This morning I awoke before the crack of dawn, left a sleeping Mr B cosily snuggled up in bed, and dragged my sorry bottom towards the bathroom to shower. Having craftily managed to avoid the squeaky floorboard DIRECTLY in front of the bathroom door I managed to shower and dress and almost dry my hair before the taxi arrived to whisk me off to the train station without waking the boy. Phew.
It was 5:30am. What was I doing up and about at 5:30am WITHOUT a screaming child attached to my hip I hear you ask. I was heading for THAT LONDON. The incredibly unsociable time being necessitated by the alarming price of a train fare during rush hour.
As it was dark, and cold, I had dressed in navy cords, jumper, Uggs and a Barbour. An outfit I came to regret as soon as I hit the tubes. At Kings Cross, somewhat flushed and frizzy-haired, I found the beautiful Actually Mummy and magnificent Mammasaurus, both more stylishly, and weather-appropriately, attired than me. Though also both nursing teeny-weeny hangovers. I am now gutted I was not on twitter the previous evening where apparently, much wine having been consumed, the latter had hijacked the former’s twitter account without her knowledge. I can only imagine the state of that particular timeline.
Like good little bloggers our merry trio headed off to Google Headquarters for this year’s Blogcamp UK. After a momentary fright that THE WHITTLE, was missing, luckily she was just caught up in traffic and did appear shortly after kick-off, the games began!
Sadly, again needing to avoid rush-hour prices, I was only able to stay for the morning session. Below is a brief rundown of what I did, and didn’t learn:
First Speaker: Ade Oshineye @ade_oshineye
Talked us through a bit about Google Plus and Google Hangouts. I have to be honest I am not that much the wiser, partly through the ever-present first-speaker-curse of mic not always working, but he was a thoroughly nice chap and extremely keen to get feedback so that they can improve things. From what I can gather there is currently no easy solution to the profile/page presence dilemma that many bloggers face. But they will work on it. If we nag them a bit. Keep an eye on The TOTs for this as The Whittle is going to put a wish-list/moan-list together soon and will need input. Send your feedback folks. They genuinely want to improve it.
Best quote: “You guys are probably the geekiest corner of most of the population.”
Neither @Kiddycharts nor me were quite sure how to take this. We decided it was a compliment.
Second Speaker: Stu Heritage @stuheritage
Journalist for the Guardian. Blogs at Luv and Hat. *Whispers* Buff, and pretty *Swoons.*
Stu regaled us with a little lesson in strategies for handling online abusive comments and shared with us some of his own negative feedback. My favourite was from commentator ‘Poo Smegatage’ who went to the trouble of leaving “You’re a d**k” in his comment box. Hilarious guy. Truly. I am a little bit in love with him. But PROMISE not to stalk him on twitter. Too much.
Best quote: “I spent all the profits from my first website in Lakeland. “
Third Speaker: Keris Stainton @keris
Keris hosted a bit of a question and answer session for budding authors. As a successful author, and blogger, this session was short but I imagine very useful to the majority in attendance. She tells it like it is, but in an extremely endearing fashion. I may need to go and buy her books now, even though they are aimed at teens.
Best Quote: “There is no magic answer. You just have to sit down and write it. It blows.”
Other best bits for me? It was a chance to catch up with my darling Yellow Days and to meet Romanium Mum in the flesh who was absolutely blooming in the latter stages of her pregnancy. Also my first meeting with Mummy’s Little Stars who was just awesome and I really hope wins her category in The Mads. Also briefly meeting both Mediocre Mum and RedTedArt who I am a little bit in awe of so got a little shy and didn’t say much.
Was it worth the insanely early start?
Yep.
Well done That Whittle.
You rock.
I’m so jealous, I wish I could have gone. Next time! I’ll be sure to nag at Google then, thanks for that info 🙂
Hopefully may meet you at the next one?
Hello! That was a great summary – wished I’d gone as I live in London but didn’t have the childcare – bummer. Loved this quote – “I spent all the profits from my first website in Lakeland. “
You may have loved the speaker even more #justsaying
Sounds really good and like there s lots packed in. I’m looking forward to the Manchester one now 🙂
I wish I could make Manchester but a bit too far away. You will have a great time 🙂
I guess for he next #Blogcamp some sort of nursery could be sort our?even though I one prefer it withouth LO’s as its like me time.
It was lovely to finally meet you in flesh too!
Oh and thank you for what you said above…I definitely don’t feel like you say though 🙁
Make sure to keep me posted! Will be thinking of you.
*sigh* He was buff wasn’t he?
Twas a great day and lovely to see you (and your super lush chunky cords) again – even if I didn’t realise that Kings cross and St Pancras are indeed not actually the same place!