Things I learned at BritMums 2013...

The BritMums Live! team did an amazing job.

After 6 years, I still have a lot to learn about blogging.

Standing up to read one of your posts aloud in front of 400 people is just about as intimidating as it gets.

I am a rhubarb, according to the stylists from TKMaxx.  Not an apple, pear, or strawberry (yes, you really can be strawberry-shaped - who knew?), but a rhubarb.  So THAT's where I've been going wrong stylistically all these years...

A lot of bloggers have book ideas.  A lot.

Meeting online friends face to face is rarely a disappointment.

Travelling without the kids is... pretty much bliss, actually.

But sitting on the tarmac for 4 hours at Moscow's Domodedovo airport whilst the hydraulic system on the plane is being fixed still stinks.

Arrive at Heathrow T5 after midnight and you will experience the spooky situation where they actually start to turn the lights off in the baggage hall.

Driving through the centre of London after 1am in the morning, looking at all the revellers out there, is a pretty good reminder of how darn old you are.

But glancing out of the hotel window at 6am on a Saturday morning (damn that jet lag) to see clubbers making their way home through the drizzle makes you realise that being ancient really isn't that bad.

Why Blogging is like Fight Club. No, really.

It's probably going to be quiet on The Potty Diaries this weekend.  I'm heading off to the UK for a weekend of talking about blogging rather than actually blogging, at BritMums Live!

This will make a refreshing change from my usual m.o. which - when speaking to 'real' people - is to treat blogging like Fight Club.  Remember?  First rule about Fight Club; Never speak about Fight Club.  Second rule about Fight Club?  Never speak about Fight Club.  So it generally is with blogging and me.

It's not that I'm ashamed of my blog, you understand - rather the opposite.  I'm proud of it, would shout about it from the roof tops if I could.  It's more that a) it's supposed to be anonymous  and b) very often when you tell people who don't blog that you do - if you tell them - they immediately make assumptions about you.

These are, in no particular order:

1.  You have no friends.  This is surprising because the majority of bloggers I've met face to face are some of the most gregarious and engaging people I know.  Frankly, given the opportunity, we rarely shut up.

2.  You have too much time on your hands.  That's why this morning, I'm squeezing writing a blog post in between dropping my kids at school, going into the city to pick up my new visa, sorting the house into some semblance of order, making a cake for the troops to eat whilst I'm gone - got to remind them of the benefits of having me around, obviously - doing the laundry, packing for my weekend away, and getting to the airport on time to make my flight later on.

3.  In a direct contradiction with 2. , that the housework never gets done  This may be true.  I couldn't possibly comment apart from to say, thank god for our cleaner.

4.  You must be short of things to write about, so they can expect to see themselves featured in glorious prose.  Some people are even surprised when they discover that this isn't the case...  I can only say here that since I can barely remember the content of conversations I had with my own family the day after - no, a couple of hours after - they take place, I am quite pleased that I'm able to fool other people into entirely the wrong impression about the strength of my short term memory.

5.  You must be making a fortune.  Ha!

So, anyway; I'm off to London now to talk about blogging to my heart's content for a couple of days.  And then I will return - hopefully with fewer bruises than Brad Pitt and Edward Norton sported after their weekends of Fight Club excess - to settle back into my day to day existence and undercover blogging once again...


If you have a blog, and tell people about it, do you have anything to add to this list?  And if you don't tell people, why not?

  

End of term madness, meets BritMums Live!, meets Good Enough Mothering...

I am all for giving children the opportunity to make their voices heard within the school environment.  One of the worst things I remember about being a child was the feeling that your voice didn't really count for anything; adults got to make all the decisions, big and small, so the fact that the Boys' school has a Student Council seems like a Good Thing to me.  No, really, it does.  Just as long as my sons realise that they live in a benevolently authoritative establishment at home.

That means, by the way, that I will listen to their points of view and accommodate them where possible but - when all is said and done - what I / Husband says goes.  Especially on the big issues.  Like, rice or pasta for dinner.  Or whether that crust is going to be eaten up or not (we can discuss 'not' - but then there won't be dessert afterwards...)

Anyway.  The Student Council.  It had decreed that today was Celebrity Day.  (We won't get into a discussion of whether celebrity is something to be applauded here, I think.  I mean, obviously it's not, not really, but when everyone else is participating it seems to be more than a little curmudgeonly to lecture your children on why you are not going to help them pull together a costume when all their friends are dressing up as famous football players or pop princesses).

But let's put Celebrity Day in context.  We are in the last week of term here (do I hear a sharp intake of breath from UK based readers?).  So, you know, I have a question. Whose bright* idea was it to schedule it for this week? (*Add expletives as you see fit).  Because yes, come next Monday my two little darlings will be home all day, every day, until the end of August.

*sighs deeply*

*pulls self together*

Yippee.

So, bearing that in mind, much as I love my sons and am looking forward to spending un-timetabled weeks with them in the very near future, I have to admit that there are just one or two teensy little things I would like to get sorted before that happens.

• Like, finish the copy-editing job I was just sent.  
• Like, finish my novel - a ridiculous dream which is close enough to touch, but not quite - or, in the absence of that, re-read it and come up with an elevator pitch on it's theme.  You know; 'Oh, my novel?  Well, it's sort of Tolkien meets Chekhov meets Maggie O'Farrell...' (It's not, by the way.  Totally different, in fact.  But you get what I'm talking about).  
• Like, gird my loins (as in, work out what the hell to wear) for BritMums Live! this weekend, prepare myself for the workshop and the keynote reading I'll be doing at it, remember to pack my glasses for the opticians appointment I'm squeezing in during my 60 hour whirlwind visit to London, write a shopping list for the same (sleep?  Who needs sleep?), and also batten down the hatches here so that Husband has sufficient supplies (aka pizza and crisps) during my absence.

It's not surprising then that Celebrity Day slipped my mind until Boys #1 and #2 reminded me of it just before their bedtime yesterday evening.  Cue mild panic followed by frantic thinking and creative problem solving.

But, we triumphed.  Well - sort of.  Boy #1 strode into school complete with long brown shorts, white shirt, blue sweater and comma-quiff (courtesy of my Aveda wax) as TinTin, and Boy #2 negotiated the corridors in a dark blue t-shirt tucked into slightly-too short but suitably snug tracksuit bottoms, and wearing his brother's black ski helmet bearing the legend 'Hamilton' written in felt-tip pen on a sticky label across the front of it.

I did spend a few moments last night considering the possibility of covering Boy #2 all over with sponsorship labels so he could look a little closer to the real thing but once I googled a few images and realised that a) we didn't have a yellow flame-retardent jumpsuit to stick them on and b) I would be up all night printing them, it would be much simpler to tell him he was wearing Lewis Hamilton's training kit instead.  (They keep the many-labelled racing kit for race occasions only, didn't you know?)

At the end of term, there was a limit, I decided.  In this instance, Good Enough mothering would have to be good enough...

In honour of Father's Day; The Perfect...

... Bacon Sandwich, as created by Jamie Oliver.

We all know how to make a good bacon sandwich.  Of course we do.  But indulge this slightly homesick British expat please, and take a look at the original cheeky chappie expounding on the virtues of smoked back and streaky bacon, the importance of grilling from above rather than below, how we need to warm the loaf of bread, and the uses of Worcestershire and Tabasco sauces as key elements of a hangover cure.

I know what I'll be seeking out for breakfast when I'm over at BritMums Live! next weekend...  And yes, I AM talking about a proper British bacon sandwich.  Tut.  You lot have minds like sewers.

BritMums Live! Hello...

Nearly 6 months ago I told Husband that come hell or high water, I was going to BritMums Live! this year.  I've been to two out of the three conferences that they've held so far and I can't tell you how miserable I felt in June 2012 watching all the buzz about it beforehand and knowing that I wouldn't be there.

Well, guess what?  It's coming up in less than 6 weeks time.  How did that happen? All of a sudden I need to start thinking about logistics and - gulp - planning what to wear.  Obviously, the first - who will collect the Boys from school, will my Husband even be in the country to do so, how can I ensure the washing machine doesn't languish completely unloved and unused for the entire 4 days of my absence, etc - is the most important piece of the puzzle.  That second thing - the what to wear thing - that I mentioned? I was just joking.  Not worried about it - AT ALL.  (Or rather, I'm not if my attempt to shift a couple of kilos that have magically appeared since the end of last year works, anyway.  Come on, 6 weeks.  Shouldn't be that hard, should it?  In fact, I probably only need to start next week.  Someone has to shift that chocolate stockpile in the cupboard before I begin - it might as well be me...)

Anyway, here's my BritMums Live! hello  (Check here to join the linky yourself).  Just in case, you know, you want to say hi at the event...

Name: Clare  (not my real name - so don't be surprised if you have to use it twice.  And no, don't ask me why I started this anonymity lark, I've forgotten, it was so long ago...)

Blog: The Potty Diaries

Twitter ID: @thepottydiaries

Height: 5ft 7

Hair: Short-ish brown.  Never as flippy-out at the bottom as I would like.

Eyes: Brown

Is this your first blogging conference?  No, my 3rd

Are you attending both days?  Try and stop me.

What are you most looking forward to at BritMums Live 2013?  Catching up with old friends, meeting new ones, and being able to do so without worrying about rushing off to release the babysitter.  And maybe even having a drink or two...

What are you wearing?  Ask me closer to the time - no idea right now.  

What do you hope to gain from BritMums Live 2013?  I really want to make use of the fantastic opportunities to focus on writing.  (Currently my first attempt at a novel,  'The Great Work' - not it's real title - is taking up a lot of my time)

Tell us one thing about you that not everyone knows:  I recently turned down the opportunity to live in a Mediterranean country.  And - bonus fact - I just discovered that I can't spell Mediterranean without using spell check.