Some of the eagle-eyed among you might have noticed a slight shift in the ‘tone’ of my posts a few weeks ago. The potty-mouth dried up, I started writing ‘list posts’ and The British Maple started to smell like every other mum blog out there.

Well, I’m back! I lost my way a little bit, but please forgive me. You see, when I started The British Maple, it was a means of sharing my ramblings (and mishaps) with anyone who was willing to listen. As I settled into this blogging malarkey, I began to feel compelled to try and please my fellow bloggers and to expand my readership by writing what I thought people wanted to read. In effect, I became too ‘bloggy’!

There are a few ways to help Unmumsy Mum wannabes like me get noticed in the bloggesphere; however sometimes they serve only to satisfy my insatiable need for an increase in statistics!

Twitter is a quick win but I don’t have the time, energy or inclination to pay it back to the lovely Tweeters who kindly retweet and do other such twittery things. After all, blogging is about reciprocation of appreciation!

Then there is the phenomenal Facebook. This is akin to Lorelai living above a coffee shop but vowing to give up caffeine. I gave up Facebook a couple of months ago and have done extremely well without it. My children recognise me again and Mr British Maple now has the joy of hearing me snore mouth-breathe at night rather than the tip-tap of my rampant thumbs as I answered yet another ambiguous post about the weather reflecting the mood of the girl I met in Kos in 2005. Nonetheless, TheBritishMaple.com suffered (imagine forcing the hubby onto the cabbage soup diet even though he has no desire to lose weight but you made him ‘support you‘ anyway).

I am pleased to report I have found a happy medium with this though…The British Maple has its very own page where I can link my posts and peeps can like me all over again without tempting myself into being friends with anyone.

Instagram is my personal fave! It’s like all the good stuff from Facebook (the photos and the celebrity oggling) minus the annoying posts (see above) and chaotic homepage. I discovered one of my fave bloggers on Ista (check out eeniemeeniemineymum she’s brilliant!)

The lesser known linky party is a weekly opportunity for peeps like me to share their latest posts with other bloggers. You are usually required to make a comment on several other linked posts and in return, your post will also receive a handful of comments.

I have a love-hate relationship with linky parties. On the one hand I’ve discovered some great blogs and captured the attention of a couple more readers but the flip side is that I sometimes feel required to comment on posts which I usually would have no interest in. I have a few select linky parties that I keep going back to for various reason but from now on, I write for me!

Now, that is a helluva lot of thought to put into what is basically a fairly mediocre narrative of my life.  It got me to thinking that perhaps, I need to apply this to my actual real life instead.

I am sure there are many people who can relate to this in one way or another. I write my blog about me, for me and it makes me happy to do so. I am most proud of the posts that best represent me, regardless of the number of comments, likes or views ( although I’d like it way more if those numbers were higher!)

So why is it so hard to apply this principle to my actual life? Is it because I can hide behind my sarcasm? That I can close my laptop if I don’t want to be in that world anymore? Or is it simply because I can take my time to present the best of me? In all honesty, I think it’s a bit of everything (and then many more reasons to boot).

I really need to follow my British Maple alter-ego and start writing for me in all aspects of life:

• No more awkward coffee dates so as not to disappoint someone else. Be a disappointment to them if it makes you more you.
• Forget wearing your smart jeans on the school run when you want to wear your joggers. Be comfortable if it makes you more you.
• Screw the diet on a Friday night if you really want chocolate instead of yoghurt. A happy you is more attractive than a skinny you.

Take a closer look, what do you hide behind?

PS – the irony of this post being very ‘bloggy’ is not lost on me, but it had to be written -sorry!