petite anglaise

It has been suggested in my comments box that my margin for manoeuvre, in terms of the subject matter I can post on petite anglaise, may have been seriously reduced since I was divested of my anonymity last year. I think it’s a question worth delving into, given that, while there may be some truth in this, my reasons for self-censoring (and ultimately writing less) are actually far more complex…

Having my name “out there” doesn’t make me feel any different. I’ve yet to be recognised by a complete stranger in the street (well, okay, I was once, but said person was too shy to approach me and I’m only aware of our near miss because he sent me a bashful email afterwards). In the past, I always said I cared only about what my friends and family thought of me, so does it really matter whether the host of faceless readers who visit this blog now know my name? Most are still just as unlikely to cross my path.

What has changed, however, is that there are a few people I encounter in my daily life who have read an article in a newspaper, or who saw me on the French TV news, and know of the blog, even if I doubt they continue to read it now. My bank manager, the estate agent who sold me my flat, a woman I once spoke to at the tax office and a few fellow parents at my daughter’s school, some of whom I’d quite like to befriend. When we mutter our sleepy ‘bonjour‘s in the morning, the uncomfortable thought crosses my mind from time to time that they may or may not know all sorts of things about me. And composing posts about Tadpole’s exploits, I have, on occasion, found myself changing her classmates’ names.

Then, of course, there is the effect my name being public can have on my family. I’m even more reluctant to allude to my sisters, as their friends will know exactly who I’m talking about. And when my mother pops into the village shop for a bottle of milk, there is every likelihood that she might run into someone who knows someone who knows someone who reads petite anglaise, given the Yorkshire Post ran several stories about me in the course of the last year. I strongly resent the idea of having to sanitise my content just because of “what the neighbours might think” but on the other hand, I don’t want to upset my family.

Some people have suggested it would be prudent for me to avoid what Mr Frog calls “crispy subjects” (the French phrase “sujets croustillants” can be used figuratively) because I have, or will have, a raised public profile come book publication. The thinking goes something like this: I’ve already committed the cardinal sin of being a happily unmarried mother, in the eyes of the Daily Mail, and look how the Sunday Times chose to take my “bad mummy” posts at face value, reading them as admissions of parental inadequacy. My ex-employer demonstrated at tribunal – albeit with limited success – how easy it is to pluck random quotes from my blog and make it look as though they mean precisely the opposite of what I originally intended. So, if I write about recovering from a rather vicious hangover once every six months, will I be portrayed as an alcoholic? If I allude to a runny nose, will someone infer that I have been snorting fat white lines off the Boy’s bottom?

Which leads me neatly on to the subject of the Boy, why I have deigned to share so little information about him with my readers. The answer is, I think, a combination of superstition (not wanting to jinx things when they are going so surprisingly well) and a genuine desire not to repeat past mistakes. I’m painfully aware that I’ve had a tendency to use my blog as an extra layer of communication with boyfriends in the past. Writing posts which were, in effect, open letters to one person in particular doesn’t seem like the healthiest way to behave. Using words as weapons to manipulate, to make someone feel guilty, to apologise for some wrongdoing and beg for forgiveness – these are all roads I have previously trodden. The fact that the Boy seems to have been blessed with emotional intelligence in spades and would immediately see through these kind of ploys makes this new resolution easier to keep.

Last, but not least, I hold some stories back because I want to use them in the writing which constitutes my day job; my bread and butter. Book Two is a fiction project, but I’d be a fool not to write about what I know and draw heavily from my own experiences. So, when something happens which is too good not to use in some way, I now have to evaluate whether I should hold it in reserve.

So, while I have no intention whatsoever of giving up on petite anglaise, the rules have changed, the goalposts shifted. And at the very least, I thought this was something I should acknowledge.

Anonymity is the personal blogger’s best friend. Lose it at your own peril.