There's another award hopping from blog to blog in the neighbourhood this last little while. I haven't traced it back to source yet but I've seen it here and there and last night I found that I had been given it by just making it up as i go, the amazingly competent blogger who lured me into starting this blog almost a year ago now. (Thanks, you, and back at you.) I love N's blog -- its humour and candour are like really dark chocolate, rich, smooth and satisfying.

And recipients are supposed to pass it on to ten other bloggers. Which gives me an opportunity to put up some links to the wonderful places I go. I could, of course, update my right column link list at the same time, but I don't have a lot of time this morning and so that will remain on the ToDo list, gathering dust like the rest of the jobs there.

There are a lot more than ten, when I think about it. There's Bub and Pie, who writes so well she's intimidating and whose descriptions of her son's struggles and triumphs are so perceptive and loving and funny and exasperated, all at once, that you live them with her. There's Under the Mad Hat, whose creative energy could power a rocket into space and who comes up with brilliant and funny twists on a lot of topics that make me grind my teeth in envy and want to hug her, both at once. There's NotSoSage, living and writing with her heart and mind and soul fully engaged, giving so much of herself. Julie Pippert at Using My Words has a stainless steel ethic and a brain to match, wonderful humour and is a hugely giving bloggy citizen. There's Lawyer Mama, whose celebration of her life and family, in words and pictures, is creative, beautiful and brilliant, just like her. And Painted Maypole, another giving, loving blog citizen, who writes with warmth and style. Nomotherearth already has this award, but she's getting it again from me because I love her deadpan style and adoring acerbity as she talks about her son.

That's seven of the bunch on my sidebar that I think of as 'established' on my little mental list. I want to do another list of people who are not so widely read, judging from their comment numbers, but that is going to have to wait until next week sometime. Because just now I have to go and have lunch with the Chair of our Fundraising Committee at her request. I think she is going to tell me that she is burned out and wants to leave. In which case I am going to be crying in my soup since I will have to take over the lead. Oh dear, says I, most inadequately.

I will, as they say, keep you posted.