Mumsnet Blogfest

“Are you going this year?  I can’t decide”

“Well, yeah, actually I am”

“It was really professional last year and I am not sure I am high brow enough to attend”

“Yeah that worries me too.  And what worries me more is that I am on one of the panels, speaking”

“What?  Shut up”

“No you shut up.  An actual panel with the actual Louise Mensch, Helen Lewis, Jack Munroe and Tania Taturro.  The title is Shaping the debate: how blogging and social media can change our world”

“Shit, really?  Wow”

And so there you have it.   Me.  Me who had to be persuaded to start blogging just two years ago is not only attending BlogFest organised by the formidable Mumsnet but am being invited to speak.   I am even on the line up spooning up  against  Richard Bacon:

Mumsnet line up of speakers

Never in my wildest dreams when I started this blog with 600 followers on Twitter and no readership outside of my family did I envisage speaking at conferences.  First of all Britmums, then BlogOnMosi and now Mumsnet.

That I would win awards.  I have never won an award in my life and in the space of twenty minutes I won two.   That out of 6000 blogs who are members of  Tots I would be in the twenties.

That it would be possible to round people up into a team and raise £10,000 in three months for Comic Relief.

And have the opportunities come across my path that have blown me away and made my family smile.   From days out, evening events, 48 hours in Ghana.  My whole family, not just me or Mr B and the teens, but my parents, my uncle, my cousin, my daughter’s boyfriend.    We all have had some fun thanks to this blog and the contacts we have made.

The products that I have been asked to review have been, on the most part, superb too and would never have arrived without this blog.

All because it seems the brands and PR companies value my opinion, they want to know what I think or they want you guys to know about it.    And I have worked hard to build on those relationships with brands, PR companies and SEOs (yes contrary to popular opinion I don’t hate SEO companies).

That you all keep coming back to read this little part of the world wide web makes me smile.  None of the above would be possible without a readership.   None of it.

And that all makes me very proud

And scares the pants off me.

Because I now have to speak like I know what I am doing and I don’t have a clue really, I have blagged it up until now with jokes about gin and cake and the odd rant about Google and how I will pay attention to them when they pay their taxes.  But as somebody once said “this shit just got real”.

Will you all come along and be a friendly face in the crowd please?  And offer me chocolate and Pimms when I collapse with relief at the end?

You can get tickets here:  Mumsnet Blogfest on EventBrite