Where Do We Go From Here?

A week ago, I made myself a jacket potato in the microwave. While it was cooling down, I wrote a little post about a certain Professional Hater who didn’t know how to argue. I ate my potato. And the internets went mad. Turned out a few people agreed with me on the subject and it got passed around Facebook from one group to another. I learnt a lesson that day – if you’re going to illustrate a post with a cheeky selfie, make sure it’s a good one. Don’t just take a snap of yourself in working-from-home-eating-potatoes slobbery. You never know when the population of a small town might see it. That’s why I normally use  my children as models, and that’s why today’s post has an entirely arbitrary photo of a tube train with an identity crisis (it’s clearly a Piccadilly Line train, but it’s on the Northern Line. What The Actual Heckatty?)

But it all got me thinking. Every time I rant about something, it gets me a spike in my stats. Admittedly, this spike was a bit bigger than the others.. so clearly slagging off celebrities gets me way more readers than reviewing sandpits. Should I diversify into celeb-slagging then? It’s tempting, but I’m thinking no. London with a Toddler has a clear objective – it’s a blog about London with toddlers. It’s a positive kind of thing and (hopefully) encourages parents to take toddlers out in a city that might seem scary at first. Happy happy. I enjoy a rant every now and again, but if it was the sole focus of the blog, I think I might lose the will to live. It wouldn’t be long before I was as shrivelled and bitter as the people I’m criticising. Hate breeds hate etc. So, nothing’s going change, but that doesn’t mean that Hopkins et al have carte blanche to attack parents in any way they like. I will be watching closely. And, as a person who just used two French phrases in a word, I am clearly not to be messed with*.

One thing that will change is that I’m finally “manning up” and going self-hosted. Hopefully, the transition will be smooth and I won’t lose any content into a black hole named Technical Incompetence, but I can’t guarantee that. It means that I can start to “monetize” the blog, if that’s not too appalling a word, but I’m hoping to do it quite subtly. Eventually, I would love to have some sponsorship from nice, local businesses who fit the LWAT ethos (i.e. like cake, don’t slag off parents all the time). If anyone’s reading this who has one of those businesses and would like some very reasonable advertising rates, do contact me at londonwithatoddler@gmail.com. We’ll talk.

So I guess that’s where we go from here. Much the same. Two stops and then change at Bank. I’ll be reviewing an exciting new London-baby-app later this week and there will be a giveaway soon too. Continue to wait on the edge of your seats…

*An imaginary friend has just pointed out that “et al” is, in fact, Latin. I guess that means I am someone to be messed with after all…