Starting Over...(again)

I woke up this morning and decided to start blogging again.

I’m not quite sure why it fell by the wayside. I’ve hardly been busy – but perhaps that was the problem. Not enough to write about.

It’s all right harping on about the challenges of being an ex-ex-pat but eighteen months on and it's as if I’d never been away.  There's nothing surreal about shopping in Tesco and bumping into people I’d known at secondary school.

My creative writing tutor says we all need a ‘writers’ platform, where we can boast about our successes and promote our work.  We need to blog, tweet, and brag about ourselves on Facebook. I’m self-effacing so that type of thing doesn’t sit comfortably with me, but having finally had a short story ‘accepted’ by a magazine - albeit it a local free one (and the story is on hold until later in the year) – I probably do need to start getting myself out there again.  

So, six months on from my last post, where I am? Adjusting.  The husband has returned home so we’ve progressed from me, the cat and a teenager, to a household of four. It’s amazing the additional amount of housework one extra creates -  and a routine again as well. He wants proper meals – none of that oh we’ll have scrambled egg on toast tonight in front of the TV I could get away before.

The teenager is also now 18, a fully qualified driver and less teenager and more young adult – although one look in her room confirms the teenage status. Keep the door shut on it all the parenting books tell you, so I do.

Daughter No 1 graduated and is working abroad.  We’ve obviously given her the taste for the travel bug.  She is also a blogger – probably another incentive to take it up again (a little competition is always a good thing).  She has moved to Asia, where she is embracing a celebrity lifestyle as something of a novelty – a blonde in Beijing.

 I hit the half century – a depressing day brightened considerably by an early morning flight to Rome and a wonderful week’s holiday in Italy – which I could have written numerous travel blogs about, and probably should have done, although it’s a bit late now.

The weight gained from seven solid days of pasta has refused to come off, despite lengthy walks – currently in waders and wellingtons along the river.  I had hoped this weight increase could be blamed on muscle from increased sessions at the gym, but a diagnosis of high cholesterol at my over 50’s health check put paid to that. Too much cheese, wine and yoghurt apparently (I thought yoghurt was good for you?)

Anyway, life isn’t so bad on the downhill slope.  I’ve decided not to hurtle, but to gently slalom. I can’t put off the ageing process so I might as well enjoy it. At least I can finally put my ‘senior moments’ down to just that.

One picture of Italy - more may follow