I AM a blogger!

"You're addicted says hubby!"

He isn't normally around by the time I sit down to visit my blog first thing in the morning. But he went into to work a bit later today, so when all the children were finally dispatched to their various destinations (we have four between the five of them) I sat down for my half an hour of sanity.

Today needed some sanity in particular, because when at 7 a.m. both of us having run round the house for 3/4 an hour looking for things that three eldest needed to take to school, throwing things towards them for their school bags, being shouted at by one for having lost her perfume (it turned up underneath her things on the stairs), hubby being shouted at for having had the audacity for putting something found on bathroom floor into the washing basket, and the dog having been shouted at for having taken a glove to chew and then being apologised to when it was found unscathed and unchewed (unlike most things at the moment), child number two, also known as eldest and only son, ran outside to the bus (bus stops outside the door, very convenient), without school bag. How he didn't notice that he wasn't encumbered by something which weighs as much as your average bag of bricks is beyond me. But he did. Forget it that is.

And so, Hubby, ran outside in his (albeit very nice,
Next from a couple of Christmases back) dressing gown to the (not even a school, but a public) bus to give ESOS (Eldest Son, Only Son) the schoolbag. I died. It takes a lot to embarrass me, but today I died, and hid from the view of the bus which passes our kitchen window.

Then we relaxed for a bit by getting the younger two up and going through the same process again. Much easier though with children aged 8 and under. In fact they even decided yesterday that with the appearance of a VERY NICE and very considerate new lollipop lady (Please stay, we love you. Don't go like the last one did over a year ago. Just because she was 92 and had been doing the job for fifty years. Takes a long time to recruit a new lollipop lady) that they would walk to school on their own.

Now before anyone tells me that I am a hard and heartless mother letting my 6 and 8 year old walk to school on their own, let me just explain that it is literally across the road, and that you can see the gate from our front door. And yes, it was deliberate policy to buy a house across the road from a primary school and on the bus route............And then we sent our eldest three to private schools 12 miles away, until we a: came to our senses, given that there was a primary school across the road (which youngest two did already attend) and also rare and sought after (state) grammar schools in Gloucester available on a bus in a different direction and b: most significantly, we ran out of money, which caused us to come to our senses, very quickly. But that's another story, for another day....

"True" I say (to the comment about addiction in case you've forgotten, which quite reasonably after that ramble you may well have done). "But, it's better than smoking or alcohol. And given the stress of our day to day lives, either would be quite possible in the normal run of things."

I used to have only one addiction (that is apart from chocolate, which does have some health benefits, to me that is, so I won't count that), and that was the need to watch Neighbours every day. It wasn't the brilliant story lines, the fantastic acting or the marvellous sets (I mean have you SEEN the multi millionaire Paul Robinson pad? Surely to goodness even on a limited t.v. budget they could possibly make it look a BIT more like a place that belongs to someone who owns most of the town......), but more a need to completely switch off from the rest of the world for the 25 minutes that it is on. Somehow, by knowing what is going on in the lives of the people in Ramsay Street, I keep my own life on an even keel.

And now I have a second addiction: blogging. Every morning I look at my blog. Read any new comments, check the site metre to see not only how many people have visited, but which sites they have been referred from. I then get a little kick out of looking at the world map and seeing how far spread my visitors are, before I visit all my favourite sites, leave a few comments and then think about what I am going to write.

It really is quite sad, because it's the sort of routine that you might impose on someone who is undergoing some sort of rehabilitation therapy, so as to keep them sane, and just like my eldest daughter used cooking as a distraction therapy when she was supposed to be revising for her GCSE's (In defence of ED I have to say though that it did work because she did really well), I similarly blog rather than open the post and deal with my daily round of robbing Peter to pay Paul and negotiating bank charges (always lose, because banks are much better at charging people who are broke, as there's more of them, so they can make more money that way) caused when Peter and his wife ran out of money, because they paid school fees for just a little too long........

So here it is. A confession from an admitted bloggerholic. I am a blogger. However, unlike other addictive habits I have NO intention of giving this one up, so, with the odd break to write a best selling novel (when I am eventually commissioned), or to be an important voice on an important set of commercials (maybe for one of the High Street Banks, that would be the perfect irony) I am here to stay.

p.s. Meant to say that I have decided to sell my soul and join Blogsvertise, so if you see little underlined words here and there, do have a look and it might just help us to pay huge mortgage on huge house for huge family!