Just when you think it's all gone quiet, the BiB awards come along and...

...something like this happens.





I've been shortlisted for a BritMums Brilliance in Blogging award (click for a link to see the full shortlists for all categories).

Along with 15 other blogs, The Potty Diaries has been included in the shortlist for the 'Writer' award.  I was already delighted to be included - and then I read the details on the category, as follows (lifted straight from the BritMums site):

'Most blogs have writing at their core. But some blogs feature writing that makes it hard to stop reading. Whether a blog reads like a compelling bestseller or gorgeous poetry, this award celebrates the words on the page.'

Gulp.  Someone, somewhere, thinks this about my blog.

Jesus.  I'm a little bit emotional, to tell the truth.

Consider yourselves warned; I have had enough of self-deprecation and modesty and tomorrow I will probably be asking for your vote.  But today?  Today, I am just having a bit of a moment.

That brightness you can see over in the eastern sky?  It's the reflection of my grin.

Sometimes you just have to let it go...

I have done something which you may think foolish. The shortlist for the Britmums 'Brilliance in Blogging' Awards was published on Friday and I'm on it, as one of the contenders for the 'Lit!' Award.

This is extremely flattering, especially when you read the details for this category:

'Most blogs have writing at their core. But some blogs feature writing that makes it hard to stop reading. Whether a blog reads like a compelling bestseller or gorgeous poetry, this award celebrates the words on the page.'

Wow. Thank you to whoever decided that 'The Potty Diaries' fits the bill and nominated it; I am totally blown away to be on this list.

But. But. Here's the thing. I don't actually think that I write the best of the 20 blogs featured on the short-list. So, do I do what I have done in the past when I've been in this situation and embark on a publicity campaign in the hope of winning votes when I actually don't believe that mine should be the blog to win it? Previous awards have shown that approach to be something of a waste of time, after all, with voters insisting on agreeing with me that yes, there are better blogs than mine out there - and voting for them instead. Dammit.

I can assure you this post is not the result of false modesty on my part. I give good blog, I know that, but I should do; I've been at it for a while and hit 1,000 posts at the beginning of this year. If I'm not capable of stringing a few words together in an interesting and engaging way by now, when will I be?

Despite the fact it is ostensibly anonymous (ha!), I am not afraid to broadcast the fact that The Potty Diaries is MY blog. I write it, I own it, and any rewards that I garner from it are, I think, not through sheer luck; they are rewards I have worked for and of which I'm proud.

But when push comes to shove, I don't believe mine is the best blog on the shortlist for the Brilliance In Blogging Lit! Award - so I've voted for the one that I think is, instead.*

Foolish and defeatist? Or realistic and sticking to my principles?

Whichever it may be, it's all OK with me. And this approach does free me from spending time trying to come up with new and interesting ways of asking you to vote for me over the next few weeks**, and instead to spend it writing about important and topical world issues like My Week In Tweets, supermarket shopping in Moscow, how not to celebrate International Women's Day, and to show you pictures of dead fish and a dog's bottom instead.

So; a win-win situation all round, I would say...

*Click here to see the shortlist and vote

** Although you will perhaps have noted that I have pasted the BIB badge on the sidebar of The Potty Diaries because I am, when all is said and done, bloody proud to have my name on that list...

No time for Shrinking Violets...

Russia is not a country for the shy and retiring. Exciting things can happen here - and do, every day - but not if you sit at home waiting for them to drop through your virtual letter box. Well, not normally, anyway. But today has been a bit of an exception...

It's easy, as I sit here in Moscow 1500 miles from home, to feel a little bit out of things. My trip back to the UK a couple of weekends ago didn't help matters; I had a lovely time but discovered that 2 of the group of 4 close friends I've known for 24 years are moving; one to the Far East, and the other to Yorkshire. (Well, at least she'll have Betty's). I hadn't expected that time would stand still whilst we were in the frozen wastes of Russia, but... Actually, scratch that. I had expected that time would stand still. Rather naively, I thought that we would be away a couple of years, it would fly by, and then I would return to London and just slot seamlessly back into my old existence.

Well, PM, life ain't like that.

So I found myself - more than after previous trips home - feeling a little bereft. That's not to say that we haven't made a life for ourselves out here in Moscow. As a family we've put ourselves out there (never was there a better piece of advice given to arriving expats than 'when you first get there, say yes to everything!') and in return I have been on the receiving end of more kindness and warmth than I could ever have expected. On occasion, people have so surprised me with their generosity of spirit that I've found myself thinking 'Why? What's in it for them?'

The interesting thing though is that the longer I've been here, the more I've come to understand the impulse behind such actions - helping people out who are in the situation you so recently were in yourself, and crucially in this transient expat world, could be in again at any point - and the less cynical I've become.

Established expats put themselves out for the newbies because they can remember feeling lonely, disorientated, confused and homesick themselves.

But even with that support structure, I have to say that there is one thing that, perhaps above all else, kept me from going crazy when I first arrived out here. You guessed it: the blogging community. Specifically, the blogging community centred around the British Mummy Bloggers ning.

Because I knew that if I blogged about it, there were people out there reading, sympathising with, hopefully laughing at and commenting on my posts. And that they understand that whilst life isn't always a bundle of laughs, it can sometimes make the hard things so much more bearable if I concentrate - in writing - on those that aren't.

So I'm not ashamed to say that I teared up a bit when I saw that I've been nominated in 2 categories as a finalist in the BMB Brilliance in Blogging Awards alongside some truly awesome writers. You'll find The Potty Diaries in the shortlist for 'Funniest Post', and 'Outstanding In Their Field'. Thankyou to anyone who nominated me; I would love to say that I blog simply for the love of it, but this is the icing on my bloggy cake...

And finally, since one of the things that being here in Russia has reinforced for me is that if you don't ask, you don't get, I'm not ashamed to ask this of you; go and check out all the other nominated blogs. But then:

VOTE FOR ME, PLEASE!

You can read my post nominated for Funniest Post here, and click here to go through to the BMB blog to find out more about these awards.