The Bloggers Night In ~ Cotton On Tour 2013

Just over a year ago I became part of a group of reviewers for Izziwizzi Kids and Playfest. Sadly Playfest is no longer with us, but some of the group ended up in an offshoot group of 13, which we called 'Cotton On' for some obscure and lengthy reasons.

Several of us were very new to public blogging, and certainly had no understanding of statistics, analytics and communities we could join, so the more experienced bloggers taught us tons and saved us having to spend 3 days a week on Google or make any major terrible faux pas (I hope). We've all checked Rafflecopters and informed one another when we've misspelt our blog post titles or referred to completely the wrong person.

We've become really close and the group has supported each other through all kinds of disasters and life events. We've helped restore blogs and unlock dashboards, move people to self-hosted and give second opinions on things our kids have said or done. They were the people who were there for me at 2am and 6am when my my partner was seriously ill with Meningitis and I was scared and alone.

We decided we wanted to meet up. We're from all over the UK, so normally it would never happen. We made it happen.

Sadly we couldn't all make it, but 10 of us could...and on Saturday we all descended on Eileen...

Left to right....
Fiona from Mummy's Little Stars
Eileen from ET Speaks From Home
Mary from Over 40 And A Mum To One
Anna from In The Playroom
Pippa from RedRoseMummy
Me!
Zoe from My Mummy's World
Tina from The Soup Dragon Says
Angela from Life Of Spicers
Tami from Mummy Of Two

It was amazing to meet so many people who I've known so well for so long and we had an absolutely fantastic time. We played games and handed out Secret Santa gifts and talked until the small hours. 

No children, but we were still all up by 7.30am Sunday morning ready for a smashing full English breakfast at Frankie and Benny's.

It was the first time I've ever left my lot overnight - the littlest one was born at home so I didn't even go into hospital then - I have to admit it was a real break from being full on Mummy and I really did relax and enjoy myself.

We took the opportunity while we were all there as a group having our party to look at a few new things, so with a lot of hard work and effort - and hardly any of it was me - we had snacks and drinks and entertainment for all, and fantastic goodie bags to take home...

Thank you ladies for travelling all those miles, and thank you Eileen, for letting us all into your immaculate home! And hopefully if we ever do it again - we'll be joined by the 3 who couldn't make it this time - Kel from Writings, Ramblings And Reviews, Laura from Yummy Mummy Flabby Tummy and Anthea from Blue Bear Wood.

Frankie and Benny's kindly gave us a voucher towards the cost of our breakfast