Bloggortunity

I have just been reading one of my favourite blogs and I had a small, insignificant thought about the kind, gentle and supportive community of bloggers that I have stumbled upon in the last couple of years of blogging.

Occasionally, I read tales of spiteful attacks in the social networking world and this is such a contrast to the bloggers that I read. Some are angry and deeply pissed off with the world and their own situation. Some blog to tell the tale of their daily routine with a wry, sideways glance. Some blog to blog.

Alrightit is twenty-nine years old and has blogged her way through breast cancer. She is so entitled to be pissed off. I occasionally feel brave enough to post a comment but really, what can I say to her? I'm old enough to be her mother and I've still got a complete pair? Why didn't the Bullshit pick on someone its own age?

Not waving is blogging her life in France with family highs and lows. Her highs are delightful vignettes of family life and the joys of her expat life. Her lows are heart-achingly familiar to many of her readers ... women of a certain age, mainly. I am so struck by the honesty of her posts and the compassionate practicality of her readers. I try hard to be one of the latter but feel distant and useless, like someone standing on the far shore.

Henry the Leaphound is blogged by a lovely emanuensis called Catherine. I have been reading tales of Henry and his housemates for ages. He leads a busy non-cyber life and so I'm always eager to read a new Henry post. If you've never seen a dog on a trampoline, you should drop by Henry's place. They live hundreds of miles away but I feel like I've just popped in for a cup of tea.

@Eloh blogs with such a powerful voice that I hear her reading her posts aloud in my head. She's had a much more exciting life than most of us; have a look if you don't believe me. Her mother died recently from Alzheimers disease and the blogs are raw and painful. Should be mandatory reading for anyone with a family member, friend, lover or even ourselves who will live through this. That would be all of us then.

Sixty-five roses blogs through cystic fibrosis. Her blog catalogues the drugs and treatments she has just to plod from one day to another while trying to do all the normal teenage stuff. Yup, sometimes she gets miserable and moany and has a blogging snarl at some of her peers at school. But she's seventeen. She's allowed to be miserable and moany. In fact, it's probably mandatory. Well, it was in 1969. And her cf-supporters post practical comments on how to live with the disease. If you drop by, you'll see a translucently beautiful girl who has just started to run to keep herself well.

Dagenham Dave blogs as an Englishman in the US. His blogs are like sitcoms. Like the very best sitcoms, they have the occasional touch of pathos. The story of the false teeth made me howl with laughter and the death of the Colonel made me weep. If you drop in for a read take a handerkerchief since you'll need it for either the laughter or tears.

And there are all the others: Some Mothers blogs her life with two young sons against a hinterland of divorce, Fat and Frumpy blogs beautiful, elliptical prose, Reasons blogs cheerfully despite obvious reasons not to be, Valleys Mam blogs bring me closer to home, with all its faults, still home.

And, and, and ... all the wonderful, insightful, tender and funny blogs. They're all there on the right. Go and waste a bit of time. You'll have a smile on your face at the end of it.