Nice really does matter.

Courtesy of Sue at Random Blethers, I am now the proud owner of a Nice Matters award. Started by Bella Enchanted, this is a friendship award and is given by the recipient to 7 other fellow bloggers who have been nice people, good friends and support in times of need and who inspire good feelings and inspiration. What? Only seven?

I like the word nice, despite the fact that as a teacher I spend hours telling the little brats to try and think of a different word (nice and pretty, the two most overused adjectives amongst girls aged 8 to 11) because it has such a depth of meaning to it. The concise Oxford Dictionary in 1958 (I have my Mum's copy from her years as a student) has a range of meanings for nice that we may or may not recognise as still applying today.

It says that nice means;

1. fastidious, dainty, hard to please, of refined or critical tastes, precise, punctilious, scrupulous or particular eg "must not be too nice about the means"

2. Requiring precision, care tact or discrimination as in "a nice experiment"

3. Minute or subtle "a nice distinction" (which is a phrase that I'm sure Georgette Heyer used in her books)

4.Attentive or close "a nice inquiry"

5. Delicately sensitive, discriminative or deft "a nice ear or hand"

6. Agreeable, attractive, delightful, well-flavoured, satisfactory, kind, friendly, considerate, generally commendable, sometimes used ironically as in "this is a nice mess"



Funnily enough, although the last definition is the closest to what we regard as nice these days, it was labelled as colloquial in the 1958 dictionary, meaning it was a slang usage and not the nicest definition (using def number 2!)



But I like number 6. Nice is good... just look at that list of words. Who wouldn't want to be them? Agreeable, well I'm pleasant to talk to; attractive (we are talking blog terms here) and my blog is tidier than my house, I hope it's attractive; delightful etc etc. Thank you for my award, Sue. I shall treasure it always or at least until next week, when I can go back to being my own sweet vindictive and malicious self. Now I get the fun; Who do I know who is "Nice"? Taking the last definition as my cue; here are the blogs I consider to be

Agreeable; Domesticali. I always find myself nodding in agreement with her, and so much of how she lives matches with how I live.

Attractive; I have to put Sophie Honeysuckle in here. I love looking at her pictures and seeing what her house is like. It's really pretty. (Although it was a close run thing with Posy. her fireplace picture is still my iconic blogpost)

Delightful; This award goes to Cherry Menlove, one of my first cyber heroines and one of the reasons I started blogging. Go see her wedding dresses today. Despite her posting a picture of Jordan her blog usually has delightful pictures of food, house and life on.

Well-flavoured; I'm having trouble trying to choose just one of our highly talented cooking bloggers to nominate. There are so many lovely looking cakes and food out there. However, on the chance that I might possibly wangle an invitation to a cake tasting out of her, since she is another local lass, I have to plump for Mary Mary Fairly Contrary who is prepared to post gratuitous pictures of yummy looking cakes for me. Sarah has my number, Mary and I'm sure that you have to bake perfect cakes in the WI, so perhaps I could help you practise?

Satisfactory; Ha! You want to know which blogger I would blight with the mimsy label 'satisfactory'? A plague on all your houses! All my blogmates are absolutely satisfactory and that's as in be content or pleased with, with no room for complaint. So there.

Kind; Dotty Cookie who is swapping a cupcake backpack for a painted box. She has been so kind to offer this. Thanks!

Friendly; This goes to Everything Stops for Tea. Any one who can spend 4 1/2 hours having coffee with me is friendly. Let me know when your next free day is, Sarah, and we can be ladies who lunch (and elevens and afternoon tea) again.

Considerate; this award goes (backwards again!) to Sue at Random Blethers, a woman with whom I know I could waste a lot of time if we were close neighbours. It's a good job that half the country separates us, or I would never get anything done!

Hope you all enjoy your awards, girls and that you pass them on to 7 more NICE bloggers. Have a lovely day, everyone.