Blog is thicker than water

We know that blogging brings people together, but this almost-too-good-to-be-true story from two bloggers in particular reveals just how blogging makes the world that much more intimate. Trish from Mum’s Gone To and Toni from Expat Mum tell their story.

Trish’s Story

In December 2009 I wrote a blog post, ‘Mum’s NOT gone to Newcastle’ explaining how the bad weather had changed our plans for the Christmas visit to my parents. In the comments section was this little exchange:

Expat Mum: Probably the right move. My mum lives about five minutes from the A1 and had to turn back the other day because of the traffic. Long queues due to buses going about 2 miles an hour on the ice and probably thinking “Eeeeeeh bliddy hell”.

Trish @ Mum’s Gone To : “eeeeeh bliddy hell”. That just sounds like my mum – are you sure we aren’t related?

Fast forward a few months and a telephone exchange between my mother and me.

Mum: “Do you remember your second cousin, Toni?”
Me: “Hmmm…vaguely”
Mum: “She was born the same time as your brother, I was in hospital with her mum”
Me: “It’s ringing a bell”
Mum: “She was two years ahead of you at school, lives in America.”
Me: “That’s nice. And?”
Mum: “Well I’ve found her on Facebook. You should befriend her too”
Me:: “But I don’t really know her.”
Mum: “Don’t be silly, of course you do”
Me: “Oh I don’t know, Mum, she’ll think I’m mad”

Never one to be put off, Mum decided to send a private message to Toni herself to tell her all the family news. They chatted about Toni’s book success and how she was now a blogger. Mum replied that her daughter, Trish, also wrote a blog about ‘mum things’.  This is when it all became rather spooky. It turns out that second cousin Toni was none other than Expat Mum. We were related after all and had been happily commenting on each other’s posts for some time, completely oblivious of the family connection.

Eeeeeeeh, bliddy hell!

Toni’s Story

Trish and I were aware of each other growing up, so it’s not like we discovered a cousin we never knew existed, but to be commenting on each other’s blogs (about being related) and not realising the situation is hilarious.

Our great-grandparents, John Conway and Annie McGlynn were the children of Irish immigrants who settled in the North East of England in the second half of the 1800’s. Great granny was still around when we were little and was quite the matriarch. They had eight children, my granddad Cuthbert and Trish’s grandma Winnie being two of the youngest, and very close in age. Here they are – Winnie is standing with her hands clasped together and Cuthbert (known as Cud or Con) is front and centre, sporting the large, dashing collar.

Our mothers were first cousins, and had their first babies (me and Trish’s brother) at the same time so were in the hospital together. In 2010, Trish’s mum hosted a family reunion and we saw each other after literally decades. (I have to say, the last time I saw Trish, we were at school together and she looked like our great-Aunt Mary, the older girl in the photo next to her dad.)

Here we are in 2010, and we’ll both be at BritMums Live! in June. See you all then!

And yes, we have the same nose!

And yes, we have the same nose!

Toni (Summers) Hargis blogs as Expat Mum and writes a monthly column for Expat Focus. Brought up in the North East, (God’s chosen country) she worked in London after university married an American (referred to on the blog as The Ball & Chain) and moved to the States in 1990; Toni has been chronicling her exploits ever since. She has three bi-lingual kids, in that although they twang away in an American accent most of the time, they can all do a mean Geordie accent when they think no one’s listening. The family travels to England every summer and Toni is looking forward to this years Brit Mums’ conference. 
Toni is the author of “Rules Britannia; An Insider’s Guide to Life in the United Kingdom”, and is currently working flat out on her second book.

About Trish Burgess

Trish Burgess started her blog ‘Mum’s Gone To…’ with a series of posts called ‘Mum's Gone To Iceland' where she was extremely ill on a whale-watching trip and thought she would die snow-mobiling on a glacier. Thankfully she survived and continued with less scary family trips: ‘Mum’s Gone To…Canada, Cyprus, Barcelona, Berlin etc. Originally from Newcastle upon Tyne she now lives in South Lincolnshire and travels with her husband and occasionally with her son, who is now at university. Trish can be found on Twitter at @mumsgoneto

• Mail
|
• Web
|
• Twitter
|
• Facebook
|
• More Posts(71)