I was intrigued when I saw CyberMummy – the conference for Mummy Bloggers – becoming a popular topic on twitter and longed to buy a ticket, but whilst we were scrimping and saving to launch our business it felt like a luxury that I simply couldn’t justify. Then I found Powder Room Graffiti – a new Women’s online community that I’ve actually really enjoyed reading – and entered their competition to go to CyberMummy, never thinking that I’d win. But I did! I won! For that, I’ll forever be grateful to Di and the Powder Room Graffiti team because I had such an amazing amazing time.

The conference was on Saturday and my followers on twitter will have seen my updates as I documented the day. I arrived full of trepidation, with real shaky nervousness and a big shiny face (cheers London for the humidity) going on although I needn’t have worried – I walked through the door to be greeted by the beaming grins of two of my favourite people Amy and Kat and THEN I managed to accost the lovely Rachael for a hug in the queue to get my pass. It was already starting off in a promising fashion when I turned around to see my massive naked boob in the gallery on the wall

which pretty much set the tone for the rest of the day!

Between attempting to take photographs, scoring a mountain of free swag, attempting to listen to the speeches,

actively stealing beautiful bonnie babies like this one (the gorgeous SOA, belonging to Jax:

and trying to catch up with bloggy friends I started to feel quite overwhelmed and so I skipped the pre-lunch session in order to eat a little earlier which turned out to be a genius moment. I had been following the CyberMummy hashtag on twitter on my laptop whilst eating when I noticed this tweet from Kodak:

so I got up, pottered over and said to one of the lassies at the stand, “I’ve to say SHARE to you. What’s that all about?” and she replied, “You’ve just won a camera.” I kind of remember everything going a wee bit wild around me, Amanda figuring out what had happened and also saying ‘share’ to win a camera and then us being filmed. Of course, I was so excited and worked up that I forgot what I was supposed to say, swore and KODAK UPLOADED THE VIDEO. I’m sorry for saying the F word in public, Mum.

The afternoon was a thankfully more sedate affair where I attended a session on working with brands – a subject which I will blog about at length later this week – and then the CrowdSourced Keynote. I have to admit that I was feeling quite bitter that the post I’d nominated wasn’t selected but that passed as soon as I listened to the beautiful prose of these superstrong women discussing a range of topics from Sandy’s post about her much-loved Dad which left us all in tears to Kelly’s post about finding herself, Modern Dilemma’s post about her Mum’s horrific experience of losing five babies before giving birth to her to Jen’s horrendous near-death experience and plenty more. I felt transplanted back to 5th year English class where my poor long-suffering teacher would sigh at my alleged promise whilst returning another mediocre essay. I can and must do better, these wonderful women have inspired me.

I left that night with a swag bag so large I nearly toppled over in Clapham (I thoughtfully took an extra Asda bag and an extra conference bag for my pregnant-and-very-poorly sister), with a head full of memories, advice and information and a plethora of new friends. I can’t WAIT for CyberMummy 2011.

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