Love Your Past: 100 Years of Brownies

The Brownie Section of Girl Guiding is 100 years old this year, and in memory of this fantastic organisation, which has provided my mum, me and both my daughters (and most of the female friends I know) with many evenings of badge related fun, all Brownies past and present have been encouraged to light a candle and place it in their window to commemorate this experience.



If you search Twitter with #bigbrowniebirthday and #worldthinkingday you can find many people who have already taken part in the candle displaying.
This is our offering.


Whilst explaining to the girls about the group I was in as an eight year old (Pixies), I was hit with many fond memories.  Brownies was the first time I tried those little silver ball decorations you get on top of cakes, and I thought I was very clever to be "tricking" grown ups into thinking I was eating real silver balls (of course looking back, none of them would have thought for a second I was actually eating metal).  Brownies was the first time I made a jam sandwich with a group of friends to gain my cooking badge (we were not allowed to actually cook) and I remember stacking them high and we shared them around.  Brownies was also the first time I won a big award - our group won a trophy for designing and building out of card a model village; we had a fire stations AND a church.

Tell us about your favourite Brownies or Guides memories. 

Blogging On A Budget

Lets face it, we're all skint.
Christmas has been and gone, leaving us all with less money then we would like.  But there are still blogs, and still many posts to write, so its the time of year we need a little cheaper inspiration.  Last year I discovered voucher based websites, offering discounted events, treatments, meals and even holidays for a fraction of what they normally retail at, and I have used these to aide some of the subjects of past blog posts without spending all the money I may have normally had to have spent to have the same experience.

A New Life

so here goes my first post for this amazing project, I am super excited but also a tiny bit (hugely) nervous but that's one of the many things new beginnings can do to you I guess. the great thing is that they're always worth it in the end so I am ecstatic (and that's a word you don't use lightly) to begin this new journey with my blogging girls.

in this post I would like to speak about a very particular new beginning that has recently happened in my life. you might have read my little bio on our contributors page (if not you can still do so after) and know that I am originally from austria but am now living in the UK. I've wanted this for a long time so when I finally did it it was all really great and overwhelming for me and it's only now, four months after my move, that I'm starting to reflect things a little bit. now it's perfectly normal that moving to a different country can be hard, but in this post I'd like to especially talk about six things that make it more than worth it.

independence
now that's a given, obviously you cannot rely on anyone but yourself when you move to a different country by yourself. now, that might and probably will come as a shock to the system at first (unless you're already a pretty independent person before the move, which I wasn't) but that shock will soon change into something great. I feel very proud of myself for taking this step, I feel proud because I managed to find myself a place to live, I got myself into university and I am living and loving my everyday life.

people
there's two parts to this really. firstly there's obviously the many new people you meet and I'm saying that even though I'm not the most outgoing person there is, I'm by no means extremely shy but it takes me some time to trust people, but I've still found some lovely friends here and can't wait to find more.
then there's the not so obvious part, the people you leave behind, it's those people like my family and closest friends who make me realise how much I mean to them and how much they mean to me. without them this wouldn't have been possible.

experiences and activities
I've been into football for a long time and I used to play it back in school when I was the only girl playing with about 15 boys but I really enjoyed it anyway. last year I decided that when I go to university in the UK I would join the football team there and so I did. I'm part of the beginners team and everyone there is so great, I've met some amazing people and it's the best form of exercise I could ever imagine. definitely something I wouldn't have done without the move.

new places
I have always loved traveling. and even though since I've been here I've not really seen that much, I have still managed to visit some places I hadn't seen before (mainly thanks to my boyfriends family as they have a car to take us places). I also really enjoy my occasional weekend trips to wales, it's just nice to keep moving.

food
this is a controversial one as food surely wouldn't appear on most people's 'pro' list when they think about moving to the UK. for me this is a different story. not only do I love to discover the delicious bits and bobs this country has to offer, but I also love the culinary freedom I have now that I live by myself. the downside is obviously that I have to pay for it myself but I'm getting pretty good at budgeting these days so that's a challenge I'm willing to accept. especially when it means sunday lunch with my boyfriend every now and then.

university
this is probably my main thing here, after all it's the reason I made this step in the first place. It is also the thing which reminds me almost every day that taking this step was the right decision. whenever I'm in doubt (and yeah, there's days when I miss home, obviously) I look at my books are go to lectures and I feel great because this course and everything I'm learning makes me incredibly happy and excited about the future. I know not many students feel that way and my coursemates often look at me funny when I say 'I'm loving it here' but that doesn't really bother me. I do love it and it makes me happy.

Magdalena.