Way back in March I was nominated by Kelly at Free Little Words for the Very Inspiring Blogger award (my second nomination) and I confess I didn’t have capacity to accept the award, despite my best intentions. Since then I have also been nominated for the Liebster Blogging Award, by Rinelle Grey (gosh, that was a month ago too! How time flies). I haven’t received the Liebster Award before.

Therefore in today’s post I would like to thank Kelly for her nomination, and also thank Rinelle Grey for hers. I will respond only to the Liebster Award, as I would nominate the same blogs for both awards anyway!

What is the Liebster Blog Award?

The Liebster Blog Award is given to up and coming bloggers who have less than 200 followers. “Liebster” is German for “favorite”. The rules of this award say I need to give 11 random facts about me, answer 11 questions asked by the person who gave me the award, and nominate 11 bloggers with less than 200 subscribers.

11 Random Facts about Me:

1. I’m a Libran, born in October, and I sit on the fence so much I have splinters
2. I always swore I was a paper-book person and couldn’t see the point of ereaders – until I bought an iPad. *Blushes*
3. I was born and live in the UK but I spent 12 months travelling, working and living in New Zealand. A little part of my heart is still in Dunedin.
4. I once learned British Sign Language, as part of a qualification I was trying to get. I love it now when my kids watch Something Special (a UK children’s programme that teaches sign language) although I remember virtually none of the signs myself anymore
5. I trained as a First Aider and discovered the sight of blood makes me sick
6. I love stargazer lilies but my husband hates them and they’re not allowed in the house. The lilies in my wedding bouquet had to be unscented
7. I once took the carburettor off my car and took it home in a bag for my stepdad to fix, before returning and putting it back on the car (it still worked). Now I have a husband for that kind of stuff!
8. I love plants and want a beautiful garden but I have the opposite of green fingers: plants come to our house to die.
9. I’m a rubbish cook.
10. I read Clarissa by Samuel Richardson as part of my English Masters – one of the longest novels in the English Language at nearly 1 million words. Two months of my life I’ll never get back! J
11. I wrote my English Masters dissertation on Marriage and Divorce in Eighteenth Century Novels – and handed it in the week before I got married!

Answers to Rinelle’s 11 questions:

1. What pets do you have?

We have one dog, called Kara. She’s a labradoodle, big on curly hair, crazy behaviour and eating cheese.

2. What’s your favourite food?

Biscuits. Chocolate Chip ones preferably.

3. Do you prefer sunrise or sunset?

I like both but since having kids I’ll stick with sunsets please. If they sleep past sunrise that’s a good day.

4. If someone gave you $1000, what shop would you hit first?

Kids’ toy shop. I love buying things for my children. Pre-kids it would have been books or nicknacks for the home.

5. Who is the most important person/people in your life?

My husband and children, no question.

6. What is your biggest personal achievement?

It’s a tie between being a Mummy and publishing a book on Amazon. Both things I thought I’d never do, certainly never do well, and yet here I am!

7. Do you have a goal for this year? If so, what is it?

Yes, I’m doing a daily blog challenge, writing a novel in daily instalments on my blog.

8. What’s your favourite computer game?

I don’t play games on the computer. I used to play Tetras and I liked platform games like Tomb Raider when I was younger. Now that ‘down time’ urge is taken up with Facebook and Twitter.

9. What sort of camera do you use?

Whatever’s to hand most of the time – my Nokia phone / the iPad mostly. My pride and joy is my SLR Canon 40D which I just paid £200 to have repaired after my youngest dropped it on the floor. Needless to say I don’t use it that often any more.

10. What’s your favourite YouTube video?

Charlie Bit Me (inexplicably funny) or Fenton the Dog (also funny, though I do wince because it’s the kind of thing my dog would do)

11. If you could meet anyone, living or dead, who would it be?

This is a really tough question because I often think it would be a terrible disappointment to meet our idols (living or dead) and find out they were nothing like we imagined. I think I’d like to meet the current Doctor Who (Matt Smith) as Doctor Who. He could whisk me off in the blue box, although I would make a terrible Companion because I’m a scaredy-cat!

In return, I nominate the following blogs:

I am meant to nominate blogs with fewer than 200 followers. That’s tricky because many of the great blogs I follow have followers in the thousands. So I’ve gone for the blogs I think probably do, and for the ones I really love that still have followers in the low hundreds, as this is effectively my Favourite Blogs award! There is no obligation to accept!

1  http://fancythatfancythis.com/

2  http://mummylovestowrite.com/

3  http://rinellegrey.com/ (I know she nominated me, but this should still be here!)

4  http://kenthinksaloud.wordpress.com/

5  http://blogaboutwriting.wordpress.com/

6  http://speakhappiness.wordpress.com/

7  http://findingmycreature.wordpress.com/

8  http://apprenticenevermaster.wordpress.com/

9  http://theclotheslineie.wordpress.com/

10 http://ascenicroute.wordpress.com/

11 http://rmbenson.wordpress.com/

These are all brilliant blogs, for various reasons and across loads of topics. They’re all worth a visit.

If you do choose to accept, here is what you need to do:

• Post the award on your blogs
• Thank the blogger(s) who gave you the award and link back to their site
• Post 11 random facts about yourself
• Answer 11 questions that the presenter of the award has asked
• Nominate 11 new bloggers with fewer than 200 followers that you want to pass the award to
• Ask your nominees 11 questions

Finally, my 11 questions for the nominees:

1. What can you see out your window as you respond to this?
2. What is a perfect Sunday?
3. What was the last book you read (or movie you watched) that stayed with you after the end?
4. Twitter or Facebook?
5. What did you want to be, when you were seven?
6. What was the last thing that made you laugh until you cried?
7. Where’s the furthest place you’ve been from home?
8. What did you eat for breakfast?
9. Are you a lark or an owl?
10. What song do you play to cheer you up?
11. (I’m going to steal this one from Matt Haig’s The Humans Twitter campaign): What advice would you give to a fellow human?