The dangers of blogging

You think this is going to be about addiction. You have spotted the fact that I am technically on blogging sabbatical, but seemingly can’t actually stop. But ha! It’s not. I can walk away any time. I can. No, this is a little story that I hope will act as a New Year cautionary tale about the interface between real life and the life of the blog. This is an area that bloggers give much thought to, especially as they start out. What if I’m rude about my next door neighbor, and I’m not quite as anonymous as I believe? What if I tell a hilarious story about the school principal’s pants falling down (trousers to you, although pants would be funnier), and he turns out to be a secret lurker on my site? Should I tell my family and friends about the blog, and then have to be polite about them for ever more? What if I use my artistic licence and make up a few things, and get caught out? Is a blog fact or fiction? What if I say it was a grey and miserable Saturday afternoon on the beach, and people use the comments box to say “no it wasn’t, I was there and the sun was shining brightly all day long”? You know the kind of thing. But for all the care and caution with which the blogger attends to such issues, there is always the wild card out there waiting to be played. This is my wild card story.

I have a friend - let’s call her Josephine. We were at school together. In recent years, we have had pregnancy, motherhood and an email addiction as shared experiences. Our paths have run slightly less closely since I moved here, since she has been lured from email by Facebook and I by blogging. I do log on to see how her virtual Renault Twingo is doing and how many people have given her little pictures of chocolate cake (I’m sorry, but I can’t really get into Facebook, I know this is my loss because clearly so many other people love it, but there we are …), and she reads my blog. And we do still email a bit regarding essential matters such as how to go about buying girl clothes when you’ve only had boys so far, the latest trends in baby names, whether the grass is really greener over the other side of the fence and what can be done about it, and the teasing of a mutual friend who has a crush on her GP.

Anyway, Josephine had a baby in September. He’s called Joshua. He looks lovely in the pictures. Not long after he was born, Josephine emailed me saying “we think you should be Joshua’s blogmother”. I was thrilled. I emailed back at great wittering length. Several times. You may find this hard to believe... or you may not... but when I get going, I am something of a witterer. I’ve never sought treatment as, personally, I don’t see it as a medical condition, and I know several fellow witterers (leading politicians among them) who share my opinion. I can witter on at impressive length about pretty much nothing at all, so wittering on about being asked to be godmother turned me into Mrs Wittering of No 1, Witter Avenue, Great Wittering, Wittershire. Believe me. I wittered on about how I love having godchildren. I made jokes about furry godmothers. I mentioned that baby Joshua almost shares a birthday with another of my godsons (clearly a fact of huge interest to a mother in the throes of managing a new baby). I reminisced about how she had lent me a pretty white Vertbaudet summer dress (puffed sleeves, Peter Pan collar) for my daughter’s christening that had been her daughter’s, but how I didn’t think it would do for Joshua. I wrote volumes about how we always regretted not having asked her to be godmother to one of ours (always a tricky area), and that I’d once suggested to Husband that we should have a fourth child so that we could rectify the situation, but had had to concur with his opinion that that wasn’t a very strong reason for further procreation. Wittering, much wittering.

And then there was silence. I heard nothing, which didn’t really surprise me. New babies don’t allow much email time, Josephine’s husband has to be away for work for weeks at a time, no allowances made for a new arrival, her daughter had just started school… But then, after two weeks, with all that witter in the Sent Items folder looking lonely and increasingly uneasy, like the woman under the clock with a red carnation in her hand, I sent an email saying “Feeling a bit shifty here. You didn’t really mean it about the godmother thing did you? It was just a pun wasn’t it? Um. Don’t know what else to say.”

Josephine came clean. “Truth will out”, she said. “We hadn’t really got round to thinking about godparents. But we really really really like the idea, so please do be Josh’s godmother. Or blogmother.”

If you reach out and touch your computer screen at this point, you can still feel the warmth generated by my embarrassment, even after 3 months and all those miles between us. Try it.

The story ends well, though. There was a bit more emailing between us. I said I was resigning and they could reconsider at leisure, and I wouldn’t be at all offended. Josephine said no, don’t resign, we do really want you to do this.

Husband is always very good in these over-wittering situations, and he suggested that really, we should all start operating a new system for appointing godparents. Henceforward it should always be done, following my excellent lead, on a volunteer basis. That way, you’d guarantee motivated godparents, and save parents a whole lot of angst about the choice. He pointed out that it was a win-win situation. I love being a godmother and can go and choose little baby clothes in the shops; Baby Joshua gets an additional Christmas and birthday present every year, and extra prayers offered up for his well-being. Can’t be bad. And Josephine? Well, she gets a laugh every time she thinks of my woeful over-enthusaism (I tell you, I’ve been in America too long), and hey, we’re still mates. In fact, she is such a good mate that she doesn’t use the comments box to accuse me of plagiarism every time I say ‘hey’ followed by a comma, or ‘as eny ful no’ or ‘aaaaargh!’ or ‘it’s not easy being me’ or any of her other trademark expressions that I have shamelessly nicked. And speaking of the comments box, I want you all to tread softly in it (as if you ever do anything other…). Remember this is a real life story you’re dealing with. And in case you were wondering, yes, she is happy for it to be a blog post – in fact, she suggested it.

Oh, and on the question of my blogging sabbatical, of course I'm still on it. I'm looking on the last half dozen posts as an extended one-off Christmas special. What do you mean, it’s January 20th...?