You might have caught my post on Monday. Then again, you might not. That’s because it was only up for a few hours before I took it down. The problem? In that post I mentioned the names of friends.

When I first started this blog, that was one rule I vowed not to break. I didn’t want to become known as the ‘kiss-and-tell’ merchant of our small community. But for some reason, quite beyond me now, I broke my own rule.

The post was nothing scurrilous, just an account of a friend’s birthday celebrations involving a copious quantity of alcohol early in the day and a prodigious amount by late afternoon.

That’s all that the post was about: the birthday celebration of a friend, among friends.

A few hours after I published the post, I had second thoughts. The story might cause our friends embarrassment. I hadn’t even told them I was thinking of blogging about the day… mainly because I hadn’t intended to.

I should have sent the story to our friends first, for their approval, before revealing their exploits to the world. But I didn’t.

So I did what I’ve never done before: I deleted the post after I’d published it. It went against all the rules of blogging (several of which I’ve already broken). One in particular comes to mind: ‘Deleting the entry simply asserts that the whole incident didn’t happen –  but it did.’ – The Weblog Handbook, Rebecca Blood

I can think of a few sore heads on Monday morning who might have wished that Sunday didn’t happen – but it did!

Anyway, after deleting the post I toyed with the idea of phoning our friends but by that time it was late on Monday evening. I knew they wouldn’t have had time to read the offending article so I emailed the body of the post to them, with an apology. I also advised that I’d deleted the post and said that I hoped they’d still speak to me.

The next morning there was a response from the birthday boy’s partner telling me not to be so silly because they’d had so much fun on Sunday. She thanked us for sharing such a special day with them.

Sometimes I should know better; sometimes I just don’t know.

I’m sorry, dear reader, if you were confused by that ‘major edit’. I promise never to do it again.