Liebster Award

So – this was a surprise. My lovely new friend Olivia at Olivia In Japan has kindly nominated me for the Liebster Award, which I confess I hadn’t previously heard of. Looking at a well known search engine it would appear that this is fairly common for awardees – and it appears to be traditional to mention the award and the rules to start, so here goes….

The award is for new bloggers and is a great way to reach out and say hi to other new bloggers. Nice! It’s a little piece of recognition from fellow bloggers, and I’m really flattered to be nominated. Chuffed to bits, actually! Sometimes when you’re blogging away in the dark on your own, it’s hard to visualise people reading what you write and enjoying it, specially when you have few comments. So thanks, Olivia, I really appreciate it.

The ‘rules’ of the Liebster, if a chain blog can be said to have rules, are that you:

• thank your nominator (well, seems obvious so far) and
• answer their 11 questions, then
• nominate 11 other new bloggers (& let them know you’ve nominated them)
• and pose 11 questions to them

My questions posed by Olivia are;

1. What would be your perfect meal?

Obviously for a food blogger this is a totally impossible question! So I’m going to surprise everyone and say hot buttered toast. It’s my comfort food, the one thing I can reliably never resist, the most difficult thing not to eat when I’m being wheat free. It’s nostalgia, it’s simple, smells divine and I just love it.

2. Describe yourself in 3 words.

Er, can’t. Wish I could. Would love to be described as a polymath, though I’m not. OK, so maybe ‘aspires to polymath’?? Or perhaps ‘A pretentious git’?

3. What is the best present you have received?

I’m a lucky girl, so I had to think about this one. To go the smushy route, and celebrate the romantic gesture, or just plain materialistic? I went the latter. Diamond earrings for my 40th. Hah!

4. If you could speak another language, which language would you pick and why?

I’d chose a real toughie, to save me having to learn that one in real life! Japanese?

5. After doing something challenging/stressful, what do you do to reward yourself?

Eat!

6. If you could go back in time and live in a different era, which one would you choose?

I honestly wouldn’t go back in time. I think now is the best time there’s ever been for health, for women, for equality generally. It’s got a way to go, but I’m not for going backwards.

7. What’s your favourite outfit?

Whatever it is, it would be black. I love black. Probably black clingy skirt with a High tea With Mrs Woo top.

8. Describe the view from your window (or from your front door).

My veggie garden.

9. What is the scariest thing you have ever done?

Public speaking would be up there!

10. Where do you see yourself in 10 years time?

Hopefully retired, fit and well.

Those were good questions, so now the hard bit – 11 good questions to pass on!

1) What was the best part of your day today?

2) What/who made you start blogging?

3) name your perfect dinner party guests, dead or alive?

4) Favourite way to spend a day off work?

5) Best holiday location – and why?

6) Is organic food just a load of old nonsense?

7) Cosmetic surgery – would you?

8) What do you look for in a blog/what motivates you to follow someone’s work?

9) You win the lottery. You spend your cash on….?

10) Top of your bucket list is….?

11) If you could swap lives for a day, who would you chose to be?

And now – my nominations! I’ve actually found this to be the most challenging bit of this process, since the rule seems to be to nominate those with fewer than 200 followers. I’ve certainly read a lot of blogs in the last week as a result! Unfortunately my newbie status means I have only the most limited idea of how to tell how many followers a blogger has, so if I’ve nominated you and you have more than 200 – well, sorry…I didn’t mean anything by it…

1) The Untidy Cook (in the hope she will start writing again)

2) Voxblonde

3) dosirakbento

4) Pigging out around the world

5) Cattle & Cane/Go Between

6) Banal Muffins

7) Love Mee Designs (in the hope she will start writing again!)

8) Daily trifles (who started me off, though she probably doesn’t know it)

9 – 11) Oh dear. I’ve run out of blogs to nominate. I even googled ‘blogs with fewer than 200 followers’, only to find – of course – others also trying to find new blogs to nominate for Liebster…In the spirit of the Liebster though, I’m making a promise to myself to follow a new blog a week from now on. If they turn out to have fewer than 200 followers, I’ll nominate them!