Frustration, alleviation and delegation

It's been a mixed week at work. It's been a bit of a case of two steps forward, three steps back in some areas, and I haven't always felt buoyed by positivity, let's put it that way. But I forge ahead in my own inimitable fashion, as always (like a bull in a china shop, some might say...) The blog has been suffering again, too. Sheer Bloody Exhaustion is really the only excuse I can offer. But anyhoo, the week was punctuated (and the frustrations alleviated) by two fun events. First, the Blogs and Social Media Forum which I attended on Tuesday. I was delighted to bump into my friend Jon Reed, who always brightens my day. I was also pleased to see the way in which blogs and other social media tools are beginning to have such an impact on the media industry as a whole, and there were quite a few book publishers there, which made me a happy girl. It was fascinating that when the conference hall of 300 delegates was asked for a show of hands by those who wrote a blog, more than half raised their hands. Second, I last night was a guest at a Society of Bookmen dinner. I know, it's a society title to make one shudder to the very bone, (I was told, "Don't go there!" when I asked whether they'd considered a re-brand), and they live up to their name so perfectly that they don't even have a web site... but all that aside, the food was delicious, the wine excellent, the company good fun, and the after-dinner speaker one of the most urbane, witty and insightful about current issues in the broadcast and other media, Michael Grade.
Apart from these two events, something else has really kept my spirits up this week. I've been enjoying observing the way that Eden (my five year old) is beginning to take the role of Big Sister increasingly in her stride. With two tot-like siblings I reckon she feels she's got it all sussed now. It's hilarious to hear the way she goes up an octave and assumes a voice spookily like mine as she confronts Nathan (two) about some instance of poor behaviour (usually pulling her hair, stealing her toys or generally squaring up to her): "NO, Nathan!" But the best bit is that suddenly I have a little girl who takes such pleasure in fulfilling simple tasks for me. She has started to help by feeding Ava her Weetabix in the morning (it's a slightly messier approach, but definitely more fun than when I do it). Even more adorable, she offered to read Nath his bedtime story a few nights ago. He won't hear anything else than John Burningham's The Blanket, so she duly read it to him , sitting on a little white, wooden chair that she dragged through from her room and placed by his cot so that he could look through the railings at the pictures. Since that evening she has read to him every evening, the habits already becoming entrenched, so that the white chair has become her 'story-telling' chair, and she even closes the curtains, kisses him goodnight, and instructs him to 'snuggle up now, and go to sleep' as she wishes him goodnight afterwards, just as I do with her. I have to confess that I shed a little tear the first evening as I heard her reading so sweetly to him and listened to his delighted voice finishing each sentence before she had even reached it. And so it is that the frustrations of the week have already paled into insignificance.