My Thirteen year old son has recently started writing a blog which has had views from complete strangers as a far afield as the US and the USSR - partly I suspect because its subject matter is a commentary on the current football season with a particular focus on Manchester United (He will have every Irish man in the world on board) coupled with the odd gripe about school. Needless to say I am very proud of him, this is something that he has started completely on his own and it has certainly captured his imagination. Each day, he proudly shows me charts detailing how many hits the blog has had but when I ask to read it he hurumphs and sulks and says "NO!" He has made it very clear to me that under no circumstances am I to read his blog. I have tried to reason with him that a blog, by its very nature, is in the public domain and therefore it might be a little unreasonable to ban ones parents from reading it, particularly as every device I open in the house these days, be it my Ipad, my lap top, the desk top and even my iphone defaults to his blogspot (needless to say he is somewhat obsessed) but to no avail. His is a private blog that everyone in the world is welcome to view ( and believe me he wants it to be read) apart from me.
The blog debacle is of course the perfect metaphor for parenting a teenager (a subject I intend to explore further - Charlie you might not want to read this - LOL!!!!!) and though I find it amusing I feel sad that the little boy who has always shared his world with me, now inhabits a, mostly virtual, domain that I am excluded from. Last night however, as he lay languishing in the bath (a pastime I am yet to be banned from) we reached a strange compromise. He has challenged me to write my own blog and, on the condition that I become his friend, which in some way promotes his own site though I am not sure how, I will be allowed to read his blog. Of course now that I have been given permission to read it my interest has waned, cruel mother that I am, but the idea of writing a blog is something I have been toying with for a while and it suddenly seems like another perfect distraction from the more pressing business of writing my novel.
So here is a small cross section of my day: It is my daughter's 8th birthday and she has just come home from school, ripped her way through several tons of gifts and is currently creating a Celtic hill house with cardboard, green paint and scrunched up newspaper. She has two accomplices, twin red-headed girls who are impossible to tell apart and they are all arguing over the best way to construct a house out of paper and Selleotape. They keep trying to get me involved in this art piece but I am having none of it. Every so often they abandon the project and run wildly up and down the stairs screaming into Walkie Talkies. This prompts my husband, who is a musician and producer to come running up the stairs from his studio in the basement to tell them to be quiet (I am not getting involved). He is recording drums, double bass, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, fiddle and vocals downstairs. The band are ripping up a storm of reeling country folk which permeates every corner of the house. There is a guitar amp in the loo and every so often the music stops and a mildly heated debate breaks out over the microphones about how many bars to play before the break. The Artist in question is one-time Canadian folk star Bonnie Dobson of Morning Dew fame who is now a gorgeous 70 something, enjoying a second slice of the action courtesy of Hornbeam Recordings; a record label who's manifesto is to dig out retired folk legends and get them recording again. It might be loud, but does sounds bloody great I have to say. At lunch time all 10 (I think, I have lost count) of the musicians plus record company bods, were milling around my kitchen eating rice and peas and curry and sneaking off for fags on the decking. The cup-count has reached an all time high today (the kettle must go on every 15 minutes and the dishwasher at least twice a day) and there has been wine and beer lurking around too. The cats have opted to sit in sodden dejection outside rather than be subjected to the crowds.
I have to escape to my bedroom if I want to get any writing done, which is tricky because the lure of the bed always calls and before I know it I am having a quick cat nap.... zzzzz
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