When is a child not a child?

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When is a child not a child? When they go out for a meal, go on holiday or visit an event or tourist attraction apparently! As a parent of 12 and 14 year old children, this REALLY annoys me.

These money-grabbing companies have decided that childhood should end somewhere between 8 and 16 (and usually at 12 for some reason)...but strangely, our adult-children get no extra perks except for having the privilege of paying a higher price than their infant equivalents; indeed, most of these companies also state that children under 16 or 18 must be accompanied by an adult. If they'e paying an adult price, surely they should count as an adult?

Kids' meals
These seem to have the widest variation in age restrictions, with some restaurants even deciding on eligibility for kids' meals by height, which is hardly fair! 

I've always tended to ignore these age requirements and if my girls want a kids' meal, I order them one, however some places are stricter about this than others. Take Disney for example - in the magical world of Disney dining, childhood officially ends at just 10 years of age! This actually worked to our advantage when we were there, as we got free dining, so then 10 year old Miss Kahonie qualified for adults' meals, which had better menu choices for vegetarians. Those with fussy eaters may well want to order from the kids' menu though. This is possible, but only if you've paid for an adult meal! Surely parents should be able to choose whether their child eats from the kids' or adults' menu and pay accordingly? 

It would also be nice to be able to order a smaller or half portion from the adults' menu, especially for tweens and young teens. Some Indian and Italian restaurants offer this option, but this still seems a rarity in the UK. 

Theme parks, tourist attractions and museums
Most UK theme parks seem to have come to the agreement that childhood ends at 12, whereas major tourist attractions and museums (with an entry fee) seem to prefer to end childhood at 14 or 16.

The exceptions to this are of course the US theme parks, including Disney and Universal Studios, where childhood again ends at the tender age of 10. Even though you'll have to pay full price for your 10 year old, they won't be able to go on all the rides, as these have height restrictions.

Holidays and flights
12 seems to be the general cut off for most airlines and budget tour operators, whereas 16 seems to be the cut off for most major travel agents. Do 13 year olds, suddenly take up more space on a plane?

I would like to see a national age limit of 16 or 18 (if still in full time education) set for child prices in the UK. Of course most 16 year olds won't want a kids' meal, but they should certainly be charged a child's rate when visiting tourist attractions - after all, it's us parents who pay for them to get in! 

So there you go. Rant over for now.

Do let me know the most outrageous and annoying kids' age restrictions you've come across, by leaving me a comment.

Just in case you were wondering when childhood officially ends, here's the  NSPCC's Legal definition of a child'.

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Veggie news and a special offer

I thought I'd post a couple of things which may interest you, if you live in the UK...

National Vegetarian Week runs from the 20th-26th May '13. This year, the theme is Going Veggie – it’s not rocket science, it’s surprisingly simple! so there are lots of  tasty recipes, tips, ideas and events for existing, novice and wanna-be vegetarians. It's also worth taking a look at the but what do veggies eat? gallery with hundreds of everyday food photos, all created by ordinary vegetarians (including me!).

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The V Delicious Veggie Good Food Show  is taking place at London’s Olympia, 7th-9th June '13 . The organisers have kindly offered  free printable tickets to all We Don't Eat Anything With A Face readers, saving you between £7.50 and £10 per person; not bad eh?

V Delicious will be a fantastic event, filled with vegetarian, vegan, ethical living and free-from stalls, product samples, cooking demonstrations, seminars, yoga and much more. The show opening times are as follows: Fri 7 Jun (10am-5pm), Sat 8 Jun (10am-5pm) and Sun 9 Jun (10am-4pm).

Integrity Statement
I did not receive any payment or incentives to promote these events.

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Walkers to add real meat flavourings to their crisps!

News Flash!
According to the Vegetarian Society, from the beginning of February 2013 Walkers Smoky Bacon and Roast Chicken crisps will no longer be suitable for vegetarians as they will contain real meat flavourings.

Walkers have confirmed this on their Facebook page "...As part of our homegrown range, we are indeed making the move to make our crisps more authentic, and the Smoky Bacon and Roast Chicken flavours will now contain real, farm reared 100% British meat."

This is a real shame as they are obviously well aware of their vegetarian customers' needs, after changing the ingredients of their cheese and onion crisps some time ago (to include vegetarian cheese powder). Whether this is simply a publicity stunt planned by their marketing department to cause public outcry, or whether Walkers think this change in ingredients will increase their profits, I will certainly be contacting them to let them know how I feel, and urge you to do the same.

To contact Walkers about this issue, please phone their consumer careline on 0800 274777, email consumer@walkers.co.uk or write to:

Consumer Services Department

Walkers Snack Foods
FREEPOST LE4 918
Leicester
LE4 5ZY

You can also make your point on their Facebook page and on Twitter.

Read the full story here.

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Resolutions and Revelations

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Happy New Year! As usual, my first post of the new year requires a look back at my resolutions post from last year to see how well I've done. 

My main resolution last year was to do more gardening and improve on my fruit/vegetable/herb patches, so that we would have some of our own fresh produce to eat. Unfortunately, with the appalling weather we had in the UK last year, I failed miserably on this resolution! Seriously, we had enough rain to float the ark, so the only crop I managed to raise successfully was one of slugs and snails! Even my normally productive apple trees only managed to produce a handful of apples between them.

This year, I want to try again (weather permitting), so I'm hoping get outside more and make a raised bed this year, to see if that helps with drainage and disease issues. 

One other thing I want to do this year, is to reduce my reliance on plastic carrier bags. I generally carry one re-usable bag around with me in my handbag, but sometimes that just isn't enough! I reckon I need to keep a couple more in the boot of my car, so they are at hand if needed. I would love it if more shops could be pro-active on this issue too. Some stores train their staff to ask if you need a carrier bag (or even charge for them), but many assume that customers want one for even the smallest item, and some assistants almost seem offended when I turn their carrier bag down!

Blog-wise, I'm determined to focus a bit more on vegetarian and vegan news, issues and product reviews. I have been very flattered to receive so many product review requests over the past year, but this year, I will try to be a little more selective in the ones I feature (unless they involve chocolate, of course!).

Finally, I'll leave you with a little update on the charity I've been supporting over the past year. Deki provides micro-loans and training to people living in poverty (in Malawi, Togo, Ghana and Nepal), so that they can create sustainable livelihoods. So far, I have lent to 5 different people and had £47 re-paid to my account, which I have then re-invested and lent to other budding entrepreneurs. If you would like to join me in helping others this year, I'd love to to join my Bloggers United Team at Deki. You don't have to be a blogger, just someone who would like to make a difference. By making a loan on behalf of the team, you will boost the team’s loan total but repayments will be made to your personal account. Find out more about team lending here.

The minimum investment is £10 and Deki charge no interest and take no commission from loans. Deki rely solely on donations to cover running costs and enable us to continue connecting entrepreneurs and investors around the world. We use carefully-vetted field partners to pass on loans to borrowers in their local currency. Field partners pass on minimal interest rates to help cover running costs and ensure sustainability. Rates are monitored to ensure they are fair and affordable.

Thanks for reading...I'd love to hear what your resolutions and aspirations are this year, so do drop me a comment below. 

Read more blogging resolutions over at Tots100.

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My second blogoversary

Well, it's that time of year again. My blog is almost 2 years old, and to celebrate, I'll be hosting not one but two fab foodie give-aways this week. It'll be my first attempt at using Rafflecopter, so do bear with me and let me know if you find it doesn't work!

This year, other than my usual recipe and review posts, I linked up with a charity called Deki, and loaned some money to a woman called Leontine from Togo, who wanted a loan to expand her food stall business. Her loan was fully funded and the great news is that she has already paid back £130 of the £390 she borrowed. 

One last thing I must just mention...This year, I was very excited to find my blog mentioned on Red Online as one of their best vegetarian food blogs (alongside Ellen!). Not bad for some one who wondered if anyone would read her blog when she first started blogging.

Thanks for all the likes, follows, tweets, comments and competition entries over the past year...I really do appreciate them. Keep a look out for my next give-away and remember that you've got to be in it to win it!  Pin It

Farewell and bon voyage!

image from istockphoto

This is a sad post for me to write. I'm about to lose one of my oldest and closest friends (I'll call her Scarlet as I think she'd like that!), as she's emigrating with her family to Australia today. Well, I suppose I'm not really going to lose her as we'll be in regular contact thanks to the modern wonders of Skype and Facebook, but that's how it feels. 

Scarlet and I met at uni many years ago and soon realised we both had a similar outlook on life and taste in music (and luckily not a similar taste in men!). 

During our uni days, we passed many a happy hour at the student union when we probably should have been studying at the library or writing assignments, and while other friends moved on to pastures new, we remained living in the same town after we graduated. Our lives changed quite drastically over the years, but we were there for each other through the highs and the lows. 

We often moaned about our jobs and gossiped about our respective work colleagues, either over the phone or over a cup of tea and a piece of cake. She was a bridesmaid at my wedding and my girls were bridesmaids at hers; we celebrated our 30th birthdays together and commiserated when we hit 40! 

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I'm not sure if she's ever read my blog (she knows I write one, but I haven't told her what it's called!), but if you do, Scarlet, I'm really going to miss you and my girls will miss your children just as much.

To make this post slightly food-related and slightly less self-indulgent, here's a photo of the Bon Voyage cake I made for Scarlet and her family!

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Why?

Wendy from Inside the Wendy House has tagged me in this meme about the eternal question "Why?"

When my children were little and going through their inquisitive, cute toddler phase, the question "Why?" was generally met with a nice little explanation. I remember Miss Ony asking me "Why did dinosaurs become extinct?" so I explained how there were different theories, but it was probably because the climate changed in some way, maybe due to a meteorite hitting earth. 
You can see how patient I was back in those days!

Now, the question "Why?" is often met with  a terse "Because I said so!" and generally follows a question about bed time, money, clothes, tidying bedrooms, dying hair or piercing ears! 

There are many why questions I have myself though and here are just a few of them...

• Why do my kids find Disney channel repeats so entertaining?
• Why can't anyone else in my family change a toilet roll?
• Why is there so much sport on TV and why does Mr O have to watch it all?
• Why do my kids text and Facebook their friends instead of talking to them on the phone?
• Why are so many mums obsessed about the size of their ironing pile?
• Why does it rain every time we go camping?
• Why do people buy ready meals/processed foods and then complain how expensive their shopping bills are?
• Why do tall people always sit/stand directly in front of me at the cinema, gigs etc?
• Why do I talk back to the self-serve checkouts at the supermarket?
• Why do people always ask me if I eat fish after I've told them I'm vegetarian?

I could keep going for some time, but why don't you tell me your whys instead?

• What are your whys? Post as few or as many as you like.
• Link up your post to Mummy Central, and it would be great if you could leave a comment too.
• Tag 5 bloggers to keep this going.
• If you’re not a blogger, leave your whys as a comment below. I'd love to read them.
• Show your support by reading a few others and commenting on them.

I'm tagging Aly from Plus 2.4, Clare from The Vegetarian Experience, Mandy from Mummy on the Edge Mrs M from At Home with Mrs M and Mrs Average from Observations of Mrs Average...if you haven't been tagged, please feel free to join in anyway.

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My kitchen disaster

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It's strange how you become attached to inanimate objects isn't it? Take my favourite Kitchen Devils knife for example...it could slice, it could chop and it could cut. Now, you may think that most sharp knives can do all three things, (surely that's what knives are designed to do?) but no! I have a selection of about ten different sharp knives...some big, some small and some medium-sized. They are all useful for different jobs, but only my favourite Kitchen Devils knife could do everything.

That was until the day I dropped my beloved knife down the back of the cooker! I'm not quite sure how it happened, but within a blink of the eye it was gone...lost forever! Unfortunately the cooker was pretty much wedged in-between my kitchen units and I couldn't manage to shift it to recover my knife.

I looked for and bought a replacement, but the latest model wasn't quite the same and seemed to slice at an angle.

Well, they say bad luck comes in threes. First my knife disappeared into the back-of-the-oven-abyss. Next my faithful food processor died, and finally my cooker gave up the ghost. The thermostat blew for the third time, and the cooker repair man advised me that it would be safer to get a new cooker than keep replacing the thermostat.

I chose my new cooker and got it delivered a couple of days later. As the cooker delivery man pulled out the old cooker and disconnected it, I noticed the glint of my knife winking at me from the kitchen floor, as if to say "Here I am, please rescue me!"

So there we are. I've been reunited with my knife, I've bought a new cooker and the world is good again...except I still haven't found a replacement food processor. 

This is my entry for the Morphy Richards/Foodies 100 Innovator competition.  Pin It

RIP Kenwood Multi-Pro Food Processor

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Well, my faithful little friend, the time has come for me to say goodbye. Yes, you'll soon be off to the great food processor resting place in the sky (OK the local recycling centre...AKA the tip), but don't worry, you didn't die in vain. I'm going to offer to donate your spare parts on Freegle, so you can help another food processor live a little longer than you did.

You had a busy and productive life chopping, mixing, grating and slicing; But most of all, I loved the way you made breadcrumbs and chopped nuts in your little coffee grinder and blended soups in your liquidiser until they were super-smooth, just like my kids love.

I'll wait a little while before I buy another food processor (out of respect of course!), but I will have space in my life (and my kitchen) for a new addition quite soon. Please don't feel I took you for granted...you may be gone but you won't be forgotten (for at least a few weeks).

RIP.

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Don't tell my children what to eat!

It's been a while, but it's time once again for me to have a little rant, so please excuse me!

13 Year old Miss Ony, has been on a healthy eating regime since the start of the year. At first, I was OK with her taking control of her own food intake and reducing the amount of fat and sugar she ate (although being veggie, I'm sure her intake was far lower than the average child anyway) but she started getting more strict and cut out snacks, sweets and chocolate altogether.

She also started exercising more than usual, looking at the calorie contents of the foods she was eating and being very self critical of the way she looked. All quite normal things for a teenage girl to do, maybe? But it was making her unhappy and snappy.

Anyway, everything came to a head and we had a heart to heart chat about what was going on...it turns out that one of her teachers had been spouting on about how bad it was to eat chocolate and fatty foods, and how everyone should exercise more. As a teacher of teenage children, I think she should have known better and realised how influential her pep talks about healthy eating could be, especially to sensitive and intelligent young women like Miss Ony. 

Yes, most of us parents want our children to eat healthily and know about the nutritional value of different foods. There is obviously a time and place for schools to teach children about such things during the appropriate lessons; But please don't tell my children that any food is bad. Salad may be healthy, but we can't live on salad alone - we need a combination of carbohydrate, protein, fats, sugars and God forbid, even some salt!

The lovely Gok Wan's new TV series Gok's Teens: The Naked Truth addresses some of the issues that Miss Ony is going though at the moment, so we'll be watching the programmes with interest and discussing the subjects raised. We're all big Gok fans, so it was really good timing to see the first programme this week. 

Miss Ony is now allowing herself to eat a little bit of chocolate when she fancies it, which is making us all a little happier! Oh and by the way, if you're reading this Miss Ony, you are beautiful just the way you are! Pin It

Happy New Year!

As my first post of the year, I thought I'd revisit my resolutions post from last year and see how well I've done. My blog had only been going for about 6 weeks at that time, so one thing I'm proud of is that I've actually stuck to this blogging lark, and 'met' lots of other lovely bloggers along the way.

One of my resolutions last year was to walk more...we've enjoyed some lovely days out walking with friends and family; It's amazing how quickly you can cover a couple of miles, when you're chatting away! We had a fantastic time at Disney World and must have walked for miles each day in the 30C+ heat! Although this year's holiday will be a more relaxing one (in Greece), I hope to continue our weekend walks, and will certainly be getting our money's worth from our National Trust membership.

I think I've managed to cut down slightly on the amount of cheese I cook with, and have also veered away from using as many meat substitutes as I did, and swapped them for extra vegetables and pulses. I'll be using my new River Cottage Veg Every Day! cookbook to continue on this quest this year.

The girls have definitely improved in the amount of jobs they do around the house, and were a fantastic help just before Christmas when I was ill with a stinking cold. Let's hope they keep this up during 2012.

Mr O hasn't done too well on his DIY resolution, but he has promised that he'll be getting someone in to do the jobs that he doesn't have the time or inclination to complete!

My main resolution this year, is to do more gardening and improve on my fruit/vegetable/herb plot; I wonder how well I'll stick to that one? So what are your resolutions this year? 
Join in the Britmums bloghop...
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Join in the Meningitis Trust's latest campaign

There are a lot of blogs covering the subject of meningitis at the moment, thanks to the Meningitis Trust (and other charities) really embracing the digital media in the quest to raise awareness about this horrible disease.
Every time I hear or read the word meningitis, it makes me shiver, even though it's now 10 years since my daughter contracted pneumococcal meningitis.

Whilst my daughter was in hospital, we were warned that if she survived, she could be left with long term side effects. We found out that some children are left with obvious disabilities including epilepsy, profound deafness and limb loss (for those who develop septicaemia) and that others are left with less visible side effects such as learning or behavioural difficulties, co-ordination problems and headaches. As the disease affects the brain, it can impact on many aspects of a child's emotional and physical development. Thankfully, my daughter was only left with a minor hearing loss - many children are not so lucky.

My daughter was under the care of her hospital consultant for a year after she came out of hospital, and she still has an annual hearing test to check that her hearing loss remains stable. Unfortunately, I had no follow care up at all from my GP or Health Visitor. It was up to me to inform her playgroup/nursery/school about her hearing loss and my concerns that her learning and behaviour could be affected.

That's why I've signed the petition for the latest Meningitis Trust campaign for:

The automatic right for any child who has had meningitis to have timely and appropriate assessments throughout their academic life, to identify early what help they need and ensure they get it.

So, I'm asking for you to sign the petition too, to help other children in the UK get the support they need throughout their school lives.

If you want to find out more about the symptoms of meningitis, visit the Meningitis Trust's website.

Image courtesy of the Meningitis Trust. Pin It

10 questions meme

I've been tagged by Alison from Plus 2.4, to answer 10 questions about myself.

What you have to do if you want to join in, is:

1) Answer the 10 questions below.
2) Tag someone to do the same.
3) Go and leave a comment on the original blog post over at Super Amazing Mum to say that you've joined in, to find out who else has been tagged and to compare answers!

So here goes….

1. Describe yourself in seven words
Vegetarian working mum with an untidy house.

2. What keeps you awake at night?
My husband's snoring.

3. If you could be anyone for day, who would you be and why?
Oh, that's a difficult one...there's lots of people I admire, but I'm not sure I'd like to be them, even for a day. OK, how about Gordon Ramsey? I'd be him and make him only eat, cook, serve and talk about vegetarian food for a whole day! Maybe I'd pop round to the Beckham's with the kids too!

4. What are you wearing now?
Long, grey and black Per Una skirt, a black top and black boots (just got back from work).

5. What scares you?
Spiders :-(

6. What is the best and the worst thing about blogging?
The best - having somewhere to record my thoughts and recipes, plus finding out that there are like-minded people out there in the blogosphere.
The worst - feeling that I should be trying harder to 'network', when I'm really not a networking kind of person!

7. What was the last website you looked at?
Yahoo - I just checked my emails, very boring I know.

8. If you could change one thing about yourself what would it be?
To be tidier.

9. Slankets – Yes or no?
Nooo! What's wrong with a duvet?

10. Tell us something about the person who tagged you?
I was tagged by Alison, who's a Pagan mum of 3 kids. Like me, she loves cooking and inflicting cultural and educational days out on her children!

I'm tagging:
@mum2alesha http://www.mum2alesha.blogspot.com/
@LouiseLongworth http://www.vegetariankids.co.uk/blog
@picklesmum http://picklesmum.blogspot.com/
@jadeheathfield http://www.bunnykind.wordpress.com/
@Jojomololohttp://jojomololo.blogspot.com/ Pin It

My very veggie blogoversary give-away

A year ago, I published my very first blog post. It wasn't a very interesting one, but nonetheless it was an exciting moment for me. I wondered if anyone would read it and the subsequent posts I would add. I initially started my blog as I love writing, cooking and creating new recipes. I also thought it would be a nice way of preserving some family favourite recipes for my kids (who I named Miss Ony and Miss Kahonie for blogging purposes, as unlike many other bloggers, I prefer to hide behind an alias!)

At first I didn't publicise my blog at all, but after I found out about Britmums (or British Mummy Bloggers as it was then) and then the
UKFBA (UK Food Bloggers Association), I started to dip my toe into the mysterious ways of the blogging community... I had no idea that there were so many other people out there blogging away about so many different things! I then set up a twitter account and a Facebook page and slowly my numbers of page views and followers crept up. People were actually reading what I was writing, and cooking my recipes! 

I've 'met' some wonderfully creative, funny and inspirational bloggers along the way. Some who have made me laugh out loud, and some who have brought a tear to me eye; I'm not naming any names as I don't want anyone to feel left out. I feel proud to have joined up with other bloggers who are campaigning for various good causes - I certainly didn't start blogging with that intention.

I've been lucky enough to get some freebies along the way, and have thoroughly enjoyed reviewing some of the yummy vegetarian products I've been sent from some lovely companies.

My blogoversary giveaway might not be quite as grand as others I've seen, but I hope you like the prizes on offer well enough to join in and have a go at winning one...

So, onto the give-away:

Prize 1: A gift pack full of yummy vegetarian sweets from Goody Good Stuff. 

Goody Good Stuff sweets contain natural fruit juices and extracts and no artificial nasties. All varieties are vegetarian (some are vegan), fat-free, dairy-free, nut-free, Halal and Kosher certified.

Find them on Facebook or drop them a tweet @goodygoodstuff.




Prize 2: 3 vouchers for tasty Innocent veg pots (one prize).

Choose from 8 different varieties (most are vegan and all are vegetarian). All contain 3 portions of veg, wholegrains, or pulses and tasty sauce, with herbs and spices and they're ready to eat in just 4 minutes.

Find them on Facebook or drop them a tweet @innocentdrinks.



Prize 3: A delicious selection of vegetarian products from Linda McCartney Foods.

Includes the following: 1 x Vegetarian Roast, 1 x Mini Snack Vegetarian Sausages, 1 x Rosemary & Red Onion Sausages, 1 x Cranberry & Camembert Burgers (one prize).

Find them on Facebook or Youtube, or drop them a tweet  @meatfreetweets .


How to enter: COMPETITION NOW CLOSED
Winners are @msetoonie wins the Goody Good Stuff sweets, @Veggie_4_Life wins the Innocent vouchers and @mum2alesha wins the Linda McCartney products - please contact me with your address details.

• Follow my blog and leave me a comment below to say you've done this, along with your contact details. Let me know which prize you want to try and win (one comment per prize draw entry please).
• For another chance to win, follow me on Twitter @FacelessFood and tweet I've entered the Very Veggie Giveaway with @Facelessfood @Bookhams @Goodygoodstuff @Innocentdrinks & @Meatfreetweets
http://wedonteatanythingwithaface.blogspot.com and leave your twitter ID and details of your preferred prize in a comment below.
• For another extra entry per prize, just follow the appropriate twitter ID for the prize you hope to win (@goodygoodstuff, @innocentdrinks or @meatfreetweets) and add an extra comment below - with contact details - to say you've done this.
• Remember I need some way of contacting you in case you win, so make sure you put this in your comments! If you leave your twitter ID as means of contact, then please follow me @facelessfood so that I can message you if you win. Alternatively email me onykahonie1 at rocketmail dot com.

Terms and conditions
Entries only from the UK please.
A maximum of 3 entries for each prize are allowed per person.
Competition closes at midnight on 28th October 2011
The winner of each prize will be drawn at random.
I will contact winners within 48 hours of the prize draw. If winners have not replied within 7 days, I reserve the right to re-draw and offer the prize to another entrant.

Many thanks to Innocent, Goody Good Stuff, Bookhams and Linda McCartney Foods for kindly supplying the prizes and images provided. Pin It

Will you join Save The Children's health worker campaign?

Image courtesy of Save the Children

In the west, we take it for granted that we'll have caring, professional and qualified health workers available to monitor us during pregnancy, to deliver our babies safely and to provide health care, advice and medication when our children fall sick. In fact, we see it as a right.
My children were both delivered safely at home by 2 fabulous midwives who never questioned my belief that home birth was the best option for me and my babies.
When my children have been unwell, I've been able to take them to the local health centre or hospital where I knew they'd receive the care and medication they needed.

Unfortunately, not all women are that lucky...

"Doctors, nurses and midwives are vital to saving children’s lives. But there's a massive shortfall of health workers in the world’s poorest countries.  As ever, the poorest and most vulnerable are hardest hit. Half of the 8 million children who die each year are in Africa, yet Africa has only 3% of the world’s doctors, nurses and midwives."

On Tuesday, fellow blogger Chris Mosler from Thinly Spread and digital media consultant Liz Scarff will attend the UN General Assembly in New York (on behalf of Save the Children), where they hope to persuade David Cameron to take the lead in tackling the health worker crisis. There is a target of 60,000 signatures on the petition by Tuesday. At the moment, almost 42,000 have signed the petition - a shortfall of 18,000. 

Your help is urgently needed to meet that target before Tuesday. Let's do our best to make sure that Chris and Liz go on Tuesday, armed with 60,000 signatures.

What do you need to do?

1.  Firstly, sign the petition.
2. Then publicise the campaign to make sure everyone knows about it! Get tweeting @ChristineMosler #healthworkers, facebooking, texting...whatever you can do to help spread the word. 
3. If you blog, please think about joining in the blog hop below (the aim is to get 100 bloggers to write a 100 words about how accessible health workers are to them or about great health worker they have encountered*) 

It's not difficult and it won't cost you anything, so let's work together to make a difference.

Thanks to Michelle (Mummy From The Heart) and Gemma (Hello It's Gemma) for setting up the linky.

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Simple pleasures

Image © Onykahonie

I've just come back from a lovely, sunny weekend camping in Wales with the family. One of the first blog posts I read when I got back, was from Kate Takes 5 on the subject of simple pleasures. 

To me, simple pleasures must, by definition, either be free or cheap, so here are my top 5 (inspired by our weekend away).

1. Family laughter - Not just a giggle, but when the whole family are nearly crying in laughter about something that any other person would not find remotely funny. For us this weekend, it was the word foxy; First mentioned by Miss Kahonie, and then repeated randomly in conversation by the rest of us, to raise a laugh. I'm not sure that makes sense if you're reading this, but it raises a smile for me, just typing it out!
2. Going to the seaside - Which must involve eating chips on the beach, or eating an ice cream (or both, but not together!) plus paddling in the sea whatever the weather (wearing wellies and raincoats if necessary).
3. Hide and seek (or sardines) - My children are now at an age when walks in the countryside or visiting National Trust properties just aren't cool. Mention hide and seek, and we can still win them over.
4. Singing - I might not be the world's best singer, but I love singing. I've always sung to the children and they've grown up with a love of singing too. Mr Ony also likes a bit of a croon, but really can't hold a tune. Nevertheless, it cheers me up just to hear him attempting to sing!
5. Reading NOW magazine - My guilty pleasure, as I do like a bit of celeb gossip.

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I'm singing a veggie song!

Well, my eyes (or should that be ears?) have been opened, thanks to a random youtube link I was sent on twitter (@facelessfood, just in case you want to sent me a tweet!) Of course, I had to click on the link, and soon found myself listening to the Vegan Song. The lyrics and images were pretty thought-provoking, and certainly caught my attention, but some of the pictures were a tad controversial, so not suitable to show to children.

I then thought I'd search for vegetarian songs, and found quite a few. Now, I don't think that any of them will ever get any awards for singing or song writing, but here are a few that I particularly liked: Don't Eat Like a Barbarian, What Do You Eat?, No Meat On Monday. Pin It

Vegetarianism-ism

Have you ever been a victim of vegetarianism-ism?
Chances are that if you're a vegetarian by choice, then you have. There are laws to protect most minority groups from discrimination, abuse and ridicule (and rightly so) but what about human rights for vegetarians? 

Of course, many vegetarians have dietary requirements related to their culture or religion and they are protected by anti-discrimination laws, but for those of us who choose vegetarianism for secular reasons, we apparently have to put up with derision for our beliefs.

Take for example my daughters Miss Ony and Miss Kahonie; They've been shown pity, ridicule and downright rudeness by their peers and some 'grown ups'...this behaviour has even bordered on that of persistent bullying and I am currently poised to go into school and complain about this. Their peers have told them that they should eat meat and have sneered at their discomfort in defending their beliefs publicly. They've had meat waved under their noses at lunch time, and been told how delicious dead animal flesh tastes. Can you imagine them getting away with pushing drugs or alcohol at school? Well to me, this isn't so different.

Meat is something that I have chosen to do without and have brought my children up accordingly. To us, eating a burger is comparable to eating our pet cat or next door's budgie.Talking of burgers, how come a certain well known burger chain doesn't think that vegetarian kids exist? Come to mention it, Virgin Atlantic don't either.

I've been veggie for around 20 years now and have become used to defending my beliefs and my right to bring up my children on a vegetarian diet. I politely stand my ground and explain that we do not 'miss out' and that there really are plenty more delicious foods than chicken nuggets (the staple food for UK kids, it would seem!) People seem fascinated in what we do and don't eat, and seem to want to try to trick us up. If you're interested, no, we don't eat fish, and yes, we do eat free-range/organic eggs and milk.

 If all else fails, I tell them that we don't eat anything with a face or that we forage in the hedgerows for nuts and berries which normally shuts them up! Goodness knows how much stick we'd get if we were vegans!

If you want support and advice for bring up a veggie family, then try the Vegetarian Society. They have loads of helpful fact sheets, recipes and a forum. Pin It

Fun for all the family on Google Translate

Random post alert. 
I know that Google Translate is a useful tool, but we've discovered it's great fun too! Miss Ony recently started using it to throw funny insults at her sister, and now we're all doing it. I don't know why, but we all find it highly amusing (in a childish way) to hear a computerised voice talking to us.

Just select the English to English option, type in your message and then click on listen. It's great for telling the kids to do their chores and reminding them when to go to bed too! 
It's also pretty useful for helping the kids with their French homework, but not quite so fun. Pin It

My pet hates

It's been a busy week in the Onykahonie household, so I've only just got around to reading my fellow bloggers' weird (in a good way) and wonderful posts on Kate Takes 5's listography. This week's list is on pet hates, of which I have many and could probably base a whole blog on them...

My top 5 pet hates this week are:

1. Tailgaters - I've witnessed several incidents of tailgating this weekend (luckily not behind me) and wonder why on earth do they do it? These invariably unattractive male drivers seem to get a kick out of harassing and intimidating other road users. Grow up and learn how to drive!

2. The economy - I've had enough of this whole recession/depression/economic down-turn or whatever we're calling it this week. Get out there girls and shop your way to a better economy.

3. People whispering, while I'm in the same room - How rude. If you want to talk about me, or don't want me to hear something, say it when I'm not there!

4. Winter - Sooo last season! I'm looking forward to welcoming in the spring, seeing some sunshine and dusting off the camping gear.

5. Shop assistants asking if I'm sure I want to use my own carrier bag - Yes I'm sure; That's why I said "I don't need a bag, thanks." I'm single-handedly saving the environment, geddit?

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