Monday 25 November 2013

#BritMumsXmasDo - nothing like getting into the festive spirit! Thanks Morrisons


Got the train to the event with Aaron, and we arrived 20 minutes early!  Rather than leave again and go to Starbucks, we hovered near the lifts (on the right floor IN the venue) for the longest time, and once shown through to the coffee lounge we stayed there so long it took us ages to notice that the room had emptied and everyone had filtered through to the event conference room.   We entered a packed out room, after having been early #doh.  I had great company whilst waiting by the lifts with Rachel, Lou and Hannah. Of course, with the many hints about Starbucks, we of course briefly discussed their non-payment (or is it minimal rather than NON) of corporation tax.

It was great to hear all of the Xmas cooking tips from the Morrisons' Chef.  I videoed a good amount of it till Aaron started shouting "Mummy" at the top of his voice, and the video got aborted :-( I don't currently have enough space on the laptop to upload the video (despite deleting loads).  I did get a chance to carry on videoing though, as one of the Morrisons PR ladies spent AGES drawing with Aaron for which I was really grateful... I did not know what was holding his attention so much until I later found the paper and saw how STUNNING the drawings were - wish I had nabbed the paper to take home for posterity actually.


On arrival in the room, Aaron went and grazed on a little bit of pretty much everything.  I couldn't relax though, as he was taking a bite and putting things back, so I had to run behind him and rectify the little disasters he was leaving in his wake.  I actually did a tour of the room to video it all to show those who could not make it - I was in the middle of this when Mari tried to say hello to me - sorry Mari would love to have given you a cuddle.

I was very grateful when Lou sat down with Aaron and I and played the Shopping List game (which I'd brought with) and the Giant Road Jigsaw for which I had even brought cars.  Lou even made one of the configurations ON the box which I had thus far failed to do (wish I took a photo of it actually). She was so good at things like that, I got her to build the plane in Aaron's Xmas Cracker and called her a "boffin" for the rest of the event - sorry Lou!  We got so cosy in that end of the room, when Anya saw it she thought it was a creche ;-)

A little crowd gathered, including the stunning Zaz from Mama and More, whose blog I have read for years despite never having met till yesterday.  I got THE most wonderful cuddle from Gourmet Mum who even gave me a high five for what I said at Mumsnet Blogfest.  A group of us in our creche corner got so deep into a POSITIVE discussion about Feminism (see it CAN be done!) that I didn't eat my sandwiches.  Stupid stupid me! Only I could go to a food event and leave hungry.  Also, I didn't "work the room" so didn't discover the wine! Me = Irish, I should have sourced the alcohol at ten paces.  But, alas, there were no clink clinks nor air kisses from me!  In fact, I left the event thinking "all that was missing was alcohol" but then I saw this post from Ruth and this tweet (below) and realised how wrong I was - poor me I did not get to taste all the wines from the Morrisons wine cellar.




It'll teach me though, because guess what happened to my drama llama boy.  When I discovered that you could take the food that was left on the tables, he took that opportunity when I was filling a bag with authorised booty to sneak out of the conference room, go to the loos alone, and catch his toe in a fire door.  That meant waiting in reception for 2.5 hours for the husband to collect us by car, and then a trip to A&E to get it x-rayed, so despite the event finishing before 13:30, I got home at about 20:30.  This also led to a discovery that the husband was off yesterday.  I hadn't even thought to check.  Because we were allowed to bring kids I did not even ask if he was off.  Had I asked (he does shift work so I didn't think anything of him being home when we left) I could have gone to the event myself and schmoozed by little arse off and drunk much wine.  Would have loved to have been tipsy in the middle of the afternoon on a week day!  I have only known about this event for over a month (or something like that) so the lack of planning was 100% my fault.  Learned my lesson the hard way though didn't I.

Actually while I write this, there is a Morrisons' advert on ITV and it just said the chocolate chip pannetone is only £2.  I ate it at the event AND took one home and it is truly superb.  I have added a link there so you can see it!



I stole one of these before I left :-) and ate all of the nuts on top on the way to the hospital!





Thank you Morrisons and thank you +BritMums for a much needed Xmas Affair.  It has certainly got me in the festive mood.  Now I want to put my tree up. God knows when I will get chance though.

If I have left anyone out, please do tell me in the comments.

Liska xxx



Add your post to the linky if you also went to the event

11 comments:

  1. Wow, this really DOES look beautiful - I'm kicking myself for turning up so late, and missing out on seeing all this beautiful stuff (still got to taste most of it, though!). Sorry to have missed you.

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    1. Come back again, I have added the text to go with the photos now :-) xx

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  2. oh no hope his toe is ok. gutted to have missed the event but i was too ill. loved your photos it looked all so christmasy!x

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    1. It was the most Xmassy thing I have EVER seen AK. Would have LOVED to have seen you :-( GET WELL SOON HONEY Xxxxx

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  3. Am so sorry to see that about Aaron. Is he OK? Didn't he do something like that last year?
    Lovely to see you (albeit too briefly) yest. Fab post X

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    1. Thanks honey. Because of having one eye on him, I did not eat more than 1/2 a sandwich (although had some salmon and some sweet stuff) never got to the cheese :-( and the wine totally escaped me (lucky for Morrisons as I would have drunk THE LOT). Thanks for saying fab post. Now I am trying to remember what he's done before....? Only thing I can think of is him having a meltdown at the #GoogleMums event which is why I was incredibly brave to take him to this. Like I say in the post, Daddy WAS off so if I had communicated better I could have had a right jolly old time. I am so glad I brought a huge bag of toys as there would have most certainly been a meltdown otherwise, and one was in its early stages when I got the toys out. A very funny thing happened this morning which I MUST include in #SaidItSaturday. He saw a photo via twitter over my shoulder and said "I did not like that lady" when I said "why?" he said "because she has big obos" (that's what he calls boobs). I said "is only Mummy allowed to have big obos?" to which he laughed his head off as he found it hilarious but did not deny it. Whenever I get inside his head without him having to explain, he always finds it INCREDIBLY funny :-) xx

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  4. Glad Aaron's toe is ok, and I loved spending time in the 'creche corner', The Xmas cake looks delish, I didn't get one of the Gingerbread men in my bag, which is the perfect excuse for going shopping for Christmas bits. Lovely pics :)

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    1. Hey honey I hope you did get £10 worth of vouchers though?!?!?! xxx

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  5. Oh no - poor Aaron!! I hope he's not feeling too poorly today after his accident and trip to A&E. I was not working the room yesterday at all either - spent a lot of it either taking photos of sitting in the corner - was not feeling 'me' yesterday at all - despite my best efforts!

    I love your pics - especially the ones of Aaron being the little inquisitive boy that he so clearly is - having met him a few times now - he must love these things! Shame though you couldn't have had some mummy on your own time with dad off work!!

    I procured half a cake with the fruit and nuts - seems I should have taken a whole cake though having heard what people did take home!! xx

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    1. Just did a comment below that was MEANT to be in reply to yours Michelle xx Anyone reading this go to HER blog = Purple Pumpkin Blog as her snaps of the event are spectacular! xx

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  6. Oh none of mine were complete. I should take a photo. I have 3 halves of pannetones, a half of the rudolph bread. The fruit cake you describe was probably 40% of one (but yummy nonetheless). Got quite a few leftovers. Supplemented the goodie bag nicely xxx

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