Brit Mums Live - oh good grief - I'm going!!!

I have just arrived home after the first half term of the year and I am ready for some rest and relaxation. It is what it is, but this year does not look like its going to be an easy one full of joy and laughter at work! Still - I'm in a job and there is always the hope that the Euro Millions will come in for me!!

Anyway - I sat down with my well deserved cup of tea and toast with hummus to have a tiny trawl round my favourite sites. My latest squeeze is the Brit Mums site which I joined ages ago, but which has recently undergone a bit of a cosmetic booster session. On there they have all sorts of discussions about life and the universe, but I suppose a lot of it is around family life.

Yesterday I noticed that they were running a Blogger's Conference in London next summer and, loving all things bloggy, I was tempted to go along. The only thing was ... was that sort of thing for little old me? Would it be full of high powered corporate types in high heels and shoulder pads?

I decided to post a vlog or video post. It was a spur of the moment thing, done in my kitchen as I was cooking tea. I have had quite a few comments on it and all of them have been really positive and friendly. So, as I sat munching on my lunch I decided to take the plunge.

I don't have any friends around where I live who blog and the thought of chatting to other (mostly women ) who do sounds like fun. Eating cake and drinking coffee whilst doing all that makes it sound even better! So I have signed up, paid my money and posted another video to say "Hello!!! I'm coming!!!"

I am always keen to try new things and this sounds like fun. Sometimes you just have to be brave, don't you? If I get there and they are all a bit intimidating then I can walk away and go shopping. But it might just turn out to be a blast and I could spend 2 days learning loads, meeting great people and eating shed loads of cake ... I'll let you know!!!

How many visitors to your blog??

I was just reading a discussion article on British Mummy Bloggers about how many people visit your blog each day.There were various comments and it made me think about my blog.One of the commenters blithely mentioned 250 visitors a day and I nearly fell off my chair. 250 visitors?? I would have to be handing out free chocolate to get anywhere near that!!

How do bloggers manage that? Am I really that dull that I am lucky to get 10% of that figure?? Ok... don't answer that one... Maybe other people spend more time on their blogs? Maybe they see their blog as a semi-career type thingy? I know that there have been times when I have surfed and visited and commented a lot more and then I do get more traffic.If you spend all day blogging and commenting then of course people will come by, if only out of curiosity.

But then you have to ask why do you blog? I blog for pleasure. I blog to empty my mind of worries or just to tell my computer what I have been up to. When I was a student, and a miserable one at that, I found writing very therapeutic and now that I am older it still is a very relaxing past time.The visitors who regularly come by here are like old friends. When I have been down they have picked me up with kind words and made me laugh with their quips.

I tell myself that I am going for quality rather than quantity. Having looked at some 'successful' blogs I do wonder why they are doing so well.Some 'blogs of note' are dull as dishwater, full of adverts and so on.The blogs I like are quirky, personal - obviously nurtured and loved by their owners - blogs that take me away from where I live, to places like Arkansas, somewhere.... Brighton...

I think that what really counts with a blog, unless you plan on using it to make bundles of cash, is that it is a little window to your soul, a place where you can say the things you wouldn't or couldn't say in real life, a place where friends meet over a cup of tea and share their lives. Some days you will be scintillating, other days a tad bland, but all in all its the sum of the parts that count.