It is going to take a little while to tie everything together but we think it will improve the site so please bear with us whilst we update everything.

In the meantime if there are any other ways you think we can improve the site then please let us know

Things have been very quiet because first the main site broke and then I managed to break the blog when I tried to fix the site myself (oops). Anyway, it has become painfully obvious that I don’t have the technical skills to fix the main site so I have decided it is time to bring in an expert. Hopefully everything will be back to normal in the near future.

It is great to be able to post again after just over a year of being absent … so watch this place as I will now be posting more regularly.

We are working with them to sort it out as soon as possible!

So, what’s in store for 2009? Well, there is a plan underway and as soon as the groundwork has been set I will let you know a bit more. There is no point ruining the surprise

Happy holiday!

Now it is time to take stock of what we have accomplished with the Littlelegends Blog and Website. So, do let us know which bits you like (and those that you hate).

The fun thing about this site is that it keeps on evolving. It certainly doesn’t follow any rules.

My take on everything so far is as follows:

* The blog has been a big success and has been a great way of meeting likeminded people, sharing ideas and building a bit of a community

* The website is a very useful place to keep bookmarks of places you know. However, for some reason, people are not really into the idea of adding their own stuff. Maybe we are expecting too much? Also, it is impossible for us to write about the whole of the UK so much of the info is very sketchy and so of limited use. Having said that, for the places that have been written up properly and rated the site works very well.

How can we improve? Add a forum? Limit the information to London but more in depth? Something else completely?

I hope that you will take the time to give a bit of feedback. I am now off to Devon for a couple of weeks (rain forecast everyday ) so bye for now.

Happy Holidays!

Emergency Childcare asked for a link. In a way they’re ‘competition’. But they’re good at what they do. So we linked.

Personally, I don’t have any problem linking to useful services. The more options uk parents and families have to find what they need, the better. Full stop. And to help that, I think we need to be open. So yes, you’ll find links to netmums, mumsnet and other established sites here.

It’s been a little surprising that some “competitor” sites haven’t wanted to reciprocate links. Of course, they’re not under any compunction to, they may not think we’re a useful enough service, or we don’t have a sufficiently large PageRank yet. And I think it’s wrong to expect that, just because A links to B, B should link to A. But the stated reason is that we’re competition.

From a corporate angle, I suppose we should be pleased we’re seen to be competition. (It’s just Vicky and me after all!) And maybe we’re being naive to link to competitor sites. But from a broader perspective I think the “you’re a competitor” line is a little depressing. It means the site owners view the site as more important than the help it provides.

Ho hum. Rant over. Sorry!

BT’s Openreach will donate £1 for every vote registered and you can win an iPod touch. If 50,000 people vote by 30th April then an extra £50,000 will be donated so get voting!

Also, if you are keen on karaoke then you can record your own rhyme to raise an extra £2 for charity! Not for the shy though as everyone will be able to listen to you warbling.

According to the website, the top ten are currently:

1 Twinkle Twinkle little star

2 Incey Wincey Spider

3 Baa Baa Black Sheep

4 Row Row Row your boat

5 Old MacDonald had a farm

6 Round and round the garden

7 Grand Old Duke of York

8 Humpty Dumpty

9 1,2,3,4,5 Once I Caught a Fish Alive

10 5 little ducks went swimming one day

I had to add my personal favourite to the list which is “A Frog He Would A-Wooing Go”. It is a great one for singing along to in the car

“was beginning to wonder where all the UK parent blog activity is.”

And that’s a shame, because reading what others have to say is at least half the fun. [British Parent Bloggers is doing sterling work to rectify this, of course!]

Anyway, I thought one things that could make the process easier is for us to share our subscriptions in a way that others can easily access. And here it is: our OPML file

An OPML file is just a list of blogs and news feeds that you can import into your news reader in one fell swoop rather than having to subscribe to them all individually.

If you want to have a look:

1. Save the file
2. Open up your news reader (see here for more)
3. Import the file
4. Update your news feed and you should have everyone’s latest posts to read.

Lastly, but definitely not least, thanks to David for sharing the technical tip.