A Return to Blogging. In which Charlotte recaps.

I'm back. Well I haven't really been away, I've just been lurking, willing my blog to write itself, my novel to finish itself, a winning lottery ticket to magically appear in my wallet and for the ironing fairies to finally turn up.

Having satisfied myself that apparantly none of this is going to happen, I have resigned myself to the fact that I'm going to have to do it all myself.

So, here I am. Let's see. Where did I leave off? Oh yes.

I had been born, gone to school, fallen out with most of my friends, got married, had children, fallen out with all my new friends, wrote a book, fell out with my last remaining friends and was now blogging slightly manically about my delight in discovering that I had an online stalker.

Sadly I then fell out with the stalker and they are no longer stalking me.

I had been on the wagon and then clinging onto the back of the wagon and then I had fallen off the wagon and now I'm quite happily perched on the edge of it. Just enough vino tinto to take the edge off the horrors of modern day life, but not quite enough to turn me into a shreaking banshee. (Or this is the plan, anyway.)

I'd had rows with my mother, I'd made up with my mother. I'd had many, many, many, many rows with my husband and now there is a kind of weary truce. We eye each other cautiously over the Weetabix in the morning, deciding whether or not to tackle the latest irritating habit we consider the other to have developed; or whether to add it to a private mental list to be screamed as an addendum ("AND ANOTHER THING!") to the major, monthly marital argument, the biggie, the four-weekly battle, the One Where Things Get Thrown. "

The children are thriving. No major illnesses, no terrible behavioural issues. Their teachers/nursery staff report them to be clever little buggers, and judging how they manage to run rings around their father, I don't doubt it. (Me, not so much. There are no flies on Mama Castle, and I know every trick in the book. I'm not quite No Wire Hangers tough, but I'm no soft touch.)

We have added another cat to our household - a tom cat from across the road who decided that he prefered our family and just one day seemed to move in. (That was an embarassing conversation. I think I'm known locally as the Mad Cat-Rustler Woman.) Patrick as he is called is big, beautiful, dopey, adorable and massively in the shit as he has just eaten nearly a pound of fresh diced lamb which had been destined for my slow cooker for sunday lunch tomorrow. He's lying next to me now, on his back and with the kind of Christmas day look that says "I know I enjoyed it whilst it was happening, but now I'm regretting that seventh roast potato."

For now, Casa Castle is peaceful. Arabella is playing with a friend upstairs, Alex is playing with his cars and Simon, naturally, is watching James Bond.

But you don't want to hear about THAT, do you? Now we've slipped back into my life, I promise to let you know the second things start getting messy.

Judging by the row that has just erupted between the children upstairs, that could be sooner than I'd anticipated.

Cx