Life • September 21, 2014

{The Ordinary Moments 14} #35 ‘A Not So Ordinary Evening.’

 

This past week has been a little bit of a funny one in our household.  Our house has quite literally been turned upside down as we are in the process of having our bathroom renovated.  While this is incredibly exciting, I have been waiting to be able to afford to do it since we moved in five years ago, it also has caused havoc to our routine.  The week has passed me by in a blur of dirt, mess, builders and grumpy children who haven’t been able to nap due to noise.

Therefore I haven’t been able to even contemplate taking any photos for my ordinary moments post this week, my mind has been completely elsewhere.  Therefore I am slightly cheating and sharing some photos that are actually anything but ordinary.  Oops.

On Friday I headed up to London for the Mad Blog Awards.  For anyone who doesn’t know what they are, they are a rather swanky awards celebrating parent blogs in the UK.  I couldn’t believe it when a few months ago I found out I was a finalist in two awards, Best Baby Blog and Best Blog Photography.

I met up with my good friends Morgana and Jenny who I was sharing a room with, and we had some lunch and spent some relaxing time chatting, getting ready and drinking birthday prosecco.  We also had a gatecrasher in the form of Katie, who writes one of my favourite blogs, so it was lovely to have some time to chat to her.  The afternoon whizzed by and soon we were in our dresses ready to head down to the awards.

I can’t possibly name everyone who I met and saw but it was a fantastic evening, meeting new bloggers and chatting to old friends.  The awards were being hosted by Dr Ranj from CBeebies, something which Mads was utterly excited about.  The Best Baby Blog category was the second award of the evening, and I know that everyone says this but I truly didn’t expect to win this year, therefore I was gobsmacked to hear my name called out.

I was shaking really badly as I headed up to the stage and I think I may have uttered the most terrible speech ever, speaking far too quickly and with my voice breaking on a couple of occasions.  I used to have to speak and do presentations in front of lots of people for my work all the time, but for some reason I just clam up when it comes to my blog- I think it is because it means so much to me.  I was so nervous.  The rest of the awards passed in a blur, with some incredibly worthy winners including some of my favourites My Two Mums, Little Button Diaries, lovely Fritha and Actually Mummy.  I didn’t win the photography category, but my good friend Lucy was a very deserving and talented winner.

We were actually quite tame (some of us were anyway Katie who broke the world record for the amount of sweets you can fit down a pretty dress) and didn’t drink too much, but it was a late night, with the night ending with myself, Morgana and Jenny eating pizza at 2.30am in our huge big bed!    Waking up in the morning, my timeline was full of tweets congratulating me- thank you to anyone who took the time to do that and to who voted for me in the first place, it really does mean a lot.

I am honestly over the moon to have won an award, especially as the other finalists were all so fantastic.  We all care so much about our blogs, and to get a little recognition for your hard work out of a community of amazingly talented people, is just such a special feeling.  For a long time I haven’t told friends or family that I blog, although a few have found out, but I really am starting to feel proud of my little online space.  More than that though, every time I go to an event, I feel so lucky to be able to call myself a blogger and to have met some such incredible people through writing about my little ladies.

I only had my iPhone on me, but here are some photos.  They are a little blurry as the light was SO bad…

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 Beautiful Jenny in our huge room!

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Gorgeous ladies at lunch, it was lovely to be able to spend some quality time with Morgana and Jenny.

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All dressed up.

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 I was sat on a table with two other winners- Fritha and Tom.

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Jenny and I with Dr Ranj!

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Some lovely ladies- Fritha, Lori, Bex, Kirsty, Becky and Lucy.

aaaa

Katie, Morgana, Jenny, Sarah and Suzanne.

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2.30am pizza- always a good idea.

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A yummy omlette and waffle brunch with Morgana, Jenny and Katrina.

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Yippeee so chuffed and amazed!


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