A couple of months ago I applied for some blogger funding with the Actimel Family Wellbeing Index.
What is the Family Wellbeing Index? Well Actimel describe family wellbeing as "that fantastically positive feeling you get when your family's in tune and everything's clicking". They worked with knowledgeable experts to identify six key categories that contribute to your family's wellbeing. These categories are EAT, PLAY, CONNECT, MOVE, LEARN & GIVE. EAT is all about the food you eat and how you eat it, PLAY covers everything from playing a board game to a cultural museum trip, CONNECT is about chatting, debating discussing, laughing and crying - just basically communicating, MOVE is all about active things being good for bonding and improving both your physical and emotional health whilst LEARN is about growing together, setting new challenges and developing new skills. Finally the last one, GIVE, is the most simple and perhaps the one that gives you the greatest sense of wellbeing - being nice to your family and the people around you, having a generosity of spirit which will lead you to being a happy person.
To apply for funding all I had to do was simply write up an idea, relevant to one of the above categories that I felt extremely passionate about and which would also benefit the whole family.
I fired off the above on an email and thought no more about it until I got an email back informing me I had been successful and had been selected for funding! Wow! I was over-the-moon as I really think the children are going to love being out in the garden this year. I selected the potting bench and staging and waited it for arrive, and arrive it did. It's taken me weeks and weeks to put this blog post together for the simple reason that it rained endlessly for about three weeks, then Snowmageddon happened - in fact in some of our field, the snow still remains two weeks on. Just as I thought it was safe to go out, you know, it being April and all - it snowed again today! Luckily it wasn't the sticky type and we managed to brave the zero degree temperatures long enough to erect the new bits and bobs for the greenhouse. We're ignoring the fact that I won't be stepping back out there until the temps reach at least 15 degrees.....
Ta-dah! Two-tier greenhouse staging and a very shiny new potting bench. Obviously that's not going to look that clean and tidy in the near future but we're not quite in my planting season - soon enough that potting bench will be covered in soil and compost and they staging will be heaving under trays of seedlings, chilli and tomato plants. I really think that these simple things are going to bring us lots of learning opportunities and also lots of fun! The children both love planting seeds and the greenhouse is such a lovely warm and sheltered environment for them to potter around getting nice and grubby! They've already planned to plan pumpkins, sunflowers and cherry tomatoes and we're also going to get a bit experimental with a watermelon this year.
And in all it's glory...(eagle-eyed readers might also spot the shed having a bit of a transformation from brown to green...we ran out of paint!).
We're all set up for the growing season - all we need now is a little bit of warmth and sunshine and we'll be away. It's April now, not too much to ask? Actimel - can you arrange? That would definitely give us all a great sense of wellbeing!
With thanks to Actimel and the Family Wellbeing Index.
That's fantastic, well done! I'll look forward to reading all about your progress :)
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