!

Helen’s book The Knackered Mother’s Wine Club is available to buy now, RRP £12.99 and I spy it’s available on Amazon at the mo for £8.44 with free super saver delivery. The motto of the book? Life’s too short to drink bad wine. Amen to that sista!

Zoe from Tricky Customer is having an Instagram Bakeoff for her son Sam. Sam has ARX, Aristaless Related Homeobox – you can read exactly what ARX is on her ‘Sam’s condition‘ page but in short it means that her son has global development delay. At over a year old he is still very much a little baby and has made no development progress. He cannot support his own neck or head. He has several seizures every day and the number of these can range, depending on whether we are having a good day, from five a day to 15.He has poor swallow co-ordination (despite swallowing his own saliva, never having needed suction and not drooling) so takes no food orally and is instead fed through a gastrostomy button on his stomach. (apologies now for the copying and pasting of that info. from Sam’s page but I feel it’s important to get across the impact that it has on this little boys life and Zoe puts it best).

You can read all about Sam’s Instagram Bake-Off here but know this – it involves baking cake, snapping cake, uploading that to instagram and hopefully donating. Zoe’s post Seizures suck really does one stop and think about how baking and getting involved really can help.

It’s only a few more days until some of TeamHonk climb Snowdon, 17 of us to be precise . I even acquired a pair of waterproof trousers, walking boots, jacket and a hat today. It all got very sensible but I reigned back the fun with the hat, which may say age 11-13 yrs inside but fits my head. Hang on – does that mean I have the brain of an 11 year old? Whatevs – we all know that kidz are smarter these days. Erm yes. anyway. A hat. And we are all wearing lacey red knickers (even the men) on top of our trousers thanks to Becky from Who Made Your Pants? , a Southampton social business that makes gorgeous, ethical pants and supports women, and has in the past been partly funded by Comic relief so it’s a full circle of love going on.

Not to freak anyone out but Gemma tells us:

“Up the mountain visibility is poor and for the past few days there have winds of 25 mph, today it’s winds 30 mph and minus 3.

My phone weather is predicting -1 feels like -8 in llanberis on Saturday – up the mountain will be much colder.

Apparently, it’s supposed to get warmer through the week but it will be cold in cloud and the snow on the mountain will be mostly ice.“

Eeep! excitement and nerves in equal measures. Steph admits she may pack a thermos and I admit that I have 3 hip flasks that may be filled with ‘ice melting solution’ *wink wink nudge nudge* We are all feeling a tad ‘eeeeek!’ at the prospect of such cold conditions and I know you already know but just in case I have softened you up with talk of ice and cold and so on you can sponsor anyone in the team for the Snowdon climb here.

Highly recommended to visit this week is the Red Nose Day Dolls blog. The Red Nose Day Dolls are beautifully handmade felt dolls and accessories being hand made by a small band of exceptionally talented crafty folk. These dolls will then be sold on the official Red Nose Day Ebay site to raise funds for Comic Relief. Read about how it all started here and if you are feeling the love today follow them on Twitter – these are super people @rednosedaydolls