You may remember a few months ago, when I begged asked you very nicely to vote in the MAD Blog Awards. These are a big deal in the parent blogging community, with 3,600 blogs taking part and over 52,000 nominations, and I was thrilled that there was a brand new homes category introduced this year, sponsored by Vertbaudet.
Thanks to your votes, Growing Spaces was shortlisted as a finalist in the Best MAD Home Blog category, and on Friday evening I got to put on a dress and a pair of heels and hot foot it to London for a swanky awards dinner. Sadly, thanks to having three-year-old twins, I don’t actually get out very much, and the combination of excitement, nerves, and a seemingly endless supply of white wine meant that from the starter onwards, my memory of the evening is pretty sketchy. Here are some of the things that I believe took place:
- I met Myleene Klass, and when she expressed admiration that I had so far survived life with twins, I commented: “Oh, but you have a tiny age gap between your two too, don’t you?” “Um, well,” she replied. “Four years.”
- I somehow found myself admitting to Sally Whittle that I had actually been to see Hearsay in concert. Thankfully I managed to restrain from telling this to Myleene herself.
- At some point in the evening, my chair was removed from the table I was sitting at and relocated at a table with some of my favourite people. I believe Jane was the phantom chair thief, and I’m pretty sure it had something to do with the fact that there was still free wine left in the bottles on that table.
- I whooped my way through the award presentations, definitely chanting something along the lines of ‘twin mums rock’ with Jane loudly at inappropriate moments.
- At a particular point in the evening I was rugby tackled to the floor by Jane in an amorous, celebratory embrace.
- I stood up in front of a room full of people and made a speech that my dear friend Emily assures me made absolutely no sense whatsoever.
- I won one of these…..
All in all it was a top evening, and I was taken completely by surprise to win an award, especially given the high calibre of bloggers in my category (Violet Posy, Frugal In Cornwall, Love Chic Living and The White Approach). I had a laugh with some brilliant people – old mates, new bloggers (or new to me at least), and people I’d just never managed to sit down with at any of the blog events I’ve attended in the past. I may not remember it in high definition, but the hefty hangover I woke up with on Saturday morning let me know it was a bloody good night.
Thanks to everyone for voting, thanks to everyone who put up with me on Friday evening, and thanks to the organisers for a fantastic event. This blog has been a little more neglected that I would have liked, with the real world too often taking over on my list of priorities, but I hope that winning a MAD blog award will give me just that extra push to take this blog a bit further, and do more of this and this, and less ‘fill in the gaps’ type posts.
P.S. To the person who stole my winner’s flowers – I hope you blooming enjoyed them.
Well done Heather, a great achievement
Thanks Gary!
You abandoned Table 12!! How could you?!
Ok, you’re forgiven and it was great to finally meet you. Congratulations on your award xx
Oh Trish, if you hadn’t drunk all the wine*, I wouldn’t have been driven elsewhere!!
Was great to meet you too, and sorry we didn’t get a chance to chat properly.
*I may have to take full responsibility for the disappearing wine
Someone stole your flowers??
Was lovely to see you…I’m still cringing about my little error 🙂 Although you telling me I was just like you made me feel a LOT better.
and massive Congratulations!!! xxx
The flowers never even made it to me! Poor old me 😉
Was so lovely to see you on last week and really want to get a date in the diary to meet up again soon. With kids and without!
Well done you! Well deserved, I love your blog x
Thanks Peggy, it really does mean a lot for you to say that. x
Hooray! Well deserved!
and my flowers vanished last year too… very glad to hear I’m in such good company!
That’s funny! A regular awards attendee obviously has a penchant for flowers!
Well done indeed on your win. I was totally thrilled with mine but, boy are they hard to photograph well, love yours with the colours behind! I remember all the speeches being first class, but can’t remember any of them ‘hic’ blaming the ever flowing wine on a wonderful evening.
It took a lot of tries to find a place to photograph it! I actually left mine in the hotel room the next morning and had to go back to retrieve it. It’s got a cloak of invisibility! Great to meet you and well done on your award. x
Congratulations – so pleased you won! On the flowers front – I’d be looking at Jane. Or checking that you didn’t leave them in the toilets somewhere. Or maybe it was that Myleene?!
I DID NOT LEAVE THEM IN THE TOILETS! I may have been drunk, but I wasn’t that drunk. Quite. The flowers never even made it to my fair hands. I bet it was Myleene. She was always jealous of my success…
Congratulations! and fill-the-gaps posts are fine, if you do TOO many amazing makeovers then I might just get too jealous… although, having said that if you run out of things to do at your house I know of a house with a whole heap of ‘make-overs’ needed – you’re very welcome to work some magic over here!
Haha, thanks Alexis. Just finding it so frustrating at the moment not to be able to actually finish any room in the house! I want to do the fun, pretty stuff…
It was yoooooou – You were shouting about twin mums! I was trying to work out who it was!
Massive congrats on your award, sorry I missed meeting you. You so should have told Myleene you had been to see Hearsay though 😉 x
Sorry I missed you too, and big thanks for the congrats x