Hello Reader,
Very nervous, coming back on here. I’ve had my first taste of negative comments and it was not nice.
You may remember that some time ago, I was thrilled to be accepted onto the Mumsnet
Bloggers Network and have my pearls of wisdom (ha ha) spread to a wider
audience than boring you lot rigid. Well, it was all going well, people were reading, posting on the forum, I was making new friends both on Mumsnet and Facebook (hi Strawberry!)
I then got an email from the Blog HQ (henceforth MNBHQ) asking if I would mind
them endorsing me as “Blog of the Week” for the 2nd week in January. I thought this was a good idea and so agreed. I was on the front page of the Blog section, with a link to here
and also got a mention in the weekly newsletter, which goes out to all subscribers to the site, whether they visit it or not. Great, I thought, nothing like publicity.
Well, there is certainly nothing like publicity. However, I was totally unprepared for what followed. Whilst on the main Mumsnet site idly flicking through, I came across a thread about “Bloggers special this week” where the opening line was this “I wonder if you could tell me the reason behind endorsing/promoting a blog regarding a wife who believes
her husband, a convicted rapist, is innocent. I was quite shocked to find it in
the weekly parenting news e-mail.”
It went on and on for a bit, whilst it was discussed what sort of appalling parent
I was for allowing my children to have contact with their father “a convicted
and violent man” and people who seemingly think they had googled the case and
knew all the ins and outs. Now the argument itself was fairly reasonable and I do appreciate that there are people out there who have had horrific things happen to them which must cause them a lot of pain. However, in my first post on the thread I did mention that “By the way. If you don’t like the look of it – you don’t have to read it you know…” I can’t quite keep that sharpness under control…
I did not ask for it to be promoted and until that point, had been quite happily posting here and enjoying the blog network and support that MN offered. The result of the thread has been that my blog was removed from the network and that I de registered from Mumsnet itself as I didn’t feel it was a “safe” place for me anymore. Even if I had
namechanged, I would have only have had to slip up once and give a piece of
identifying information and who’s to say it wouldn’t start all over again. I’ve had emails from MNBHQ, which helped me make the decision to leave completely. They were not exactly wildly apologetic and seemed embarressed to be communicating with me, a mere Gangsters moll.
So I have walked away. I didn’t want to blog anymore at all to begin with. I was too scared of the consequences.
But a chance meeting with an old colleague today gave me a kick up the brear end. We bumped into each other at a bus stop and were nattering away when he looked at me, patted me on the arm and said “Keep writing, I like it” I didn’t even know he knew about Himself being in prison, let alone had picked up on my blog but on me looking at him in
shock he said he’d found it through the “people you may know” on FB, didn’t think he recognised the name and so clicked on it and realised it was me. So this post is for you MB, if you’re reading. Thank you for helping me get back on the blogging horse.
Ok, enough wittering from me for one night. I promise to be back soon. I’ve been watching Prsioner’s Wives on BBC1 and wish to impart my thoughts to you 
Welcome back x