I went to cybermummy 🙂
I have so much to say about it that I’ve decided to separate it up into several shorter posts, which also means you can pick and choose which bits you want to read. Aren’t I thoughtful 🙂
Tonight I’m going for the personal version of the experience.
On the run up to Cybermummy, I wondered what I was doing, planning on going. I’d tried to get to know some of the other bloggers online, but struggled to break into the conversations. My blog started to drift down out of the top 100 tots blogs, and my twitter conversations stalled. I didn’t get nominated for the MADs (not that I expected to!) and I didn’t even hear of the Gurgles until they were practically over. I struggled to find time to enter the various linky workshop things that go on, and leaving comments on blogs wasn’t getting me much traffic back to mine. In short, I panicked.
But I decided I was going anyway. The ticket and accommodation were organised and paid for. I booked a train ticket. Packed bags. Organised an itinerary and briefed the kids, and headed off into the sun.
First class rail travel to London – big tick. (Price cheaper than many standard fares, achieved by booking ahead through thetrainline.com but smacks self around head for forgetting to use topcashback link for cashback on fare 🙁 ) Made the journey much more enjoyable even if the train was delayed.
Tube travel across London at 5.30 on one of hottest days of year? Not so good. Baby in wrap spent the journey trying to eat the beautiful glittery scarf of friendly woman sitting next to me (at least she was a friendly woman!) and then smearing rusk biscuit down my top. Hohum.
Arriving at tube station to find it was off the end of the A-Z map I had? Waah! So obviously rang home for instructions (*what* would I do without dp and google?), then stepped to the edge of the pavement, looked down road to work out roadname and saw the hotel right there. d’oh. Oh well. Made it.
And as I walked past the bottom of the hotel towards the entrance, saw this huge room, with lots of placards, and ppl rushing around organising things, and pink bags and it was real, I’d made it to cybermummy!
Evening in hotel was made much more bearable by getting the wifi password from the very lovely organisers 🙂 Who didn’t snigger audibly at the tired looking woman with the baby and the rusk smeared T shirt 😉 Oh, and by harassing poor innocent person in lobby after overhearing her mention cybermummy at reception, and so just going up to her to chat. So sorry Avril, hope you didn’t mind too much!
Didn’t sleep much. Too hot (even with the aircon), and really rather nervous.
And then, the big day dawns. Breakfasted early, and saw the Huggies mums in the restaurant. But they were all together and they all knew each other, and though I tried to say hi in a rather diffident fashion it didn’t really work 🙁
So gave myself a stern talking to when I went back up to the room for my stuff, and resolved to get stuck in.
So I did. I went down, registered, and got in there.
There were so many ppl to talk to! I *think* I went round pretty much every stand over the course of the day. But that’s another post 😉 And I tried to meet bloggers, although I couldn’t really do the speeddating – running around the room with a baby didn’t work for me conceptually. I did hook up with Vonnie, from Adventures of a Lady in Training, who was a lifesaver as she kept running off with the baby 🙂 And it was great to meet Jay, whose photography is awesome, including the pic of me and soa which now graces the Asda website 😉 And there were others, although sadly and embarrasingly, I didn’t keep straight names/ faces/ blogs and twitter ids :blush: And while I handed out my cards, I don’t seem to have gathered many of anyone else’s, so please, if you met me, leave me a comment, or @me on twitter.
And I realised that I could do it. That the ppl on the panels weren’t really saying anything much that I don’t already know. That I’ve been blogging long enough to have found who I am, and I won’t lose that even if I diversify a little to try to make this something that can help to support our chosen lifestyle.
So it was worth going for that.
I’m not sure at what point I came to that realisation. It could have been when I stood up to clarify what a panel member had just said, and caught her out a little, completely unintentionally. But I’m sorry, call yourself ladygeek then confess you don’t know the difference between wordpress.com and wordpress to download? It’s not good, really.
I don’t lay claim to the word geek. Those of you who are only just getting to know me (I really hope that there are some of you out there!) won’t know that in a previous life I was a java programmer and team leader. (It’s all back in the archives, somewhere.) I code in php sometimes too, and can do my own customisations of wordpress, although I tend not to. But the thing I have done for years is hand hold ppl through setting up blogs – lots of ppl. I’ve lost count of how many tbh. So my comments to the floor were hopefully helpful, and I really appreciated the round of applause, and the ppl who came up to me afterwards to pick my brains further or just to say job well done 🙂
So I felt OK. Cybermummy was good. Even the blogposts that made me cry, thought it was really good to have a baby to distract me during them. Not so good to have a baby with me afterwards, as it meant I got stranded in the hotel room with her, but tbh, I was shattered by then anyway, and I struggle even more in bars than I do in seminars and meetings. So probably enough to be on the prize winning pub quiz team (yeah, I am Liz Jarvis!) and a fantastic end to the day to win the wonderful Stokke Xplory stroller. More coming on that very soon 😉
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