On Saturday evening I got back from a lovely couple of days in London, and my first night away without children!
It was also my first time attending Britmums Live, I’d bought tickets twice before but then had to sell due to either Mr C’s accident or my operation so it was nice to finally get to go.
I was very kindly sponsored by Boots UK to attend the event and before it started on Friday I met them for brunch, along with five other bloggers so we could hear all about their #SummerGoodTimes campaign.
We met at The Folly which was a great venue, the toilets were awesome but I forget to take my phone in so couldn’t get a pic – blogger fail 😉 We had our own room downstairs where we were greeted with huge pastries, bacon sandwiches and crumpets. The Boots team were absolutely lovely and had so many useful tips about staying safe in the sun.
Did you know..
– Wet t-shirts don’t offer any protection against the rays of the sun?
– The effects of the sun are cumulative so if you burn an area of skin it will be more sensitive to burning the next year?
– UV rays bounce off your phone and into your eyes?
– Your eyes are ten times more sensitive to the UV rays of the sun than your skin?
– Children’s eyes are even more susceptible to damage as they have larger pupils? (Protect them by making sure they wear sunglasses or a hat in the summer)
They also had lots of advice about hayfever, I don’t suffer with it but Mr C does and I was able to tell him how he needs to use the nose spray properly for it to work. You need to either put your head forward or lie down for a few minutes for it to take effect without just running down your throat. If you are suffering with it really badly then it’s worth taking a trip to speak to a Boots pharmacist as they have so much advice.
It was Natalie (who it was so nice to meet, she’s fab!) from Style Me Sunday’s birthday so we all sung to her, we didn’t manage to eat any of the cake though due to stuffing our faces beforehand.
Then we headed over to Britmums Live. I actually spent most of Friday afternoon in the pub, not drinking I might add! It was nice to have a proper catch up with lots of lovely blogging friends. I did head over to listen to Deliciously Ella speak, it was interesting to hear her talking about her previous love of junk food and pic and mix. She changed her eating habits after being diagnosed with a rare illness. I love her recipes and it was really nice to hear her speak in person.
Then it was time for the BiB’s. I bumped into Laura and Tia from Little Button Diaries on the way in and spent the evening with them, they are SO lovely and it was so nice to have craft chat with people who get it! They won the craft category and it was very well deserved, we were all so nervous beforehand, it really is the scariest thing waiting to hear them read out the winner!
After the awards I was exhausted so went back to my hotel room at The Montcalm which was next door to The Brewery (where the event was being held).
I can’t even tell you how nice it was to spend a night on my own in a nice hotel! The bed was super comfy and I slept so well despite me not normally when in a new bed. In the morning I had breakfast delivered to my room, how amazing does it look?!
And after having a rainfall shower I got dressed and headed back over for day two.
Usually when I go to blog conferences I spend the day with the bloggers who I now call my friends but none of them were there on the Saturday so I spent the day going around on my own. It did actually make a nice change and I got to meet lots of new people but I’m not going to lie, I definitely prefer to be in a group. It was a good reminder of how much I have grown in confidence over the last ten years though, I just never would have done something like this on my own then and the idea of meeting new people used to terrify me but I love it now.
I went to visit the Boots stand where they were running some competitions then fell in love with all the bright pink tops on the Joules stand before hitting the sessions.
I struggle in the sessions of a lot of blog conferences these days as after blogging for over four years I’ve heard a lot of it before but I really enjoyed listening to Maggy from Red Ted Art talking about social media and how she manages to do it all and I loved the SEO session run by Judith Lewis. This was actually a session that was all new to me and it turns out that by following the advice of the Yoast SEO plugin I’ve actually been doing it all wrong!!
One thing I did notice in all the sessions is that questions were welcome all the way through, now I do totally get that this is a nice way of doing things and really helpful for those who are new to blogging and have lots of questions.. BUT I found that this meant the speakers didn’t get to finish their talks because it turned into a Q+A and for me I found that a bit of an issue, especially as the sessions were only 45 mins to begin with which isn’t an awful lot of time. I think it would have been much better to make them an hour long and leave 15 minutes at the end for questions.
Am I just being grumpy though?!
If you went did you notice the same thing with the questions?
I spent my lunchtime in the craft room which had lots of tables with different activities to join in with, I think this is a great idea as you can chat to new people next to you whilst making something, I started a hexagon blanket which is obviously a hit with me as I love crafting!
I loved the outdoor areas of the venue too, there were too temporary conservatory areas with sofas to sit on.
All in all I had a great couple of days, and being away from the fields and tractors definitely made me appreciate them when I got home, I’m not made for city life!
Thanks so much to Boots for sponsoring me to attend the event!
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