Brilliance in Blogging

This week saw another trip up to London!

For someone who doesn’t get out much and feels a bit like a country bumpkin in the Big Smoke, I have been there three times so far for My Make Do and Mend Year.

Thanks to all the lovely people who voted, My Make Do and Mend Year made it through to the final 6 in the Commentary category of the BritMums Brilliance in Blogging Awards.

BritMums Live is an annual two day event providing seminars and information on all things Blogging, and the chance to meet fellow bloggers, and maybe have a teeny tiny drink or two. This year, the keynote speakers were Kirstie Allsopp and Katie Piper, as well as many of the movers and shakers from the blogging world.

I didn’t get a ticket when they first came out as I had to work on the Saturday, but then I found out that I had made it to the finals, AND that there was a Literary Agents Dragon Den to pitch your book idea, and I really wanted to go, just for the Friday, but by that point, I couldn’t get a ticket. Pants.

I decided that I really should go the Awards Ceremony though, which was one of those things that seemed quite sensible in my head at the time, but in reality meant I left home at 2pm, and got back at midnight, to be actually there for about 2.5hrs. Hmmmm.
On the bright side I did get to meet up with the lovely Becksie from A Year Without Supermarkets, and meet a couple of other very friendly bloggers (Glosswatch and Thirty Mummy) and , and quaff a glass of free champers…
AND someone stopped me the street walking from the tube to ask me where I got my dress from. I had to check that she meant me, and then very proudly announced….”The Charity Shop!” I think she was less chuffed than I was with that answer 🙂

I have to confess to feeling a little like a fish out of water. I am not really at all very active in any of the Mummy blogging forums, and I only knew 2 or 3 other people who were there. I have no idea where I would find the time or energy to devote to yet more social media, and I think hubby would divorce me if I did. Hats off to those who do find the time and make the effort, and I did feel a little like I might be missing out on opportunities to promote the blog and the Make Do and Mend message. But there are only so many hours in the day.

I didn’t win.
But I wasn’t really expecting to-it was gobsmacking enough just to have a nomination, and then to make it through to the last 6, so thankyou so much if you voted.
Team Honk were the very deserving winners in the Commentary category-a team of 3 bloggers who went out to Ghana for Comic Relief, to report back on the Good Work that donations have achieved over the last 25 years, and along the way, raised £10,000!

Team Honk

But one part of the evening left me feeling very emotional, and really made me think. Something I am well aware I am probably doing a little too much of at the moment, but bear with me.
The first award of the evening was for the Fresh Voice category. As the name implies it is for new blogs, less than 18 months old, and it was won by Benjamin Brooks-Dutton for his blog Life as a Widower.
His wife was killed in a freak accident last November, leaving him and his two year old son, alone. The tagline for the blog is “A young widowed father opening up about living with loss”.
His blog is a very deserving winner, but I couldn’t help thinking that the very last place in the world he probably wanted to be at that moment was on a podium, being congratulated and awarded for his blog. His blog about he and his son are having to cope without the most important person in their lives.
Most of us who blog want our blogs to be sucessful, and to be winning awards, and I am sure there are thousands of bloggers who would have been over-joyed to get that award.
But I am guessing, not him.
I am sure he would do anything, absolutely anything, to have his wife, his son’s mummy, back again, and not to be blogging about the incredibly painful journey that they are now on together, and not to be standing there being given a standing ovation by a roomful of “mummy bloggers”

I came home, and I held my husband just that little bit closer, and I hugged my kids just that little bit longer the next morning.

Yes, it would be wonderful to win awards, and have a hugely successful blog, and somehow make a go of this whole blogging thing.
But do you know what? I’m more than happy with what I’ve got.

You can check out all the other Brilliance in Blogging winners here, and thankyou again if you took the time to vote for me and my little blog 🙂