My Joyful Things

I started Parcels of Joy as a way to pass on my excess baking, but the more parcels I make the more I find myself wanting to pick up things here and there to add to the parcels. I know most of the participants like books and lots of people have book wishlists in their sign ups, but the more I do the more I want to know about other things you like so I can add and make more little bits and bobs for people. I so love this project, and I love how circumstance seems to conspire to deliver parcels to people when they need them most. Because of the vastness of the world, a lot of my baking isn't practical to send abroad, particularly in certain months, and so for those participants outside of the UK especially I'd love to know a little more about what you like!

I'd love it if you'd write a blog post and let me have the link, or send me an email (either to keep private or to be published here if you don't have your own blog but want other participants to know a little more about you!) and I though I'd go first to give an idea of the kind of thing that I mean!

All About Me

Here goes... I'm an English and Creative Writing graduate specialising in fairytales and feminism (I did my dissertation on Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber) but I don't really write anymore,although I wish I did. I love baking and growing stuff in my garden, particularly fruit and veg. I dream of owning chickens and bees and think self - sufficiency is an excellent goal, although I'm not sure I could keep up the amount of work involved! I adore penguins, dolphins and think wildlife parks are excellent. I'm obsessed with Gilmore Girls, Friends, Grimm, and Smash and have just got Netflix, so I'd love recommendations of stuff to watch! I knit slightly obsessively but have a chronic problem with unfinished projects and basically live surrounded by bags of yarn. I own my own business making knitted stuff, although it's been stagnant for a while since I decided to stop making traditional toys due to all the safety hoops you have to jump through! I have two young sons and they love anything to do with water, sand or making a mess! They also love going for walks, exploring nature, the seaside (which we live near) and Duplo. We pretty much live at the library. Playgrounds are excellent, as is splashing in puddles. I like to lay in the grass and make grass angels. Whenever we've been out in the rain we have to have hot chocolate. We have about six different types in our cupboards. I have a giant window seat box full of board games, the best of which is probably the Ankh-Morpork board game. We collect different editions of Monopoly - my favourite that we own is Muppets Monopoly but we also have the Make Your Own one that we have yet to do. I love playing cards but always leave so long between doing it that I forget how to play things. We love having random adventures and often just get in the car and start driving with no idea where we're going. I love trying new foods and particularly stuff that's local to the place I'm visiting. I'm a total history geek and am so excited that we were given membership to English Heritage this year, which means we've been visiting allll the castles. I really love learning stuff about the world and get super excited when my kids do too! I play piano, although I don't get to practice much anymore, but we do have a piano and I wish I got to play more. I also play guitar and sing. I have a husband who loves football and is a classically trained singer. We both love the theatre, and musicals in particular and see as many as we can. I'm an ex-Londoner but love the countryside. Camping is fantastic and Devon is my spiritual home.

And now everyone knows everything they could possibly wish to about me, right?

If you do write your own 'get to know me' post then feel free to leave the link in the comments here or email it to me or add it to the shared spreadsheet! If you're not part of the project yet but want to be you can sign up here.