The Road Home

I had a long drive on Saturday evening and I got to thinking about something that MissM had said that afternoon.

I asked her what she thought of my new blog and she said ' I don't understand what the difference is - you still write every day' I replied that when I started I had thought that I might not be able to write every day and that even though I was writing regularly now I still might not able to when term starts and I am busy with students. I said that The Magpie Files had been about MasterM's last year at school and this was a new phase when I was working full time. MissM thought about this and said 'Yes, but you still write about us in the same way' - which is true.

'And another thing' she said 'I can't find you on Google' - which is also true.

And driving along that road between school and home three things became clear to me.

Firstly, I blog to record my family life - not write a novel. Even though our life goes in phases it is continuous, interwoven strands. I can't break it into chunks of narrative.

The next thing that I recognised was that my working life is not separate and independent of my life at home - it is a part of me that joins onto all the other parts of me: wife, mother, daughter, sister and that if I try to create an artificial barrier between one part of my life and another it is bound to feel awkward.

Finally, I realised that however much my family complain about the compulsive taking of photographs and the public record of family trivia they have begun to accept the blog as a fun part of our family life and they felt sad that it had come to an end.

At this point I went around a bend in the motorway and drove straight into the sunset and I was powerfully reminded of my two favourite posts on The Magpie Files:

Sunset

The Road Home

Now I apologise to you all - especially those who have already changed their blogrolls. I have thought this all out in public and been very indecisive which is unlike me. You have been amazingly supportive.

I have decided to copy all my posts from Lime Juice across to The Magpie Files so that it forms a continuous narrative. Subsequent postings (which may or may not be occasional) will be on The Magpie Files.

I have closed the comments to this post because you have all given me more than enough warm and generous encouragement. Unfortunately, I don't think I can transfer the comments for other posts but I will link back to Lime Juice so that they remain as a public record. They meant a great deal to me.