A Proper Introduction - Are You With Me....?

Decanting To Kent - The Introduction

It is 11:07pm and I have just made myself a cup of tea, a builder’s tea.  I am not a builder, but I’ve been bold and gone for the tea anyway.  I am going to write this blog post, tonight.  I meant to write it yesterday evening, and the evening before and the evening before that….but a whole pile of excuses happened; some genuine - children throwing up type excuses, some less convincing – Broadchurch was on type excuses!  But here we are: if you’re reading it; I’ve written it….

I’ll introduce myself a bit more later, but a summary for now: my name is Clare, I am approaching 40; I have spent the last 17 and a half years living in London town:  I worked there, got engaged there, married… elsewhere, (London was too pricey!) and had three children there. I’d really settled there, and then, well, then we went and moved, ….to a vineyard, in Kent!

Why?  Good question.  To chase a dream; not my dream, no no!  My husband’s dream.  Why?  Another good question, well done!  Lots of reasons, wine being a biggy, I’ll explain along the way, I’m only telling you this much now, so you can judge whether you’re with me or not!

Don’t worry, I really do have a very low expectation of the ‘following’ I will muster*.  I don’t say this to gain your sympathy, I don’t want it, thank you,  I have wine, remember?!  It is more as a statement of fact, and to build on the picture you have of me, because you don’t know me yet.  My friends of course know me, but they won’t be reading this blog, because I won’t be telling them about it.  I’m not mad! ….. I’m not nearly brave enough to let them read it!  So who will read it? My mum at least?…..No – she didn’t embrace the world of computers in time, let alone the internet, so this will pass her by.  Therefore it is left to you, a random stranger who happens upon my blog!  A random stranger, who happens upon my blog, whose interests may include wine and is interested in reading about some 40 year old woman following someone else’s dream!  Niche you say?  Well, let me up the ante a little more!  A wine swilling stranger who happens upon my blog, is interested in a 40 year old woman’s journey to follow someone else’s dream and who can put up with the occasional** reference to Disney.*** 

Yesterday, someone told me that there is a club in America where grown men gather to talk about historical washing machines.  He told me in an attempt to prove that people might like anything, even when you would never predict it.  Therefore it is not impossible to conceive that people might enjoy my blog!  In fairness to him, he is too kind a soul to have said this in direct reference to my blog, he was saying it about his own project.  Aren’t we all so beautifully self-deprecating?!  And he wasn’t even British, he’s just lived here long enough to gain the skill.

 

Anyway, to my niche of people who want to grab on to my coat tails, whilst I grab onto someone else’s coat tails, whilst they follow their dream….welcome!  Let’s try not to spill too much wine as we conga through my new life! 

* Apologies to Mrs Maccaire, who really did do her best to teach me a ‘Positive Mental Attitude’ – I really appreciate what she was trying to achieve and think it is very important, I’m just not entirely sure it was a great success with me!

** For occasional read relatively frequent plus possibly CBeebies too.

*** Don’t judge!  I spend my days with babies and toddlers, who talk and do a lot of random crap.  Kiddie style random crap turns out not to be so very useful as mileage in an adult, social setting.  I’ve replaced my (minimal) current affairs knowledge with being a poo aficionado.  Instead of learning new work concepts I keep my brain agile by juggling the ever-changing logistics of our collective day and the only reading material I manage to stay awake for, mostly, is the bedtime fairy story.  Disney is as good as it gets.

As an aside (more character development stuff) I genuinely think if I went on Mastermind now, Disney films may well be my best shot at a specialist subject. Seeing films over 50 times will do that for a person. I could pretend that this is just a recent thing, and pre-kids my specialist subject would have been far more impressive, but in truth it would probably have been ‘Home and Away’ or ‘Agatha Christie’. Anyway, I digress……where was I?  Oh yes…

THE END

(of the introduction, not the whole blog, vomit and Broadchurch dependent!)