Keep arms out of the hands of children

I've been admittedly really lame the last month or two posting updates to my blog - just too much to do and not enough time as always! But today I got this email update about the Arms Trade Treaty from Amnesty and was moved to get on and post it onto my blog. 

It's really appalling that in some African states children are turned into soldiers and brutalised....what's even worse is that we're arming them. So please, if you hate the thought of arming an 8 year old boy as much as I do make a donation to their campaign, make a donation to my challenge (which will go straight to Amnesty now) or read up about it and sign up for campaign updates from them directly www.amnesty.org.uk.

Here's the campaign email going round:

This July, governments will draw up the world’s first ever Arms Trade Treaty. We must make sure it’s tough enough to disarm dictators, warlords and human rights abusers.  I recently wrote to you about this and if you have not already done so,please donate to our urgent campaign at http://www.amnesty.org.uk/content.asp?CategoryID=12286

If this Treaty includes what Amnesty is calling for, it will be the most important human rights victory of our generation.

• It will keep arms and ammunition out of the hands of brutal and repressive regimes. That means no guns and tanks for President Assad to kill and repress the Syrian people with.  

• It will stop guns pouring into conflict zones. So state forces and militia groups in Somalia will no longer be able to give AK-47s to 8-year-old children to make them fight and kill.

• It will mean no weapons can be sold to human rights abusers. Not to warlords whose fighters rape women at gunpoint. Not to security forces who carry out executions and ‘disappearances’. Not to torturers who use guns to intimidate, repress and torment.

I'm back!

I think I'm having deja vu here, seem to remember saying I was back once before then disappearing off the face of the earth again!

Anyway, this time I really mean it. I've had a lot of distractions over the month of April, mostly relating to work and restructures but I'm pleased to say that after much swatting I've now been offered a new job in a permanent position at work which is great news.

It hasn't all been work, work, work though I have had some fun - most recently organising a baby shower, or rather a 'Mum To Be Tea' for my big sister with the help of my little sister and my mum. It was really good fun and a lovely opportunity for my sister to get together with friends before the imminent arrival of my niece or nephew to enjoy some time together and get excited about the baby. The other great thing about it was, of course, for me the opportunity to do lots of baking for fun and feeding people!

Here are some photos of the event. The top one is of some extremely delicious pram-shaped cookies made by my very talented little sis Holly.

Long time no speak...

I've had what seems like a very long break from blogging and fundraising activity for a few weeks so I'm pleased to be back online and starting to focus my attention on the challenge again.

The main reason for my absence was that I've been going through a restructure at work lately and had to apply for a new job, but also because I've been moving home, or at least moving all my worldly posessions, yet again (5th time in 5 years!) and also doing quite a lot of catching up with relatives and friends. All these things have taken up a fair bit of energy and time so I've been a bit neglectful.

I haven't even reported back on Madras for Cash, Leighton Buzzard yet in fact! I'm very pleased to report that this raised £162.50 for the pot and a good night was had by all. The raffle was a particular success and although, disappointingly, I didn't get a single prize out of local businesses (big boo) I did manage to cobble together some things I'd already begged, borrowed or bought myself so that my curry-eaters can now go forth and paintball, shop and drink wine to their heart's content. So a big thanks to everyone for coming (don't worry, I do have some manners and did thank them in the immediate aftermath, rather than wait 10 more days to announce my gratitude on here).

Onwards with my plans, speak soon!

Emily

Cookie Monster cupcakes!

As the challenge goes on I am starting to test out more and more cupcake experiments and last weekend I spent some making my first batch of Cookie Monster cupcakes. At the risk of sounding extremely arrogant I think you'll probably agree the finished product looks quite good!

They went down very well at work, along with some banoffee cupcakes I made with over-ripe bananas. I made a little salted caramel sauce to drizzle over the top and I have to admit I couldn't resist eating one myself, even though I'm trying to focus on fattening other people up for cash, rather than myself!

Last night I also made a large commission for mummy dearest to take into work. Her team are going through a really rough time at the moment and I think she wanted to cheer them up. It was fun to have an open brief so I experimented with lots of different decorations. Here are the finished products, happy viewing!

Chatting with my girl crush Nigella...just another day...

Very exciting news peeps: yesterday I got the chance to speak directly with none other than my heroine, girl crush and general demi-god Nigella Lawson online. I'd love to say it was because she heard about my charity challenge and thought she'd get in touch to give me a big virtual pat on the back, but the truth is slightly more dull than that. She was taking part in a web chat on Red magazine's website.

I was a bit flummoxed as to what to ask her - mainly because like the totally uncool person that I am the only thing I could really think to say was something like 'Omigod you're amazing I love you Nigella'. I thought she probably gets a lot of that though, so best to go for something original. Just before she appeared online I was chatting to some colleagues about a low back dress/bra dilemma I was having. In the course of the conversation it occurred to us that Nigella is quite a buxom lady so first I asked her for a recommendation....no response. Perhaps she felt that was a bit personal :-/

So next I told her about my charity challenge and asked her if she would be willing to donate a recipe to me or give me a twist on one of her originals that I could market as Nigella's own endorsement of my project. I guess she's saving all those kitchen secrets for another book though - why the hell would she divulge such a thing to little old me? All the same, I feel that I did my duty to the challenge by trying to shoe-horn it in there somehow and get some celeb backing...and I put it in twice just to prove my extra ballsy-approach!

Finally, as a foodie in genuine awe of her eating ability, I asked her if she really does ever cook the same thing twice as I'm genuinely intrigued as to how, in the same period of time I've managed to cook perhaps 30 or 40 of her recipes and others', she could have invented, written, tried and tested hundreds more many times, perfecting them along the way.

Finally she replied that yes indeed she does and that actually she not only eats the same thing for lunch or supper on a Sunday, she has the same breakfast ever day.

Call me a stalker but I think by that she means a boiled egg with Poilane soldiers. Ok, I think I'm edging dangerously close to the borderline between sane and crazy now so I'm going to sign off!

Hitting the 25% fundraising milestone through the medium of cake

When I signed up to this challenge I never expected for so much of my sponsorship money to be raised through cakes, but that's what's proving most popular! So cakes are fast becoming the backbone of this operation, so much so I've been getting a lot of encouragement from friends and colleagues to set myself up in business. I'm pretty sure it won't pay as well as press & parliamentary work, but I admit I haven't tired of baking yet and we are going through a restructure at work, so I may well do that!

So after last week's bake sale I hit an important milestone - 25% of my target raised to date! I'm really, really pleased with my progress as that's bang on target for where I wanted to be and based on hardly any just straightforward donations.

So to celebrate the 25% mark I thought I'd share some more photos of my recent bakes I've undertaken for commissions and work sales. I think my personal favourite is the Oreo cupcake, or maybe the brownies, or the macaroons......

Maiden voyage

As the title of this post suggests I have finally made it out on my bike for a my first practice run....although that is somewhat overstating the case considering that I actually only rode for 50 minutes, not the 8 hours I'm going to need to do in India each day! The weather was so beautiful yesterday that I decided to take my bike, Missy, out for a ride along the canal in Linslade up to the Three Locks in Stoke Hammond. The whole return trip, which I reckon is about 6.5 miles, took me about 50 mins to do at a fairly gentle pace. I couldn't go any faster if I wanted to because the speed limit set by British Waterways is 10mph! Anyway, I must say it was very pleasant and testing enough on the thighs for my first jaunt. I had to tackle two major hills in the course of my route which was pretty painful! The things I have learnt from my first trip are:

- I need a bell to deal with the proliferation of canalside walkers with tunnel vision / complete lack of awareness of other human beings
- I need to remember to put my gel saddle on my bike, as I now have one hell of a bruised bum!
- Cycle gloves aren't just a uniform for cycling fanatics to signal their belonging to others of a similar bent, they'd actually be quite useful to avoid blistering the heel of my hands.

Here is a deeply unflattering photo of me on my bike about to set off for your amusement.