Bloggering Off - For Good

The jockeying for position has started. Several parents have already been straining at the leash, eager to drop impressive nuggets of one-upmanship into the school gate conversation:
‘Ptolemy has been doing Kumon Astrophysics over the summer – he just LOVES it!’
Or:
‘Cressida was so impressed after our visit to the Coliseum that she’s been teaching herself Latin for the last three weeks!’
My daughter has not mastered a second language this summer (unless you count the lyrics to High School Musical) and the boys appear to have forgotten how to write their own names.
Instead, they have all channelled their energies into growing about three inches taller and two shoe sizes bigger, so that not a single item of last year’s school uniform fits any more. Damn inconsiderate, if you ask me. I had rather hoped that their extensive sofa-bound, screen-based activities might have stunted their growth, but not at all. Instead, there was a definite hint of claustrophobia this morning as they wrestled their free-range feet into battery-farm school socks. When I tried to help them, I felt like a Chinese foot binder.
Now that they are back at school, I have been faced with some tough decisions.
Blogging for the last six months has been more fun than I could ever have imagined. However the pressure of my copious wine consumption on the family finances means that I need to either give up drinking wine (What? And lose the will to live?) or earn some money to support my habit. In addition, my nine year old daughter has discovered my ‘alter ego’, so my cover of anonymity looks like being well and truly blown.
I have therefore decided to suspend the blog. Note that I can’t quite bring myself to say ‘stop blogging’ since the prospect of blog withdrawal symptoms is too hideous to contemplate.
Without the blog, I may be forced once again to converse politely on topics as unedifying as Gordon Brown’s sense of humour, or David Cameron’s hairstyle, instead of immersing myself in the glorious cyber-circus of other people’s blog pages.
Without the blog, I may have to start taking notice of my children, whose gradual slide from ‘benign’ to ‘wilful’ neglect hasn’t even been spotted by the social workers.
Without the blog, I shall miss the kind, supportive and desperately funny comments of all those people who took the time to read the posts and leave a reply.
Rather than stumble around the blogosphere, saying goodbye and flinging my arms around necks, whilst slurring ‘I love you, mate, I REALLY love you’ I will try and maintain a bit of decorum by simply raising a glass of La Marca prosecco, and wishing all my blogging buddies the very best for the future…..
….although, decorum has never been my strong point, and come to think of it, I do feel a song coming on. I might just grab the bottle (for a microphone), open the fridge door (for a spotlight) and in my very best pub-singer voice, belt out (in the style of Frank Sinatra rather than Sid Vicious):

And now, the end is near
And so I face the final curtain……

Come on, folks, join in with the chorus!