I’m one of the featured bloggers over on the LoveAllDads showcase this month. So, for once, I’m going to turn the spotlight on to the person whom I’m (to borrow a classic Yes, Prime Minister quote) “in the habit of defining by means of the perpendicular pronoun”.
This is my life
Here are the basic facts. I’m Tim, 44, asthmatic, diabetic and, as a non-practising Catholic, probably a heretic too. I’m married to Heather and the father of three wonderful (and occasionally infuriating) children: Isaac (aged 6½) Toby (4½) and Kara (approaching 2½). We live in Thatcham, Berkshire.
By day I’m a mild-mannered middle manager for a large global corporation. Think of a shorter, less dashing version of Clark Kent with the muscle mass replaced by, er, ‘insulation’ around my midriff.
By night I’m a mild-mannered blogger running three sites of my own (covering my parenting experiences, TV and pro cycling) and contributing TV-related posts to the website of the Metro newspaper.
Consequently I don’t sleep very much.
Why I blog
Blogging is my personal therapy, my little hideaway from the real world.
I’ve been blogging in various guises since 2007, so I guess that makes me something of a grizzled veteran who looks out over the blogosphere and bores everyone else by telling them how I remember when it was all just empty green fields and that things just aren’t the way they used to be.
It’s a cheap hobby that keeps me (vaguely) sane as I continue to labour under the misapprehension that (a) my kids might actually read some of this when they’re a bit older and (b) I’ll one day become vaguely competent at this blogging lark. If I’m honest, I’m not sure which of the two I’m more deluded about.
Writing is also how I find it easiest to express myself. As a classic introvert, I process thoughts internally rather than externally and prefer writing to talking – while I can turn a neat phrase on paper, I can be both painfully shy and hopelessly inarticulate around other people.
The appeal of processing my random thoughts and committing them to a permanent record to supplement a failing memory which is already overloaded with TV and sporting trivia is definitely a key driver. As is the opportunity to share my experiences and ideas with other parents, and to learn from theirs. This big, wide world of parenting is tough enough as it is, and the parent blogging community is just that: a community.
That, and I genuinely do just love to write.
There’s not much else to tell. I’m an ordinary family man with an ordinary family and ordinary stories to tell. That’s not meant in a denigrating way – it’s just that we are fortunate enough to have three healthy children who seem to do all the same things and go through the same highs and lows as the majority of other kids.
And this is Slouching towards Thatcham
Slouching towards Thatcham is my parenting blog. Here I write mostly about my experiences as a father, but also my increasingly nostalgic reflections (I steadfastly refuse to apologise for being stuck somewhere in the mid-1980s) and other random stuff that interests me.
By the way, the ‘Slouching towards’ bit in the blog name is a nod to the final line of Yeats’ poem The Second Coming – “And what rough beast, its hour come round at last / Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?” – which, in turn, inspired the title of a book by Joan Didion. I don’t actually have any literary pretensions, though: the line caught my attention via references in the TV series Angel and Heroes. Curiosity and Wikipedia filled in the blanks.
And that’s me. If you’ve discovered Slouching towards Thatcham only recently or have found your way here via LoveAllDads – welcome. Hopefully you’ll like it here. Do pop by and say hi in the comments some time.