...And it's good night from her.....

......I've decided to take a blogging pause for a while....

I was very kindly awarded these awards by The Lehners in France (The gorgeous Brazilian/Portuguese one) and the Blog of Distinction from Ladybird World Mother.

It has made me reflect on why I write this blog in the first place...to be honest...I still don't know.

I do get a buzz out of writing but that has not changed since I was seven or eight when I was in a solo singing competition in Ryton.

The school entered us all and I was the only one, mortifyingly, to get stage fright. As a result I was the only one to come in, on time, at the second verse and get through right to the end (there were only two verses). I did get a good result (compared to all the rest who had sung the whole thing without any drama) but I still felt red raw with shame for days afterwards. I remember the awful feeling in the pit of my stomach to this very day. I wrote about it at school and I can also remember all the Junior School teachers crowding around, in the corridor, to read it. Perhaps the misery was worth it...just for the tangible, glorious effect of my writing....Standing there...right there in front of me.

Why did I start the blog? Too many reasons. Largely too personal to go into here. Nevertheless writing the blog has helped me enormously. I have made lots of blogging friends and you have all increased my confidence no end. To go from being a City worker in my pinstripes (with my own business cards et al) to a wrecked, sleep deprived, bejeaned older mum did much to damage my tenuous self confidence. At least I have climbed the steep, slippery slope of self esteem with the help of you all, friends and supporters.

I have found blogging both hard and easy. Hard in the sense that I find it hard to open up. Easy in the sense that the words, when I start, just flow out of me.

In fact, perhaps, it is becoming too easy. I am spending too much time at the computer screen...and not enough time here working which is what I should be doing. Mr H. and I share the same computer so I also feel pretty guilty blogging when we both should be using it for working. And now that our finances are in so rubbish a state I feel that I should be using it for better gain. Better commercial gain I hasten to add.

I shall pop back from time to time. When things get better, the same or possibly worse I shall let you know.

Thank you, TLiF, for this marvellous award. Hope the move back to YUK is going smoothly. Thank you, Ladybird World Mother, for your prestigious award to me. They both mean a great deal. Thank you, Troy, for my special badge, which as you can see I am wearing with pride over on the sidebar.

I know I should select certain bloggers for the awards. But hey! I think you are all good writers...all in different ways. That is not a cop-out...but that it is so true. When I started blogging I had certain ideas of how things should be written and composed (and about which subjects should be tackled..). This attitude, thankfully, has been turned on its head. Rightly so because I can be an opinionated whatsit. I like to be proved wrong.

So I would like you, all of my regular readers, to check whether you have both, one or none of these awards and if you have not...to claim them from here and to pass them on to other worthy bloggers if you so desire. Please award yourselves the special Hadriana cricket award in any event! (Created by own RSI'd fair hand.) Well done to you all!

I will be back to mess around with my blog from time to time so it will change. (Thank you too, Dumdad, for the design tips...I'll be back to redecorate in a while.)

I would like to put a special mention in for Grumpy Old Ken. If you look at his latest post...he has an excellent idea to put to all bloggers. Please give it your attention. I agree with him in that there is a lot of great writing out there that gets overlooked! Let's get it right back to the brilliant light of day!

Once I've helped Mr. H with the business(es) more and when my guilt subsides I will be back!