To-Do lists as a blog post: dull as an old sock or as fascinating as the contents of the person in front’s shopping basket? Whatever: today I’m on about a shared task of SmallMonkey’s and mine. As well as the usual rounds of homework, room tidying and plate-clearing, he has a stack of thank you cards to write due to the recent bounty from Christmas and 10^th birthday festivities. If we don’t start now we’ll be including them in the next lot of Christmas cards.

I’ve got some thanks to give as well, after a blog event I attended last week. If you check in regularly you’ll know I’m not a commercial writer, no banner ads and no hashtagging unless I’m Tweeting a link, and being a ‘vanilla’ blogger is not necessarily a good thing. I wanted to change the world with my blog, or at least make a bit of cash – turns out I’m mostly banging on about What I Did On My Holidays (not fishing, just saying). I’ve yet to work out what’s next.

No matter, I do what I do and it trolleys along nicely, and every now and then I’m invited to meet other people who blog, most of them more successfully than me, and it’s always good to hear how the other half do it.

Companies know that bloggers connect well, and Singapore lends itself charmingly to hosting such events, being a relatively small city, geographically, with a social set-up that tends to form miraculous chain-links in a Two Degrees Of Separation kind of way. Although my page is clear of business links I have done more networking in my two and a half years on the Red Dot than in the whole of the 43 years preceding our move. Isolated from familiar ground and with the jolt of the move still firing me with some enthusiasm, I am free to reinvent myself at every media event I attend, pressing my cards forward with two hands and connecting up the next morning. It is easy and fun and interesting, and it’s opened more doors for me than ever before.

So down to the blogmeet.sg event I popped, hosted at Edit Lifestyle (funky homeware store) and set up by the very clever Lucy from Lulabelle Lifestyle, who wanted to create a space in which people who rattle the keyboards could connect and hashtag themselves into a flurry of useful bonding. Aside from being a happy and fun evening, the event did just what it said on the tin, and I left two hours later with a wodge of new business cards, a stuffed goody bag and a Panama hat, plus several new blogger friends. I also reconnected with a work colleague from (clicks on CV to work it out) golly, about 17 years ago – that’s as long as I’ve known Mr PC. She still remembered my spot of bother over the wedding dress, and we’re meeting again for drinks in a few weeks. Awesome.

THANK YOU, then (because I’ve got to get mine in before SM, haven’t I?), to the following outlets who filled our chubby goody bags with items that are much nicer looking in reality than in the photo here. Clockwise from top left:

• Fancy and stunning Panama from Hat of Cain: yep, packing it for Bali at Easter
• Discount vouchers from Hediard (scrummy edibles) and Ribbon and Roses (pretty things)
• Beautiful silk thread bangles and voucher from Simone Irani
• Set of beautiful hemmed hankies from Apple Tree
• Aromastick and discount voucher from Havaroma
• Gorgeous grey bracelets and voucher from Jasper Living
• Cool greetings cards from Just My Type
• Smart leather key holder from Naaka Enterprises
• Scrummy potions plus discount from Katharos

Pictured centre: Sweet croc dangler and discount voucher from Tamarind Living; funky ring and discount from Shiva Designs.

See? #swagtastic. That’s the next few birthdays sorted, plus a lot more padding in the old contacts book. Not a bad evening’s work. Consider yourself properly thanked, Lucy @ Lulabelle.

PS: Did I mention the Panama? (oh, the Panama)