Fantastic Mr Clooney

I mean Mr Fox, of course. Isabel was invited to a classmate's birthday party this afternoon - it was actually a joint party, and they took the whole class to see Fantastic Mr Fox at the local theatre (which also, rather confusingly, occasionally doubles as a cinema). Our darling girl has a tendency to get very involved in movies and usually gets quite frightened, mostly because she's so worried that things won't work out right. We tried to pre-empt any problems by reading her the book first, so she'd know that the story works out in favour of the foxes (sorry if that's a spoiler for anyone!), and I decided that I'd offer my services and selflessly see the movie with the kids.

OK, the truth - I LOVE going to the movies, and was very keen to go, I'd have elbowed several children out of the way if need be. And it was a great movie - George Clooney suitably smooth and charming in the title role, and Meryl Streep also very good as his wife. I think it was actually more of an adult's movie than a kid's movie, but they all seemed to enjoy it. And, true to form, Isabel ended up in my lap about three quarters of the way through, so I was glad to be there.

I forgot - she was actually in tears even before the movie started. I'd sent her along with six fun size of bags of Maltesers which I had left over from Christmas - I thought she might like to share them with her friends. And share them she did - so generously that she ended up with nothing, and then looked at me with tears in her eyes when I asked if she had any left for herself. I had to go out to the foyer and grab a tub of Minstrels which we split with one of the other mums, who also has a daughter who gets rather too involved in movies for her own good! It was very cute, but left me worried that she'll be such an open person when she grows up that she'll continuously be getting her heart broken. Oh no, now I'm the one in tears!

Oh dear John Terry

I don't know why the recent revelations about John Terry are surprising. "Footballer has affair" is hardly a shocker. It's a bit like "French politician has affair" - it's expected, almost de rigeur. But Terry has always seemed like a solid and well meaning fellow, not necessarily bright but somehow honest. But even then he's a footballer, so I wasn't really surprised.

I started to understand, however, as the details emerged, why he'd wanted that injunction. "Footballer has affair" - fine. "Footballer has affair with wife's best friend" - ouch, slightly sordid. "Footballer has affair with wife's best friend who also happens to be said footballer's best friend's missus" - noooooo! Really? Yuk! How to destroy your life in one fell swoop - I wonder if the three strikes and you're out rule applies in this case.

And with that little judgmental rant over, herewith a couple of John Terry jokes which are already doing the rounds.

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Latest scores: John Terry 1, Tiger Woods 12. Let me just stress that this is a latest score.

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For Valentine's Day Wayne Bridge had a model of his willy made out of Cadbury's chocolate for his girlfriend. It's a shame she prefers Terry's.


Baboom tsssccchhhhh!

I said I'd blog every day this week

But I don't have much to say tonight - for a change! We've had a busy day - took Emily to weighing where we found she'd lost weight and gone back down under a stone (NOOOOOOOOOOOO!) but on the plus side we got a letter from the paediatrician saying all her blood tests were fine. Gives with one hand, takes away with the other. And then after school Isabel had a friend home from school - glad I asked her mother what she liked to eat since it turns out she doesn't like cheese. Cheese! All children love cheese, surely?! Isabel likes more cheeses than I do - she's a big brie and camembert fan, neither of which I like.

See, I told you I had nothing to say really. I've just managed to stay awake through Jonathan Ross (OK, I had a little nap first, so sue me...) and now that I've blogged I'm heading to bed to see if I can finish The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Or maybe I'll just nod off, book in hand, and wake up an hour later with the bookmark poking me in the eye. I think I know which is more likely...!

Do I want an iPad? Well, I wouldn't turn one away....

I spent much of the day reading about the new Apple iPad and writing a piece on it for work. It's a pretty fun job sometimes. And while I love my iPod Touch and am a bit of a gadget geek I'm not sure that I want an iPad. Yet.

There's a few reasons for this. Firstly, I don't use my iPod Touch as much as I thought I would. Our Wifi signal upstairs isn't brilliant so while I would have liked to use it in bed the signal quality means that I don't very often. I used to use it a lot when I was still breastfeeding - it's a brilliant gadget to rest on the arm of a chair while feeding and catch up with something on BBC iPlayer, or check e-mail. Also, I want to do things with it that I can't do - for example, I'd like to copy DVDs onto it but haven't worked out how to do this. And since I'm not commuting any more, I don't use it much as a music player. I do if I'm taking Emily for a walk if I think she'll fall asleep, but if I want her to stay awake I tend to leave it at home so that I can chat to her (she's probably thinking "shut up mother, for goodness sake!").

So I'm worried that while I love the look of the iPad, I might not really use it. I use my laptop all day and most evenings, but usually I'm do a lot of typing which isn't really what the iPad is designed for. And if I want to watch a DVD or a TV show I'll use the TV (controversial, I know). And as for e-books - I still can't resist the feel of a print on paper book. Latent Luddite tendencies. Finally, I've never really been someone who buys into the first version of a new gadget - I usually dribble over it for ages, and finally get one in its second or third iteration.

So I don't think I'm an iPad customer yet. But I hope to grow up and become one sooner or later, and if anyone's got an iPad going spare I would be happy to take it off their hands....!

The medical saga marches onwards

Emily's second hospital visit today - this time for an ultrasound on her kidneys. Since she had a urine infection last year, and we didn't know how long it had gone untreated, the paediatrician advised us to take her for a scan to make sure that the infection hadn't damaged anything. And, hooray hooray, it hasn't. I didn't think it had - she probably would have had some symptoms if that had been the case - but it was reassuring to have it confirmed. And she was so good during the scan - lay first on one side and then the other and then on her back, smiled at the ultrasoundist (I know that isn't a word, but it should be) and was generally lovely. And best of all, she didn't pee on me, which I was a bit nervous about since the ultrasoundist (there's that word again!) said she had a full bladder.

But that's not her only medical adventure this week - I've booked her in to have a swine flu jab on Saturday morning. I was a bit nervous about this having heard some rumours about the vaccine having been rushed out and not fully tested. Also, there's been nothing about swine flu in the papers for weeks and I think that number of cases has fallen dramatically. I don't think I'm the only one to have doubts -take-up of the vaccine amongst health professionals doesn't seem to have been very high. So I asked a doctor friend of mine what she was doing with her own twins who are just a few months older than Emily. She gave me very sensible and direct advice - better to have the vaccine than the disease, in her opinion it was safe, and her kids were having it next week. So, that's what we're doing too. I'm generally a great believer in vaccinations and don't have any qualms, but this one seemed a bit out of the ordinary. I suppose we live in extraordinary times.

The result of this week will therefore be that Emily is healthy and protected against nastiness - I guess we'll have to rely on her to nurse the rest of us if we all come down with swine flu though!

The family that Wiis together...

It was my little brother's 15th birthday this weekend. Last year we all went bowling and for lunch at Wagamama's, which was really fun, but we didn't want to do that again, and we just couldn't decide what to do this year that everyone would enjoy. When I say "everyone", this had to include my dad and stepmother, Husbandio and I, my teenage brother and sister, and Isabel and Emily. It's a pretty wide age range - 9 months up to early 60s.

The Wii, however, managed to unite us. Watching us all play must have been like watching one of those annoying adverts with Ant and Dec or the Redknapps. We were eight in total - Dad, self, Husbandio, Isabel, little bro, little sis and her boyfriend, and a friend of mine who was staying for the weekend. Emily was deemed still a bit too small - she was the mascot though.

We played seven events in all - I even had to set up scorecards in Word and a spreadsheet in Excel to calculate the results! Surprises included a win for my Dad in the Javelin and a win for Isabel at table tennis. I won nothing (boo hoo!) but came second in the bowling. Once the final scores had been counted and verified, Husbandio had won overall, my brother was second, and Isabel was third! She may have had a little help along the way, but still a great result! She was very pleased, and we all celebrated with homemade cake. After all, we needed some energy after all our exertions....!

Pushy parent (in training)

I don't think I'm a pushy parent, but I know I have the potential. I suspect that this is true of most mothers, maybe more than fathers since mothers tend to be more connected to the day to day details of their children's lives. That's not a criticism, but I think it's true. And this means that it's usually mothers who do the school drop off and pick up, talk to other mothers about their impressions of the teachers, and step in to fix things which they perceive as being broken.

And that's the situation we're facing at the moment. The teacher in Isabel's Reception year was brilliant - the kids loved her, the parents loved her, she communicated well with the parents, the kids were clearly learning and also having fun. What more could you ask for? Now that Isabel's in Year 1, it's not the same at all. I know that Year 1 is very different from Reception, which is really a bridge year between nursery and real school. There's a lot more structured work in Year 1, which has often caused Isabel to sigh, and say, "I wish I was back in Reception...". But she's managing the work with no problem so far.

The problem is, unfortunately, with the teacher. She's newly qualified, which I had hoped might mean that she would be really enthusiastic and up to date with teaching techniques. The latter may be true, but the former doesn't seem to be. And while she may be good in front of the class, which appears to be the case, she's woefully disorganised. She communicates badly with the parents too, and just isn't very personable. And some of the things they're being taught are just plain wrong - Isabel's writing a lot now, but isn't writing all of her letters correctly (e.g. starting an 'f' from the bottom instead of the top) and this will cause her problems when it comes to trying to do joined up writing. To combat this, I've downloaded some letter formation sheets and she's doing extra practice on three letters per night to try to correct the problem before it gets worse, or before it become ingrained and difficult to shift.

I've already been to see the teacher to ask her to move Isabel up to a new reading level (she ended up moving from level 2 to level 5, which is a jump large enough that I would have thought someone else should have suggested it before I did), and every week we either fail to get the homework, the spellings for the following week's test, or both. I spoke to her yesterday to find out why no-one's been hearing Isabel read (she's meant to read out loud to a staff member or "reading parent" at least twice a week) and was told that the reading parents only started this week after Christmas because of the snow, and also that she would from now on be hearing every child read once a week. So she should, she's their teacher! And then today Isabel said that the teacher hadn't heard her read, she'd forgotten.

This means I'll have to go back and speak to her again tomorrow. Is it usual to have to do this much pushing to get the basic stuff right? Should I see the headmaster, or is it just because she's new and finding her feet? I don't know whether I'm making too much of a fuss or not enough fuss - advice from anyone very much welcomed!

This is why I can never get a new job

Not that I'm looking for a new job - I'm quite happy with the one I've got, especially the flexibility and the hours. No, the reason I can never get a new job is that I am a job interview virgin. That's right, never had a job interview in my life, ever. I've done plenty of jobs, just never been interviewed. In some cases that's been because I got the job through a temp agency - working at a cinema as an usherette was the best one of those, because it was while Pulp Fiction was on so I must have seen it about 40 times. Well, the first half up until John Travolta escorts Uma Thurman back to her house after nearly killing her and then saving her life, and he blows her a kiss - he was actually blowing a kiss to me as I left work, he just didn't know it.

In the case of one job, I went through a temp agency and was recruited to work in Westminster City Council's car parking division (off-street - far superior to on-street, donchaknow!) to replace someone who was on long term sick leave. And then she died. And I got the job. Hmm, not an ideal way to start a career! Luckily my dad's company was looking for researchers at that point so I ended up there. I'd done loads of work for them during university holidays so they knew me, and therefore didn't interview me. And I've been there ever since, although the business has since been acquired by a US company. I started in 1996, so it's been a fair while!

Anyway, I present below the real reason why I could never get another job. It's not that I'm frightened of job interviews, it's just that I'm frightened of job interviewers who might ask questions like these.....

• What was your best MacGyver moment? —Schlumberger
• How many tennis balls are in this room and why? —Yahoo!
• How would you move Mount Fuji? —Microsoft
• What should it cost to rent Central Park for commercial purposes? —Bain & Co.
• If I put you in a sealed room with a phone that had no dial tone, how would you fix it? —Apple
• How would you sell me eggnog in Florida in the summer? —Expedia

It's a tough market out there, boys and girls!

We've all done stupid things, but this takes the biscuit

The FBI got caught out in a massive blooper recently - you've probably read about it. I'd somehow managed to miss the full hilarity of it however, until I read a TechCrunch post entitled "Nobody suspects the spanish politician". Great title! I could precis the post but it's very well written - I'd avise you to go and read the whole thing yourself. The element of the story that I liked best was that someone in the FBI had just gone off and used Google, as if they were some eight year old school child who has no way of evaluating information sources. I also liked the suggested search terms - swarthy foreigner, hee hee hee. Made me laugh particularly because a friend of mine pointed out something very peculiar in the new Boden catalogue - they've described their new Portofino collection with the words "Rejuvenating sun, fresh sea air, charming cobbled streets, and your bottom pinched by a swarthy Genoan". Or, if you're really lucky, by Osama Bin Laden.

So, that's the FBI goof of the day. Mine was (I didn't tell Husbandio this yet, so this will be a good test of whether he's reading my blog regularly!) leaving one of the car doors open when I took Isabel to school this morning. Oops......! And Husbandio's was making Emily a lovely lunch of lamb stew and courgettes, and then stirring creamy porridge into it. He mixed up the creamy porridge with the baby rice box. They are pretty similar, to be fair. And it probably didn't taste quite as odd as when he mixed pear puree into bolognaise sauce. He thought it said peas. Yes, I will be sending him to the optician with Isabel next time.

Speccy

We took Isabel to the opticians yesterday and it turns out that she needs glasses. The school nurse had suggested in the summer that we take her to have her eyes tested, and at that point the optician had said that she was mildy longsighted but not to the extent that we needed to do anything about it. However, she's now +1 in one eye and +2 in the other, and I think it's that discrepancy which causes the problem - if one eye has to work harder the other then its growth might be affected. So, it's glasses for our little one.

She didn't seem terribly distressed, and since I wear glasses it's not an alien concept. We got some nice frames (not the NHS ones; sorry NHS, they were kind of manky even in this day and age) and we collect them next week. I'm disappointed and I hope it won't hold her back from running about with her friends, but I'm sure she, and they, will soon get used to them. I blame her grandpa for dodgy eye genes - his eyesight's terrible. And what are parents for if not to blame them for stuff?

Anyway, tonight we thought we'd experiment with some toy glasses just to see what they look like, and here are the results....


Emily was just a bit confused about the whole thing, but submitted to it with very good grace.

Confession - I'm a reading snob

And I don't mean by that statement that I look down on what people read. I don't think I'd be allowed, given that I've read everything Stephen King's ever written (except the new one, which I am saving for a special occasion, don't want to just jump straight in after all!), plus a fairly hefty amount of Jeffrey Archer and Danielle Steel. And Jilly Cooper. And Jackie Collins. Oh dear....

So no, I'm not one to criticise people's book choices. What I find odd, and simply can't comprehend, is people who don't read fiction. Maybe I'm a story addict, but I feel really uncomfortable if I don't have a book on the go. I know several people who don't read, and most of them are pretty sharp customers. But what do they have on their shelves? And where do they go to escape from everyday life for a few minutes, or to experience someone else's life? What do they do in bed before falling asleep? OK, don't answer than last question. But I would feel bereft and believe my life would be the poorer if I weren't a reader. The only bad thing about being a reader is the knowledge that you'll never have enough time to read everything you'd like to. But I'll have to learn to live with that.

In the meantime, make me some recommendations. I've finished the BBC Big Read, and my dad gave me a list of his recommendations but I fear that seems rather unapproachable. Perhaps when I retire - I might be clever enough by then to attempt that. But what should I be reading now? On my "to be read" shelf I currently have:

• Mudbound
• The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (these first two are both for a book group)
  
• David Starkey's first volume biography of Henry VIII
• 2 Stephen Fry novels
• Several Henning Mankells - the next few in the Wallander series
• A Partisan's Daughter by Louise de Berniere
• Pigtopia by Kitty Fitzgerald
• A Pennorth of Poison (about a woman in the 1600s who murdered her husband - and she was a Worlock, which I am too. Or was, before I was a Rann)
  

But I always welcome more suggestions! So do your worst.....(can't be worse than bloody Ulysses!)

Oh bloody hell - that BBC Big Read link contains the Top 200, and I've only read the Top 100. Time to create another spreadsheet!

Laughing out loud

I don't often laugh out loud when reading. There are exceptions of course - I can remember once having to get off a Tube train because I was laughing so hard at a Woody Allen book, and tears have streamed down my cheeks at some of Bill Bryson's exploits. But those notable comic writers aside, I don't usually laugh out loud when reading. I may smirk, I grant you, or perhaps the odd chuckle. Until today, when I came across this blog post by another mummy blogger (is that really what I am?) called More Than A Mother. It nearly made me wee myself. Which is apt, if you read the post....which you should, since I'm not writing any more tonight. Go on, go and read it. Stop hanging around here. Shoo. Begone!

They're both at the best possible age - how is that possible?

Both of the girls have been an absolute delight today, in their own very different ways. When you mention to people that you have kids they always ask "what age?" and no matter what age you say, the reply is always "aah, that's the best age, isn't it?" And as a parent obsessed with your children, you naturally agree. But every age can't be the best age, can it?

Well actually, it can. Emily is a little delight at the moment, compounded by the fact that she's not ill, and therefore in good humour. The first delightful thing she's doing is sleeping past 7.30am every morning, which unfortunately for her will mean she gets woken up by me next week when school is (hopefully!) open again. But it's lovely at the weekend. Secondly, she's recognising certain words - she can splash in the bath on request, and I'm sure she touched Pooh's nose today in direct response to me asking "where's Pooh's nose?". But that may just be my overactive parental imagination. She also lies her head on one side in a very winsome manner if you say "sideways faces!" - don't ask me how this one started, I have no idea. Her third new trick, as of a few days ago, is blowing kisses, which is adorable. Apart from her habit of doing it mainly at mealtimes, when each blown kiss is accompanied by a small shower of pureed something or other.

And Isabel, while being an over-emotional five year old, is also delightful. I felt terribly guilty this morning because after we'd driven to ballet and found it closed (bloomin' snow!) I made her dash through the Sainsburys car park at -1C with bare knees because I didn't want to drive home for warmer clothes. I think she forgave me after I agreed she could have a pot of strawberry custard. And after her knees had defrosted. Anyway, the first of her three delightful things was sleeping until almost 8am. The two of them are really in sync about this at the moment. Secondly, she invited Husbandio and I to play a game of Monopoly Junior which we all really enjoyed - we're finally able to play games with her that we enjoy rather than just pandering to a small person (Wii Sports Resort also falls into this latter category!). The only dodgy moment in the game was where she had the opportunity to stitch over either Husbandio or myself - a tricky situation for a little girl. Sensibly, she decided that siding with her mother was the best bet. And the third delightful thing has been this evening. Husbandio went out with some local friends for a boys' night, so Isabel and I curled up in our big bed with Nutella crumpets, cups of water/tea respectively, and a chocolate Santa, and we watched and chomped our way through Mamma Mia. Neither of us had seen it all the way through, and we both thoroughly enjoyed it in all its glorious trashiness. Isabel even cried at the bit where the mother sings a slow song to her daughter, the sensitive little thing. And neither of us fell asleep during the movie, making it a massive success. She's only just gone to bed now and it's past 10pm, so here's hoping for another lie-in tomorrow morning...!

More snow? Really?

I love the snow. I do - it's looks beautiful, and I love the way it turns everyone into big kids, throwing snowballs and generally larking around. But we've had quite a bit of snow in the last few weeks, and to be honest, it's wearing a bit thin. Yesterday, we still had a snow lump left over from a rather pathetic snowman in our garden before the current batch of snow came in, and that snow lump had been there since well before Christmas. And then last night it just snowed and snowed and then snowed some more. We had a good few inches overnight, and it carried on snowing for most of the day. Husbandio and a couple of our neighbours were out at lunchtime clearing drives and pathways, starting cars, and sweeping snow off windscreens. But no sooner had that been done that the snow started coming down again, and delivered another couple of inches.

We're actually able to deal with it pretty well - lots of food in the cupboard and fridge, and Husbandio's at home for three months now that I've gone back to work so no childcare issues. Isabel only had one day at school this week though - she was in on Tuesday but off today, and will be off again tomorrow. The road leading to the school will be treacherous, and it's not a major road so won't be gritted, so opening on Friday is doubtful too in my opinion. Since we're in the Chilterns it's pretty hilly, so we haven't even been down into town for fear of not being able to get back up the hill again. Still, we tried to make the most of it, threw plenty of snowballs, and enjoyed the peace and beauty of the garden. We'll be doing the same tomorrow, and possibly the next day, and for the few days after that if the weather forecast is right. Now the problem isn't more snow, it's that the temperature's too cold for anything to melt. My commute is just about OK though - big drifts half way up the stairs to my office though...!

Back to work, along with everyone else

Tomorrow's the day that it seemed would never come - back to work. Although, since I'll be doing this along with everyone else after the Christmas break, at least I won't be alone. I'm actually quite looking forward to it even though I have very much enjoyed my maternity leave. For one thing, getting a proper salary at the end of each month will be marvellous, I've missed it. £450-odd quid in statutory maternity pay just isn't the same thing, doesn't even cover the mortgage.

Using my brain for more than planning the pureeing menu will also be good. While writing this blog has kept my writing muscle exercised to some extent, getting my teeth into some real writing and analysis will be great.

Finally, since my company has been very flexible and is allowing me to work 9am - 3pm from home every day, I'm hoping that I'll be able to achieve the mythical work-life balance. Although I have a concern that work-life balance may mean time for work and time for the kids, while Husbandio and I get dragged along in the wake. Even now, if I have five minutes free to read my book then I relish every second.

Which leads me on to my New Year's Resolutions for this year.

1. Use better language in front of Isabel (she said something was a real pain in the arse the other day, oops!)
2. Maintain a more even temper in the face of really irritating things (OK, this one may be beyond me, but I'll try, I promise)
3. Make time for me time, and for us time. This one I'm determined to get right! Wish me luck.....
   

An Emily update

There's been a lot about Isabel in this blog recently, and not as much at all about dear Emsy. Course, she doesn't do as much - mainly sits, and takes things out of her empty Roses tin, before putting them back in again. What an Eeyore-esque way to spend a day. She seems to enjoy it though. And the tin also serves as a drum, which is good - the only downside is that if she leans on the side it tips up and bashes her in the face. Only one way to learn that though....!

It's lovely to see her sitting and playing happily however, since she wasn't very well before Christmas and it wasn't really until she was better that I realised that the Emily we knew and loved had been replaced for a few weeks by a clingy, whingy bundle. I think Christmas was saved by a trip to the GP on the morning of Christmas Eve. Emily had been getting increasingly out of sorts ever since having a cold in early December - she'd had a runny nose for about two weeks, and for about a week had been losing her appetite and throwing up after most meals. I had her paediatrician appointment coming up on 18 Dec though so didn't take her to the GP but then it snowed, and our appointment moved to the 22nd. So I didn't take her to the GP because I was snowed in, plus we had another appointment coming up.

But it snowed again, and in desperation I had to take her in to the GP on Xmas Eve since she'd thrown up in the evening on the 23rd and again on the morning of the 24th. "The calories", I kept thinking, "the calories! We need every ounce to stay down!" She'd also stopped being able to eat lumpy food - pieces of banana or half blueberries, which had gone down perfectly well a few weeks earlier, just made her retch. And she wouldn't drink more than about an ounce of milk at a time. Turns out (drumroll please....) she had tonsillitis. Thank God for that! At least it was diagnosable and treatable. I'd started to worry that this latest incident was all related to her failure to put on weight quickly, but it wasn't, luckily.

So, we came away with a prescription for antibiotics and Ibuprofen, and within a day or two she'd really started to brighten up. She finished the course yesterday and is a different child from a couple of weeks ago - smiling, happy, eating loads, sleeping well, and even drinking all of her milk which she hasn't done for a couple of months. Maybe the antibiotics dealt with something else as well. As the cracker joke goes - what do you give a man who has everything? Antibiotics!

In other Emily news, we also finally managed to get her to her paediatric appointment. The consultant said he could see no reason for her being a pipsqueak - he took some blood to do some further tests and she'll also have a kidney ultrasound to make sure that the urine infection didn't do any damage. But it seems as if she's just the size she is - and after all, my mum's 5' 1", Mark's mum only just scrapes in at 5', and his sister's the same. So, maybe she just won't be very big. Which is fine - small and healthy works for me. We've got a follow up in mid February and hopefully that'll be that. Meanwhile, back to that Roses tin, there's work to do!

A year of blogging successfully completed!

I said when I started this blog that it would be a place where I could:

1. Muse and report on what's been happening in my life (check!)
2. Report funny things which Isabel has said (check!) - I think her saying "be sanguine" to me when I dropped the iron and burned a large iron-shaped mark in the middle of the lounge carpet probably takes the prize here.
3. The occasional whinge/rant (check!) - looking back on some previous posts, it looks as if struggling through the enormous and dreadful tome which is Shantaram, and then failing to get to the book group to vent my spleen about it seems to have been the thing which has annoyed me most this year!

I've been pretty chuffed with the progress I've made with the blog, though I say so myself. I started off being a very responsile daily blogger, but Emily's birth in April put paid to that. Since then I've probably blogged at least a couple of times a week, leading to a total of 222 posts for the year (61% of the available days - will try to do better next year!)

Over the year I've had 1,335 visits to the blog from 469 visitors. That seems like a lot - I certainly don't know 469 people. How exciting! These visitors have spent an average of 48 seconds on the site, which makes sense since I think people visit to read the current blog post, and then very sensibly go off and get on with their lives. What I can't tell is how much activity has taken place from people reading the blog through Facebook, but I must say that publishing it as an FB note is very rewarding, since I've had many more comments since linking the blog into FB.

Overall I've really enjoyed writing this, and hope that everyone reading it has been entertained. I'm looking forward to 2010. I'm even looking forward to going back to work on January 4th; stretch the brain a little, and, just as importantly, start replenishing the coffers. Husbandio's looking forward to the start of the year too I think, since he's off work now until April, looking after darling Emsy. I'd love to see him taking her to a baby singing group which I used to take her too but doubt he will - the playground in the rain may be more his style! Or perhaps some quality time in the lounge teaching her the finer points of Modern Warfare. Isabel's been having lessons in swordplay on Wii Sports Resort, so it must be time for Emily to start soon as well. So, a very Happy New Year to all - here's to a great 2010!