How To Blog

This hasn't been quite the literary torrent that I was hoping for. I had expected there to be more output - circulation I'm not bothered about since it's supposed to be a record and a learning experience. I'm guessing that only family and maybe close friends ever come here.

I kept a diary from when I was fourteen to about nineteen. Today, it's interesting to re-visit it and see what I was thinking then, but always a very raw experience. I remember showing it to a girlfriend as we were in the process of breaking up and I don't think I should have; I was still a proto-man with half-formed ideas of what the world was like and my place in it. Still am, but not to quite the same extent. I think she got an insight into me and a closeness that was never shared in the relationship. Anyway, I'm surprised that I've talked about that.

The point of this post is that work introduced internal blogs about two weeks after I started this one, and blogging about my work is, in an intensely selfish way, much more stimluating in some regards than this. With work, I have lots of ideas that I've been thinking about for a long period of time that I want to express and get feedback on. Blogging at work is a very good medium for that. By contrast, what I say on this forum is a lot more immediate and hasn't gone through the same editorial process. When I'm writing code, I feel that I'm a third-draft man, once I've refactored. Something I share with Martin Amis! But here it tends to be much more of a stream of consciousness affair. I might re-read it prior to posting, but I try not to edit the entries after they've gone, since the intent when I began this was to recapture that exicted emotional state for my family to understand. And Al, I promise to try not to reference writing code again on here!

MB

Potty!!!

The Bash started using his potty today. He's been sitting on it for the last couple of months, but not really done anything with it. Then this morning Al told me he'd been on it, and he did the same again before I put him in the bath. I don't know why I'm so excited that my boy felt the need to pee into a plastic pot rather than have a nice warm feeling around his loins, but I guess that's kids for you!

Downtime

Just got back (well, last week anyway) from a relaxing break up north. We managed to show off the little ones to both sets of grandparents and the extended clan up there too. Really needed that; it's been a while since I had a decent break and I managed to almost stop thinking about work, long enough to start learning some new things anyway!

We really are lucky with our boys. They are so adaptable in terms of travelling up, sleeping in strange places and playing with different sets of grandparents / relatives. Such a delight to watch them.

Really overindulged in terms of food. Those familiar with my mother will be sympathetically holding their bellies right now. In fact, I ate so much I wasn't even able to take advantage of one of the finest pubs in the country being on my doorstep.

Next time, less food, more ale.