BritMums Live Hangover 2013

All the Alices: An Essex Wife and My Life My Son My Way

BritMums Live is undeniably the highlight of the Blogging Social Calendar. It’s a weekend where members of our community come together to share and learn, to chat and discuss. It’s not just the highlight of my Blogging Social Calendar though, it’s one of the highlights of my year.

BML 2013 was slightly different for me. I didn’t go armed with tons of business cards and a highlighted seminar schedule. I went with the simple aim of having fun with some of the most wonderful women I know, women I may not have survived the last six months without.

Oh, and the wine. I went for the wine.

It’s Charlotte! 

Gorgeous Vicki of Honest Mum and Mummy’s Got Style 

My roomie Steph

Fangirling over Cherry Menlove

I deserve a big wrist slap for only attending three seminars but I met Cherry Menlove (total writing hero) and sobbed at the keynotes section of the weekend. I gave Jennie an overdue hug (and hoped she felt the love I was giving her) and was profoundly moved by the tribute to a member of our blogging community, Multiple Mummy. We really are a magnificent group of women and though we communicate mostly via computer screen the friendships we share are really unshakeable. Feeling so much unity in a room of women (and a couple of men) belting out a song for a much loved member was an incredibly humbling experience. I will never be able to listen to ‘Firework’ without remembering Kerry, the special bond we as a community share and remembering that it’s OK to live every day of life to the absolute fullest.

Alison was as lovely as you’d expect

These two have got me through the last six months – Bryony and Steph

So, big thanks to those wonderful people I spent the weekend with: Bryony, Steph, Isra, Ruth, Alison, Aimee, Charlotte, Aimee, Bianca, Sarah, Jenny, Kelly (have I forgotten anyone? Probably). Had I won the BiB award – it’s probably a blessing I didn’t thanks to the evening’s wine intake – my acceptance speech was going to include something about how in the crappest year of my life this blog and the community of friends I’ve made through it have got me through in one piece. If I didn’t have you wonderful ladies in my life, you know who you are, I would be a completely different person to the one I am today.

Apologies to those I sobbed on (I’m calling wine and oestrogen overload) and I’ll see you next year! Will make it to more seminars. Promise.

Big thanks to Silentnight cot mattresses who sponsored one night of blissful solo hotel sleep for me this year!