There comes a time on every personal blog where the blogger will write a grovelling post apologising for neglecting their blog and cataloguing every exhausting reason for why they have been absent.

Dear Readers,

I have been so busy!….

I had an inkling when I started this blog that it would become just another obligation. Like a fireman on an old steam engine, I am constantly shovelling coal to keep the engine running. I was worried that my blog would become just another scoop to keep the fires burning and keep that monkey off my back. But in fact, I really enjoy it and I have missed my quiet times with a coffee and the computer screen in the early hours of the morning.

So here I am with a long list of excuses for why I have been away. I am entering a renaissance period in my life (grandiose, much?)…or to put it more prosaically, I’ve got a rocket under me, and I feel compelled to finish old projects, start new projects and generally overhaul my entire life.

My Mum tells me that when I was a baby, I used to carry around three dummies – one for my mouth and one for each hand. I have continued this trait throughout my life; I always feel the need for more than is necessary. For example, I always have two drinks on the go at the same time. I store our money in multiple different bank accounts. On my desk there are several notebooks and lists. In Corporate-Speak I am all about diversification. If we kept chickens, I’d be using a lot of baskets.

Analysing myself, I would say that my mania for diversification is a way of shielding myself from disappointment. If one thing doesn’t work out, I’ve always got another thing on the boil. Another dummy to suck.

Musing on this topic, I got to thinking about how all of us in my immediate family have extra-curricular activities. School and work are just the things that we are supposed to be doing with our day. It’s our extra curricular activities that define us. On any given day, Danger* will be working on another issue of Unbelievably Bad, Saltt-Roazt* will be dashing off another artwork on the computer and Meow.Cheow* will be bent over her needle and thread sewing a new Cos-Play outfit. Among other things…

So it turns out that I don’t have time for that long list of excuses. Time to move onto a new task. Hopefully I will find some time to get back into more regular blog posting.

*We all have aliases for our extra-curricular activities

And here’s three pictures of coal shovelling just to illustrate my earlier analogy and because I love old pictures of old occupations.