I am a finalist!

It's 4am and I am sitting in the kitchen of our holiday cottage, in the dark. The rain is lashing outside and I can see the flickering of the lighthouse - it is all very romantic. I am writing this post now because it is the only chance I will get, in peace, to do it - Tom disapproves of me having my laptop (and phone) on holiday, Dolly would want to break it, and Betty would want to use Paint. Up here in the Welsh hills there is no internet connection so I will have to wait until the morning to publish it (when we all go to a cafe I sussed out earlier, that has Wi-Fi, under the pretense of having a full English, to keep Tom happy).

Yesterday we all went to a museum. A little bored with looking at Welsh farm machinery, and clocking two whole bars of signal strength on my phone, I had a sneaky look on Facebook. I noticed that the MAD blog award finalists had been announced, and was interested to see who they were. I clicked on the link, but my phone started wavering in and out of signal, and Tom was heading my way with a child under each arm, shaking his head. The odds of successfully getting onto the website were against me. However, a few more hasty clicks of my phone, and there I saw it - my blog in the list of finalists! I wasn't sure if my phone was playing mind games with me - these new phones can pretty much do anything nowadays - and if it was real or not, and then my signal completely disappeared again.

With mixed feelings of nerves and excitement, and still unsure what was going on, I told the other three Buttons we were leaving to find a Wi-Fi connection immediately (it so happened that I had my laptop in the boot of the car). We screeched into the carpark of a very posh hotel and in I charged, looking slightly crazed, clutching my laptop, leaving my bemused, slightly irritated family in the car.

Back in civilisation, I was now able to get onto the MAD blog awards website with ease. And to my absolute genuine astonishment, there I was, listed as a finalist in two categories: Family Life, and Pre-School Fun.

I would like to say a huge big THANK YOU!!! to all those who nominated me - I am so totally thrilled, and touched, and it was totally unexpected!

Now there is just one last thing to do... I would really LOVE it if you could now go and vote for me to win in one or both of the categories!

VOTE HERE!

I really do need to go back to bed now, where Betty is lying star-shaped across the mattress, after waking from a bad dream (about a 'rusty old light') in her own bed.