ANYWAY. BACK TO THE POINT.

I have my annual advice for those of you considering this daunting prospect. It’s Blue Monday week – the most depressing time of the year so here are some pointers to help you on your way:-

HOW TO SURVIVE DIVORCE (hopefully)

1. Your friends (and family if you’re lucky) will get you through it more than you will ever know. Don’t ever take them for granted but make sure you surround yourself with them wherever possible. They will be there with you on your long journey back out of the black hole.

2. Be prepared. You are in for a long hard slog. Get a good lawyer. Rumour has it that it takes half the time you were married to begin to get over your marriage. If that is too awful a prospect then bank on it taking AT LEAST four years. The first year is almost better than the next one because you will no doubt be a little unhinged and angry in the first year – so try not to behave too irrationally. The second year can be your reality check and it’s all highly depressing because not only are things just as hard but you’re exhausted from Year One. If you’re lucky, by Year Three the drama has died down a bit and hopefully by year 4 you are able to see the wood for the trees and can finally start reassessing your life.

3. In the early days make sure you get out of bed every day. Sometimes your body feels so heavy it won’t move. It would have been so much easier to curl up into a ball, ignore the kids and have a quiet nervous breakdown in a corner somewhere. But it doesn’t work like that. You have to “face the dragon”. Deal with the shit. Go to the meetings. Brush your hair. Remember to eat. Remember to breathe. Pick your kids up from school. Put your make-up on. Fill out that complicated form. Go to that party on your own. Do the stuff you dread. You have to. It will make you stronger and consequently it will all get easier. You will do most of it on automatic pilot and then be amazed with yourself that you got through it. I managed to learn how to be a fitness instructor on autopilot, during my most traumatised time. It saved me from myself.

4. Be kind to yourself. My old school friend wrote to me at the beginning of the whole process. She told me to do just that. To treat myself as if I was going on a date with myself (which frankly had no appeal whatsoever – I hated my own company – thankfully she invited herself along on most occasions which helped hugely). Have a massage, or go to an exhibition or a film on your own.  Put yourself higher up your list of priorities.  Sometimes it pays to be selfish.  Try not to feel sad that you have no one to do things with or to buy you presents, buy yourself some stuff. Treat yourself to things. It’s important. Do the things that give you pleasure and forget the rest. Go on a cooking course, a knitting course, ride wolves, sail, play poker, write a book. Whatever. It. Takes.  Buy a big comfortable bed and spread out in it by yourself.  Learn to enjoy the solitude for a minute.

5. Cut the crap. Don’t go to everything. Do some sifting. Do the stuff that makes you happy for whatever reason. Let go of the social events that no longer work for you and of the friends that take more than they give. Drop the stuff that’s taking up too much time and getting you nowhere.

6. Most importantly keep your sense of humour. You will find that different friends are there at different times and for different reasons. Some can take you out and make you laugh and push you in at the deep end of your new scary life. Others are there for when you find your feet again and want some semblance of normality. It won’t always be funny, but there is always a funny side to be found. A different perspective to look at.

Sometimes, when you look at what is going on in the rest of the world and what other people are going through, having the time and space to mourn for your marriage is almost an indulgence. I am still a very lucky person who has three lovely children and a roof over my head and lots of fantastic friends and lots of lovely stuff to do and, and, and, and another year has gone by in a flash. It’s cold in London at the moment but maybe just try to remember that “in the kingdom of hope there is no winter”.

“Don’t give up on your marriage” says Sir Paul Coleridge, who is launching a campaign to promote marriage and reverse the “appalling and costly impact of family breakdown” on children and society at large but in doing so appears to suggest that those of us who are divorced have not taken the children into consideration. What about when the marriage has lost everything you got married for – all trust and commitment? Is it good for the children to be brought up thinking that adults argue all the time or have no respect for each other? Is it really right to stay in an unhappy marriage simply because of the children?

“My message is mend it, don’t end it” he says “it is a complete scandal that so many children are currently caught up in the family justice system (3.8m). I agree with that, but perhaps, as a serving judge he should take some responsibility himself for the legal system that is partly to blame for the number of cases that come to court. There is not enough mediation and free advise available prior to having to go to court. Families are not clear about what it all involves and the costs escalate massively before they know it.

“Divorce is on the increase fuelled by a growing trend to divorce among “empty nesters” or “grey divorce” with couples no longer needing to stay together for the sake of the children who had left home. “It’s partly because we are living longer” he said and because “they think there is still time for a fling, but little do they realise that very often they are just inheriting a different set of problems.”

Surely in the silver brigade it is not all about “changing horses midstream” it is about realising once the children have left that you no longer have anything in common with your partner and have nothing to distract you from that. You find you both have more time to pursue personal interests and challenges and sometimes your partner isn’t interested in joining you on that journey. If that is the case, should you stay simply for the children? Would the children actually want that? Children are of course affected, but by then they have their own lives to lead.

Family breakdown is the “scourge of society” he said. “It affects everyone, from the Royal Family downwards. In about 1950 you weren’t allowed in the royal enclosure at Ascot (if divorced). That would now exclude half the Royal Family”.

“At Ascot??” Well here we have a man with his finger on the pulse of normal life. How many people go to Ascot these days? Who else wouldn’t have been allowed in to Ascot in 1950? A coloured person? A gay couple? A woman wearing trousers? THANK GOD things have changed and pretty much anyone can go anywhere these days (if they have the money of course).

“It’s a myth that children, even older ones, don’t care. They care greatly and a break-up shocks the whole foundation of the family, it never recovers”.

Where has he got that myth from? Who has said that? I have never spoken to anyone who hasn’t acknowledged that children care about family break-up. Of course they do. It is enormously tragic in many ways. But sometimes they are better off spending time with their parents separately because as a team they don’t work. Sometimes there is more peace in two households than one. Of course we don’t necessarily all look at the bigger “helicopter” picture for long enough but that is why there should be more help at hand to talk to couples both together and separately and to talk to the children to help reach a conclusion BEFORE getting to court. Way too many cases end up in court because of the lack of support received before that final step.

“We have to rid ourselves of this dream that we are going to find the partner who is perfect in every way: emotionally, physically, intellectually – it’s just a nonsense.”

WHAT DREAM?? Really? Is that what we all think? That there are a million other people out there for us? I don’t think so. Most people I know anyway don’t think that. They hope that. But they also realistically reach the conclusion that they can’t be with their partner any longer. That leaving their partner and being on their own is the best solution. Anything else is a bonus.

“Soon you find the new partner is as flawed as the last. It is like a hydra: you cut off one head and get rid of a boring partner but inherit 26 new problems, your new partner’s children, family and so on”.

Well yes, I can see that happening if you remarry again too quickly after divorce. It affects the children greatly if that happens, but not everybody does that.

“Of course, where a relationship has genuinely broken down….but there are a great many that are not at that stage”

Frankly, how can you comment on what “genuinely broken down” means. What is acceptable in a marriage to one person is not to another so how can you judge whether it is “at that stage” or not? It might seem that way at the time but not 3, 6, 12 months later or you might battle for years to save your marriage and never get it back. It’s a personal thing. It needs personal attention.

He has sat in court for 40 years dealing with the fallout “I get intensely frustrated: I see hundreds and thousands of people traipsing through the courts and nothing is being done about the problems that sent them here”

“Traipsing” through court makes it sounds like a stroll. It is not. By the time they are there they are most probably traumatised beyond belief and have felt there is no other solution. They will be paying an absolute fortune to all the lawyers involved. That is the scandal of divorce in this country. How much the lawyers charge. I suggest Sir Paul finds a way to make himself redundant. Help set up a system that can train more counsellors and mediators to offer free help to everyone that needs it.

He says do not have children unless your marriage is stable

How do you define “stable”? What happens when it is stable, you have children and then your boat is rocked by infidelity, dishonesty, betrayal, change of heart, you name it, it can happen……

“The system can’t cope – it is now 12 months before a hearing”

That is because the system doesn’t work. CHANGE THE SYSTEM.

In many ways, life really isn’t too bad without a man. There is no arguing – apart from directly with the children. There is mostly a lot of laughter. My children have had to grow up quickly in lots of ways. They are pretty mature on the whole and very good company. I am definitely closer to them because of my divorce – I guess that’s inevitable when there isn’t a partner you feel you should stand by during an issue with the children.

Anyway, Christmas turned me into a little bit of a sexist I hate to admit and it made me feel a little grumpy here and there. There was no division of girly/blokey labour to be had. It started with the refusing to go and chop myself down a big old tree, carry it home, hack it about and hurl it into a stand and then decorate it. This year I simply put my foot down and went for the black Emo tree (as my kids described it) which my children turned their nose up on every passing I’m afraid to say. My daughter has subsequently provided me with a list of people who have told her they don’t like it. BUT I DON’T CARE. It was easy and I can bring it out next year and have the same argument all over again.

Then the next issue was simply cooking the Christmas meal on my own with no one to carve the turkey or the ham or make the gravy or do the washing up. Or get pissed and fall asleep on the sofa. Or drive us to different venues to see friends later in the day. Or buy all the booze. Or talk to my mother after too many whiskeys. Or wrap all the presents or (most importantly) buy me a present. I had to do it all on my own.

I DON’T WANT TO DO IT ALL ON MY OWN.

Is your Christmas divided along male/female lines or am I being ridiculous here?

We are nearly all in our forties. With children growing up. Suddenly things are going a little bit wrong. Our parents are getting sick, our children are less needy and more willful thus generously bestowing on us a vague feeling that we are losing control of our lives and what is more we haven’t really given much thought to how to deal with this stage – the bit in the middle before retirement, old age, slippers and death (hopefully in that order). It is at this crucial stage that many previously happy marriages go a little awry and from my personal experience everything can be blown out of the water and your life can dramatically change…or…..you somehow get through it and come out the other side pretty much intact if a little bruised and a little wiser.

Is this what is known as the classic mid-life crisis? Most of us got married a long time ago now. We met somebody we loved and wanted to spend the rest of our life with and merged and accepted our differences even if we had to compromise massively for the sake of that love. Then we had our children, got on with our jobs and now that we have (mostly) stopped making babies we have more time to look at the bigger picture. Generally speaking we have much to be thankful for – our health, our children’s health, more money, more confidence, less anxiety and so on, but we also have fewer choices because we are tied into marriage and children and responsibility and mortgages and all things grown up and consequently decisions to change our life at this stage may cause pain to many people. Many of us are looking now at what we’ve got and what we’ve achieved with a more critical eye. Is this what we really wanted? Is this really it? Was my ladder of life actually leaning up against the wrong wall? Or have we got to the top and realised we don’t like the view after all or discovered that it is a little lonely and empty up there.

I think what generally happens at this stage is that men and women return to type in middle age. I have two sons and one daughter. They have vastly different interests. My oldest son has a girlfriend and they get on very well but their interests are vastly different – they put up with that of course for lots of reasons. We’ve all been there, done that and it’s perfectly fine until we have stopped feeling the need to procreate the species. Once that period of time is over we can start enjoying the things we enjoyed before we united as a team and it can divide us. We say things like “we aren’t getting any younger”, “you’ve only got one life”, “this isn’t a dress rehearsal” and all those cliches that I hear almost daily these days that are only cliches because they were once “truths”. We are getting closer to death. Becoming more aware of the time we have left. Our hair is falling out or growing in all the wrong places. We don’t have the opportunities we had before. We are more cynical. Less romantic. Grumpy. Middle age is something we come to unwillingly – it’s not a place any of us would necessarily choose to be – it’s not like being 18 or 21 or at university and it is perceived more than slightly negatively. I think it creeps up on us. Then many of us fight against it. Buy inappropriate cars, clothes, some people choose to suddenly live inappropriate deceitful lives.

I have been analysing this stage for some time. This new “phase”. It seems to me that most people look at it with gloom rather than excitement. They feel trapped and consequently start examining the reasons for suddenly losing their way. My husband and I did that and examined and analysed each other and our marriage to death. Initially he said he was depressed about his life – but I question whether it was more to do with the horror of accepting he wanted to change his life. Stir it up a little. The feelings of misery are surely massively tied up with feelings of guilt about not being sure about wanting everything you’ve spent years working towards and building together.

Why do so many of us want to behave like teenagers again? Almost as if we have been cryogenically frozen for the last two decades and then allowed to re-emerge with serious arrested development problems. It was therefore with huge interest that I read an article about David Bainbridge yesterday, who is a clinical veterinary anatomist at Cambridge University and the author of “Middle Age – A Natural History”. He says “men’s interests do not change fundamentally between the ages of eight and 60 – with the exceptions of romance and sex. Instead, all that happens in middle age is that we become once again free to indulge ourselves. We have more money, some time and less fear of ridicule by others”.

He also says “all I know is that when I play Lego with my son I am not enjoying it in some ironic, post-modern way, I am enjoying it in exactly the same way I did when I was 10. So, these pastimes and preferences of middle age are not new found, they are our same old pastimes and preferences” and that to be honest is why I bloody hated playing Lego with my children. I thought it was a rubbish, boring waste of time as a child and I still do.

He believes in middle age as a definite stage of our lives, but he does not believe in the mid-life crisis – “middle age – those two healthy decades after the babies stop – is very real. Only humans have it, we evolved it, and we have enjoyed it for much of our species’ history. And why? We evolved middle age because we have always lived more complex lives than other animals – in the ways we acquire resources, socially and technologically. Unlike most animal parents, we don’t just give our children genes and calories, we give them our culture. That takes time, and quality time, too, which we cannot dilute by churning out yet more babies. We humans are an “information economy” and middle age is the time when we pass on most of that information – this is why middle-aged people like being listened to. So middle age is a very real and distinctive phenomenon, one central to the success of our species – which places it in stark contrast to the mid-life crisis, which turns out not to exist at all”.

I’m not sure I agree with that. The mid-life crisis may not be “a very real and distinctive phemonenon” but there are very real and distinctive triggers that set off a relatively stereotypical crisis amongst both men and women at this time of our lives:- mortality, desire for love, passion, kids leaving home, fear of change, fear of stagnation, money issues, elderly parents issues, boredom and so on and so on…..

It’s just all so sad and predictable. It happened to me. It’s happening to others. Everybody deals with it in different ways and of course because you have to consider your partner – it doesn’t always work out like you want it to. I don’t have any answers or any advice. Maybe if we were all more aware of the stage and better equipped to deal with it then perhaps the ripple effects wouldn’t be so great. Or perhaps we’d learn how to avoid the pitfalls. My life as a single parent is as a direct result of my husband’s actions and the consequences as I saw them. We could have both done things differently. I could have clung onto the sides of our little tin boat in the storm we had created for ourselves, instead of trying to tip it over and drown him whilst throwing lifejackets to my children. Or could I? At the time, I don’t remember his hand being there for me to hold on to. He was too busy holding on to someone else the other side. So. I. Let. Go.

Right or wrong?

I guess we will never really know.

But there is no point in mulling over the “what if’s??”. “It is what it is” (I hate that phrase) as we say and “it isn’t what it isn’t” for a lot of friends of mine at the moment. They have to work it all out. Slowly and painfully. Believe me, I don’t envy them. I wish I could help. But I can’t. I’m here though. For them and for anyone else who wants to drop in and leave a comment. Let me know what you think…..maybe we can make a better plan.

BTW – any of you out there who think I’m talking about you…..I’m not…..it’s somebody else….honest.

Every so often – and usually when I am in need of a reminder as to why I blog (LIKE RIGHT NOW) a comment arrives that blows me away. Something profound in some way shape or form. From somebody going through a trauma of some description (usually divorce or separation) who has found something that I have written to be helpful.

I’m going to reprint her words here because it hit a raw nerve for me – about why I write, but actually the quote from Rilke rings true for many of us who are looking and searching for advice and answers at the moment (I think Lady GaGa might have this quote tattooed on her forearm – which presumably wasn’t the name of her dead cat). All too often (and it took me a very long time to understand this) you know the answers yourself. You know what you want and what you have to do. Look into yourself. You are the one who knows you best. Follow your instincts. Sit. Be quiet. Find a place for a moment to sort out what your priorities are. What you are prepared to put up with. What is unacceptable. Find. Your. Own. Peace. Respect yourself and your decisions and whilst things won’t necessarily be easier you will be stronger. Sorry, sermon over – here is what she said:-

“I want to thank you for your blogs. I am early in the process of my divorce, and though the decision to divorce was mine, and I do not regret it, it makes the road ahead no easier. In fact, as the instigator, I am an easy target, and subject of speculation. I refuse to explain the reasons for my decision to others, because doing so would dishonour my children’s father, and is unlikely to truly convince anyone anyhow. If my reasons are valid and true, I expect time will reveal them to others as well – small consolation right now, though.

I needed Anne Hill’s advice – I had felt crazy, and much of it (too much) was already very true. I do need to get up every day and face my dragons as my pyjamas and reasons not to shower first thing in the day on the days I’m not working has become more and more appealing – though harder and harder to justify. And your other blogs, which I have only just discovered, provide much therapeutic relief and cathartic laughter.…things that may not always seem funny, but ring so true, you just have to laugh –relieved I am not the first to have thought the same things.

As to your brother’s mentioning that your blogs have been a bit dull lately (a statement that, as a newly single mother of an 11 and 14 year old, I wholly disagree with), I thought of Rilke, and his advice in “Letters to a Young Poet”–advice I think applies to more than just writing:

“You ask whether your verses are any good. You ask me. You have asked others before this. You send them to magazines. You compare them with other poems, and you are upset when certain editors reject your work. Now (since you have said you want my advice) I beg you to stop doing that sort of thing. You are looking outside, and that is what you should most avoid right now. No one can advise or help you – no one. There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple “I must”, then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse.”

This is an awful time for opinions and advice-giving–as though there is a right way to go about divorce, or as though anyone but you knows what it is like to be you. But I suspect, that like me, you feel the urge to write it out just the same–that just speaking it is cathartic and makes you feel less insane…For myself, I recently chose a confidant to whom I have expressed these fears and feelings. Unfortunately, my newfound confidant, despite their care and concern for me, is not as fond of verbal expression, and my long heart cries often elicit blunt one liners–many of which do not even touch the heart of the matter. There is a need to be heard, to be understood–I do not want advice, but then I Google “how to survive divorce”. I do not feel the least bit sociable, but then cling to the first person to share genuine care and concern. I am a living anomaly, and do not know how to go about this new life, almost frozen into inaction with fear, while my two children look to me for direction and strength…

Okay, I digress. All to say, thank you, and please, don’t give up blogging”.

Thank you lovely anonymous stranger for your comment. I wish you well in your journey. It is most certainly reassuring to know there are a lot of us out there each searching for answers.

I am the first to admit that blame has featured widely in the breakdown of my marriage and subsequent divorce. It is easy to blame somebody else for your position in life and presumably you can only move forward and away from blame once you have found a way to take responsibility for your own life back into your own hands. I still love blaming my parent for f*cking me up. Everything was their fault. Still is. I even have a badge that says “It’s All My Parent’s Fault”. But really is “blame” in itself of any use at all in life? It’s so easy to find somebody other than yourself to blame in life but is it right?

“A man can fail many times, but he isn’t a failure until he begins to blame someone else”.
William Burroughs

and as Arnold Bennet says:

“There can be no doubt that the average man blames much more than he praises. His instinct is to blame. If he is satisfied, he says nothing, if he is not, he most illogically kicks up a row”.

I feel really upset today. I am missing my youngest son hugely now who I haven’t seen for over a week and haven’t really been sleeping for the last few nights as a direct consequence of the frustrations surrounding my teenage son’s future (oh and having to sleep in a double bed with my mother for two nights hasn’t helped either). My head and heart are pounding constantly as a mass of thoughts about what, if anything can be done swirl around my head. It really is very unhelpful that he’s gone away. We sort of need him here to do a teeny little bit of sorting out the rest of his life. I really wasn’t expecting it to be so stressful, but perhaps that was because we all thought he’d get the grades he the university he wanted.

After being two marks away from the required grade we decided to have the maths and biology re-marked. In maths, instead of choosing one of the cores, we went for all four in a panic because of the time restraints. But we heard on Friday that one core went up two marks, another went down two marks. So no difference. AAAAGHHHH. How frustrating.

It now looks highly unlikely that he will get his place. There is a brief glimmer of hope left but not much. I am doing all i can but the deadline is Wednesday and today is a bank holiday. So not much time to do anything.

Of course with life disappointments such as these we have all regretted not having worked harder, not having read the question better, not allowing so many distractions, not playing so much sport, whatever it may be. I have asked myself the inevitable questions about how much of it was my fault? Should I have made him work harder? Made him go to bed earlier? Made him stay in more? Fed him more brain food? Perhaps that would have made all the difference. But I doubt it. I am not a Tiger Mother. It’s his life, not mine. I did as much as I thought I should. I was supportive and present. I’m sure I could have done it differently, but I didn’t. So what is the point of dwelling on that? He is the one kicking himself now and having to make some other decisions about what to do next.

What I am most upset about though was a conversation with his father last night about how he thinks it is my fault that I didn’t help him manage his time better. Aren’t we supposed to stand together at times like these? I pointed out that blame, at this stage was pointless. “We are where we are and we have to deal with it”. But, of course I then got defensive and pointed out that in my opinion he’d had an incredibly difficult year personally for a number of reasons, including not only his father getting remarried and moving further away right in the middle of his A levels, but the death of his Grandfather – had he not considered what effect those extenuating circumstances might have had on our son and his focus? How much more blame-slinging years do we have in us? Isn’t it time to stop??? Work together? Communicate better?

All I know, is that if he had got the grades he’d needed I would have got no credit at all – it would have been entirely down to him – which is absolutely as it should be – and I must try and remember that (once I have stopped panicking about what to do next).

All week I have been deeply regretting my daughter’s advice to buy a La Sensa push up bikini with so much padding it’s actually given me a cleavage which is unheard of. This of course, whilst being aware that I am too old to wear a bikini but don’t really care IS GREAT – I LOVE HAVING A CLEAVAGE. But today I am wearing a different bikini. An older, less dishonest bikini – a flat as a pancake sort of honest bikini. With no padding. I honestly look like my boob job of yesterday has been stolen in the night. I have no bosoms beside the pool today at all. Never mind. Nobody noticing me anyway. Still wearing anorak of invisibility and GUESS WHAT? Turns out that two of the single dad’s are a gay couple, which at least explains their complete lack of interest! (joke).

None of us want to leave. Daughter says she’s had “the best holiday ever”. We’ve all had a brilliant time for different reasons and I’ve now finished “Freedom” by Jonathan Franzen which I loved. Such a luxury – even if I do have a book shaped tan to go home with.

Daughter appears to have spent the day hugging and crying with all her new best friends. Where are all mine? This is the first holiday I have had since I”ve been divorced with only my children on my own – without being with other friends and/or family and it’s been a huge success. It’s made me feel a bit braver. Of course I had a few brief wild fluctuations – going from feeling deliriously happy and smug over dinner about having such a fun time with my children whilst other couples on other tables looked miserable….to then the next day feeling completely the opposite – sorry for myself and jealous of everyone around me. Pathetic. But understandable I guess.

I talked to my mother. Told her about not speaking to anyone new and how it was fine, for the first time in my life I wasn’t in dire need of friends and she said “Finally….you are growing up”. I’m not sure though. Is that a sign of maturity? I don’t want to turn into a grumpy old person who can’t be arsed to talk to strangers. It’s good to get a balance. But, on this occasion a period of quiet reflection was just what the doctor ordered.

Perhaps more relevant advice on holidays or places to stay or what to do with my children or even just to actually meet some other people in a similar situation – but not in a dating scenario which fills me with horror.

There doesn’t appear to be anything that offers help online for specific problems or questions and neither have I found a relevant place to meet new people at an event that offers some guest speakers and lots of wine.

Anybody out there feel the same way and looking for something seemingly non existent at the moment? Would love to have your thoughts on the matter.

In case you were thinking how mature I had become I have to admit, whilst hugging my kids goodbye and wishing them a fabulous time, I couldn’t help saying to my 18 y/o son “but don’t have as good a time as we did” – then I of course laughed a lot to show that it was a joke but I could have taken it a little bit further and said, “have a great time, but I hope it rains for the whole week and there are snails in your bed and the food is revolting and you all get bitten really badly and there is no bar for miles and everybody argues all the time”. But of course ALL THAT IS TOTALLY A JOKE. I really don’t mean it. I am far more mature these days and hope they all have a GRATE time (oh, sorry, is that the wrong spelling? Silly me).

ANYWAY.

DAY 3 of our holiday last week:-

Have now lost my daughter completely to the Indy club and her trendy band of merry new friends. There is a taverna bar down the beach that they go to late at night to behave badly out of our sight. Luckily I have a secret weapon in the form of my 18 y/o and his GF who I send down there even later to check up on her and bring her back safely. Apparently all her male friends are terrified of him because he’s huge.

Here is his favourite photo of the holiday showing his quite significant biceps:-

My cloak, or rather anorak of invisibility is well and truly zipped, snapped, hooded and clipped up to the top of my head. I still haven’t talked to anyone and I can sit by the pool in my sunglasses and spy on everyone without being noticed. My daughter’s NBF’s don’t seem to notice that the secrets from the night before come skimming across the swimming pool for us all to hear.

It’s a very different sort of holiday for my 18 y/o and his GF from their previous one in Cyprus where he came back from 10 days away looking pale, tired and ill after spending 11 nights partying harder than hard. Here they’re enjoying lying by the pool and having a romantic coupley sort of break. Lovely.

My body is now sun bed shaped and my back is a bit sore. As I walk over to the nearest bar to buy a Magnum Almond Ice cream cone I am disappointed that the sun bed isn’t stuck to my back so that I don’t have the hassle of rearranging my towel and my body on the sun bed on my return.

CBA to do anything ATM, TBH. Even speak properly.

My blog, or more specifically my writing, is still under fire and I’ve been told to think very carefully about my obsession with divorce and the damage it is doing to my children. To be honest, I don’t believe I have to think too hard about that – I have already given it much thought. I write a blog about my life, which happens to be about a single divorced parent and all that goes with it and I don’t believe that constitutes an obsession. Neither do I think my children are being damaged. However, the constant criticism is exhausting me. So I am going to do exactly what I’ve been asked to do, take the advice and go away to think about it for a minute.

Anyway, it’s probably a good thing to have a bit of a break. It can be tiring this bloody blogging and sometimes it can get in the way of other things. The blog (which I love most of the time) has in itself frustrated me of late, not only because of the complicated personal stuff I can’t write about but because I get more invites to advertise and review things and I just don’t know what to do about it all.

Take for example yesterday. I had over 1000 hits on my blog – this happens quite regularly these days and can depend not only on the subject matter but on what day of the week it is – Monday is the day that most people check in and catch up. That level of hits is WAY more than I used to get when I started and yet, at the moment, I get barely any comments.

I am supposed to understand social media these days. I even give talks on the subject now, but there still seems to be no concrete answers about what does and does not succeed and to be honest I am as puzzled as the next person about what the secret is. Perhaps there isn’t one. Perhaps it’s just luck or timing. Perhaps I am supposed to add more links and advertise and tweet more and start my Facebook page and promote everything more but it’s all so very confusing and yes, I’ll get more hits, but to be honest I’d take the comments any day.

Anyway, I have to keep reminding myself that I started my blog as a hobby and as a cheap form of counselling – the fact that I’m having to be counselled about my blog is quite funny really (in a scary strange sort of way).

So if there is anyone reading this out there who has not accidentally popped in and has managed to read this far, perhaps you could share your thoughts on my social media conundrum. How do you compose the perfect tweet? Is there such a thing? The one that gets re-tweeted over and over again? Apparently 90% of tweets are never retweeted and just get lost in the mass. Does having millions of followers mean that your tweet gets noticed more? I have been told that I can pay to have new Twitter followers – what is the point of that? They wouldn’t be interested in anything I write because it is not relevant, although I do know that there are competitions going amongst the rich and famous to get more followers than the next one – is that healthy? Or relevant to advertisers? According to some new social media research it doesn’t necessarily relate into selling products or being a brand influencer because it’s difficult to know who you are talking to most of the time. Gwyneth Paltrow is on to a good thing. She is obviously already hugely well known and people are fascinated in her life and happy to buy into it. She is slowly but surely turning herself into a brand for life. She’s got a website and is spreading her areas of interest into food, makeup, lifestyle stuff. Good plan. But the only problem is you have to be as famous as her in order to do it.

These days I get emails about all sorts of things. I have become an expert in “Labyrinthitis” due to the fact that sufferers have googled the problem, found my post and then contacted me. The posts that gets the most hits are random ones I’ve written about big bums, hairy nipples and willies. I get emails saying “I love your blog, but you would have many more hits if you link to our porn website”. Don’t tempt me. Perhaps that should be my new way forward. I have put a test post below this one. I guarantee that post will bring in more hits.

What about advertising on blogs? Do you think it affects how and what you write? Should you mention brand names in your posts? I would love, for example to post the photograph of my son and all his mates posing, as if in a school rugby photo outside their school completely naked with just a can of K Cider each to hide their nether regions. It’s hilarious and would be a brilliant advertising campaign for K cider (as would the tattoo on his arse), but that isn’t the same as agreeing to have a can of K Cider sitting on the sidebar of my blog at all times.

So I’m just going to shuffle quietly out of the door and slink away for a minute. ALTHOUGH I WILL KILL YOU ALL IF, WHEN I COME BACK, YOU HAVEN’T EVEN NOTICED I’VE GONE. I am of course expecting at least 5 comments to be waiting for me. Perhaps I’d better send some to myself, just in case.

Back soon x