Mumsnet Blogfest

I have been a member of Mumsnet for a couple of years but, in all that time, I've probably been on it on only a handful of occasions.  I joined up in search of some moral support when the children were younger and being vile and I felt I really couldn't bore my friends with my traumas any longer.  I'm happy to say that support was there in abundance and it was reassuring to realise that most people seemed to think the kids were being normal and that it would all pass (it did).  

After that, my activity lapsed for lots of reasons.  Firstly, I have a full time job and am knackered by the end of most days.  Also, I have a family I quite like spending time with and 'having a couple of hours to ourselves once the kids are in bed'  is in the distant past.  Nowadays, they go to bed much later than us.  I felt that perhaps Mumsnet is aimed at a different generation from mine....there seems to be lots of talk about breastfeeding and nappies and I am (very happily) way past that era now.  Finally, I was quite bemused by all the acronyms that the Mumsnetters employ and kept having to refer back to their helpfully-provided list which was slow and quite irritating but probably something you get used to if you are a regular.  Finally, did I really need to be a member of a website which uses the acronym EWCM (Egg White cervical mucus)?  Yes, really.  Bleurgh.

But last week, someone at work mentioned Mumsnet and I decided to pay my annual visit :-)  The first thing I saw was the ad for their upcoming Blogfest - 10th November - a Saturday!  Whoo hoo - workers can go too!  And an early bird booking price of £50 (rising to £75 on 30th September).  I also realised that Mumsnet has a blogging section which either I didn't notice before or (whisper it) I haven't visited the site since I started this pathetic excuse for a malnourished, pox pitted, scurvy-ridden blog.

The line-up of speakers looks amazing and, frankly, a bargain at fifty smackers but then I can get to London in half an hour and I realise others have to add enormous sums for hotel accommodation and/or ludicrous train fares levied by profiteering bastards train companies.

How about this lot:-

Caitlin Moran (whose star is really in the ascendant at the mo), Jeanette Winterson, Liz Jones (for whom I have a morbid fascination - is she for real?), Professor Tanya Byron and many other freelance writers, journalists, social commentators etc.  It looks brilliant and I am sorely tempted.  If any of you lot out there decide to go, it would be great to meet up and put faces to names.

Somehow remembering my sign-in and password, I updated my profile and applied to join their blogging forum.  Once I pressed 'submit' I got a friendly message, thanking me and saying that they would be in touch once they had had a gander at my blog.

Then I realised what my last post said.  

Oh well.  Some you win...