Bake Sale fun!

I recently organised a Bake Sale at one of the places I work. I thought it would add a welcome distraction for a Friday and I was proved very right!

The voluntary group I am involved with, Helping Hands and Hearts Foundation (HHH), has been on the lookout for a new project to get involved with and we have been successful in finding something very worthwhile.

HHH will start a new project, to raise funds to enable the British Advanced Life Support Group (ASLG), (http://www.alsg.org/uk/) to come to Bosnia to teach a Pre-hospital Obstetric Emergency Training course (POET) to the Sarajevo Emergency Unit. ASLG is already involved in training doctors in Sarajevo, Advanced Pediatric Life Support (APLS) and Managing Obstetric Emergency and Trauma (MOET) .The doctors who receive training in POET will the following year be supervised by ASLG when they in turn teach the course to other doctors in Bosnia.

The money raised at various fundraising events over the next 6 months by HHH will enable the hospital to purchase the necessary equipment and mannequins in order to undertake this training.

The office Bake Sale was the first event to kick start the fundraising.

I baked some Bespoke British Baking vanilla cupcakes and I trialed Tana Ramsey's Lemon Drizzle cake, which I have to say was easy and delicious! By popular demand Liz made her chocolate brownies which literally sold like hot cakes. Also, under a bit of duress from me, my partner whipped up some triple choc cornflake crisps - these included an awful lot of chocolate, several mars bars and dash of golden syrup and were topped with white chocolate! They were delicious and again were very popular, so much so that he didn’t even get to try one!

Thanks to all those who contributed with cakes and the generosity of those who bought them, we raised an impressive 170KM! This is fantastic and gets us well off the mark with our fundraising efforts!

I am now going to try to undertake a similar effort at the other office I work in and try to encourage some other friends to do the same in their offices, what this space for a Bake Sale near you, soon!

Spring has sprung

After a very mild winter and a lot more rain and less snow than last year, the sun is at last shining and it is lovely! I have lost the jacket and we can once again enjoy a drink outside in the sunshine. If we were in the UK, the summer dresses and shorts and flip flops would already be out!

Spring is a wonderful time of year - perhaps one of my favorites. The smell of fresh cut grass, and the cherry blossom on the trees. There is certainly a feeling of excitement and anticipation, as everyone comes out of hibernation, the cafes open up their outside seating areas and the heating gets tuned off. At least here in Sarajevo we can almost guarantee a long, hot summer is ahead of us.

We went to our first BBQ last weekend and even enjoyed a couple of glasses of Pimms! I know it will not be long until my Facebook newsfeed is filled with status updates from friends back home drinking rose and Pimms sitting on the Northcote Road!

I am not expecting this lovely weather to be with us indefinitely, in fact, there is rain on the horizon for early next week. But hopefully this will just be some April showers and the sun will return again.

"(I) oni su branili ovaj (svoj) grad"

A new photography exhibition has opened in Sarajevo, which is definitely worth popping along to if you have the time.

"(I) oni su branili ovaj (svoj) grad" translated "(And) they have defended this (his) town" is a photo exhibit by Bosnian photographer Milomira Kovačevića Strašnog who captured photos of all those who defended the City of Sarajevo throughout the Siege (April 1992 - February 1996). The imagery is strong, regular people posing for the camera with guns and weaponry, in the background destroyed parts of this beautiful city.

The exhibition is in the National Gallery (Umjetnicka galerija BiH) located next to the Dom Armija. It is open until early May. Entrance is free, however a donation is suggested.