About five years ago I had my hair cut - okay, it’s not the most exciting opener to a blog post but stick with me here - and it went from super-long to super-short in one quick motion. Since then I’ve been growing it - do you have any idea what five years of growth looks like? Well my friends, you can see from the picture above that I’m battling back a fair amount of curls every morning, and while I constantly moan about not knowing what to do with them, the truth is that I’m weirdly proud of my shabby hairstyle. 

So now that I’ve introduced you to my hair, I’ll introduce you to my friend Catherine. A lovely girl who’s currently training to be a hairdresser, Catherine recently asked if she could ‘borrow my hair’ for a restyle exam; I told her that I could probably afford to lose a few inches, so why the hell not?

Since then the thought of lopping off my locks has been an anxiety-inducing one - I don’t even remember what I look like with short-ish hair, it could be terrible! But the prospect of losing a few inches of hair was quickly put into perspective when I realised exactly how many young girls out there are losing all of their hair due to severe illnesses; suddenly, losing a few inches didn’t seem like much to moan about at all. In fact, I decided that I could probably stand to lose a little more than that, so I started doing some research…

I quickly stumbled across the website for the Little Princess Trust, which you can check out for yourselves by clicking here. The website is dedicated to providing real-hair wigs for these children and because of that, they take real-hair donations from anyone that can spare upwards of seven inches. Can you see where this is going?

One fundraiser profile page later and here I am, asking - maybe even begging - that you get behind this charity that is working to help so many young girls feel like little princesses, which, I think you’ll agree, is an experience that every girl should have at some point during her childhood. Okay, I’m not moving mountains or curing cancer; I’m not running a hundred miles - hello, have you seen me? Like I could ever run that far - but I am trying to make a teeny, tiny difference to kids out there who deserve a difference to be made for them. So on April 2nd, at 9:45am, I’ll be losing seven inches of hair, maybe more, if I’m feeling particularly brave on the day, and packaging it off to the trust to contribute to a real-wig for a little princess somewhere out there. However, while hair donations are great, it would be lovely if I could send more than just a wad of curls, and that’s where you guys come in…

I know, I know, charity begins at home; times are hard; we can’t afford it! Believe me, I know. I don’t want or expect you to donate more money than you can afford, but if everyone who reads this blog post can afford £1, then we could make a lot of money between now and April 2nd, and we could make a little difference. And wouldn’t that be nice? 

You can access my fundraiser page by clicking here, where you can read about the challenge and donate, if you fancy it. If you decide that it’s stupid to pay someone to have their hair cut then don’t feel obliged to donate. The one thing that I will ask is, if you’re reading this, please share it? On Facebook or Twitter or whatever else is popular nowadays, because even if people read this and don’t donate, then they’ll at least close down their browser knowing a little more about Little Princesses and how we can all try and help them. 

C x 

I get it, I really do. Somewhere between playing with lego and turning eighteen - it might have even happened at a younger age for some people reading this - life became a lot more serious than we expected it to be. Things became hard, sometimes unbearable, and being happy actually became an effort rather than a given. It’s my opinion that everyone has days when they really hate everything - and if you don’t have those days, or you’ve never had one of those days, then please feel free to drop me an email and let me know what meds you’re taking, because there’s got to be something keeping you emotionally up all the time (that, or I really am just a miserable bugger).

Ironically, life tends to get in the way of life sometimes, and when you get home from what feels like a thousand-hour-long shift at work and you have to make dinner, tend to the children, husband, wife, and whatever else you have waiting at home for you, being happy seems to slip behind the sofa somewhere while you’re scoffing dinner and catching up on the soaps. And why shouldn’t it? It’s been a bloody long day and you deserve to be grumpy at the end of it. 

Unfortunately, along with our grumpy human nature, it seems that it’s also human nature to take things for granted; it’s only lately that I’ve realised how guilty I am of taking things for granted myself. So when I saw the ‘100 happy days’ project on Facebook, I thought it might be the kick up the backside that I needed. 

The premise of the project is that every day, for one hundred days, you take a picture of something that makes you happy. They’re not moving mountains, and they’re not asking you to be happy every second of every day - we’re humans, not cyborgs - they’re just asking that for the space of time it takes to snap and upload a picture of something to a social media site of your choice, you remain happy. 

According to their website, a staggering 71% of people who signed up for the challenge actually couldn’t do it, so I’m imagining that it’s much harder than it sounds on paper… And I suppose, after an absolutely pants day, being happy and taking pictures is the last thing you want to think about, but that’s probably the reason why this is such a good challenge. 

Being happy at least once a day shouldn’t be too much to ask for from life, right?

Well, in order to try and find an answer to that question, I’m going to have a good go at the challenge. You can sign up yourselves by heading over to their website, which you can access by clicking here. During the challenge you’re required to upload pictures to Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, where you can display your chosen pictures alongside the hash tag #100happydays (as above).

So, if nothing else, you’ll have some smiley pictures to look back through in a hundred days time! 

Stay happy, folks! 

C x