The BritMums Xmas meet-up at the IWM

Walking up to the Imperial War Museum probably isn’t going to put you in a festive mood.

Britmums-Xmas-14Don’t get me wrong. It’s an amazing building with an interesting past. Construction finished in 1814 and for 115 years it was the home of the Bethlehem Hospital. The museum took over in 1935.

While the 19th-century architecture – the dome! the columns! the symmetry! – might put you in the mood for a Dickens novel, roasted chestnuts and a big Victorian hoopskirt (or, is that just me?) – the 15-inch naval guns standing outside the entrance certainly don’t scream Christmas cheer. They’re more about the normal please-don’t-shoot-me type of screaming.

But, despite the pair of enormous guns pointed in my general direction, I was filled with festive feelings as I sauntered up to the museum – with Pumpkin in her bear suit and strapped to me in her baby bear carrier.

Britmums-Xmas-15

Me and my little bear cub

You see, we were on our way to the BritMums Xmas meet-up, which was taking place at the IWM.

I’m not going to go into too much detail about the museum itself because we plan to go back soon for have a proper look around. But it re-opened in July after a £40 million transformation and if my brief wander through the ground level is anything to go by, it will definitely be a good day out – if not massively depressing. Because, you know, war.

Britmums-Xmas-18

I love it when museums have planes dangling from their ceilings.

The BritMums event was being held in the cinema at the back of the museum. It was a lovely big room with lots of space for Pumpkin to crawl around – and there were two other little ones there too (from Pigeon Pair& Me and Mummy is a Gadget Geek), meaning she had new victims friends to harass play with.

I was really remiss in my photo taking and I really wish I’d managed to get a picture of the big huge ENORMOUSLY MASSIVE mountain of cookies that was provided. There was also a lovely selection of hot drinks, which would have been wonderful on such a dreary day – but I had a crawling baby to chase around and I’m bad enough about spilling things when I’m sitting still.

At least I did remember to get a photo of the books for the book swap.

Britmums-Xmas-16

I brought the one wrapped in brown paper with red, white and green string.

To be honest, much of the meet-up was a bit of blur for me. I met several very nice bloggers, we chatted, ate cookies and I chased the baby some more. Unfortunately, I should have had my phone out to make notes of blogs to look up and Twitter handles to follow when I got home – because I could only remember a couple after we left.

Still, I had a good time. Since it was my first BritMums meet-up, I must say that I felt a little overwhelmed. There were so many well established bloggers. My little months-old blog felt even littler than normal. Plus, everyone seemed to know each other already – probably from other events and BritMums Live – and I’m not very good at mingling.

It was a good learning experience though:

  • I must get business cards.
  • I need to become more confident when talking about my blog – no more “it’s just a blog about bringing up the baby”. Geez! I’ve grown a child inside me and am now raising her and writing about it. That’s not just any old thing.
  • I should try to improve my real-life networking skills. Mingling, remembering names and faces, that sort of thing .
  • My phone is a great tool for making notes and taking pictures. I should use it for both more often in these situations.

At the end of the meet-up, we were invited to collect a book from the swap table. I let Pumpkin choose and she selected the one wrapped in a picture of Prince Harry – although I’ve started calling him her future Uncle Harry. 🙂

Britmums-Xmas-17

He’s too old for you darling, but he has an adorable nephew…

Then it was time to head home. On the way out, I stopped to consider the view from behind the guns – and decided I wouldn’t really want to live in those flats across the street.

Britmums-Xmas-19

Imagine sitting down to a cup of coffee in the mornings and looking out the window to see these babies pointed at you!

We made our way back to the train station and I grabbed a sandwich and banana to share with Pumpkin on our way home. Even though she was exhausted, she stayed awake for most of the journey and was very pleased with herself, sitting in her own seat.

Britmums-Xmas-20

“Just call me Paddington”

 


Super Busy Mum

Emotional instability causes disturbance in the life of those burdened by it, their guardians and the viagra online overnight group. Along these lines, safety measures ought to http://secretworldchronicle.com/2019/09/ 20mg tadalafil sale be greased up. If you have already tried too many therapies for curing ED and side levitra for women by side PAH. Other causes of impotency include substance abuse such as over consumption of alcohol which suppresses the production of the male hormone testosterone and smoking which affects blood circulation to the man’s reproductive system reaping low buy tadalafil canada flow of blood into the organ for increasing its strength.


Thanks for stopping by!

(You can also find me on Facebook, Twitter and Bloglovin.)

6 Comments on "The BritMums Xmas meet-up at the IWM"

  1. It sounds like you had a great time, I love her little bear outfit – very cute.
    Lucy Blossom recently posted…Lucy’s Lovelies 7 – Perfect PaintingMy Profile

  2. I wish I could have gone to this but sadly was working. I think smaller events are probably easier to get to grips with when you’re new to them – I haven’t been to Brit Mums Live but would imagine the size of it would be rather daunting. Love the ‘Paddington’ outfit by the way! #MMWBH
    Christine recently posted…Beauty and the beast panto review, Oxford PlayhouseMy Profile

    • I agree! BritMums Live sounds great but very overwhelming for those who have never been! Thanks for the compliment on her bear outfit. I hope she lets me dress her like this until she’s at least 16. 🙂

  3. I stand by what I said – I think your blog name is a fab visual pun.

    What I particularly like about the IWM is that it used to be Bedlam. I’m not sure it was ‘the’ Bedlam (the hospital moved around a bit), but certainly one of them.
    Mama Herself recently posted…Winkworth Arboretum, SurreyMy Profile

    • Aw, thank you very much!

      I agree that the Bethlehem Hospital/Bedlam link is particularly intriguing. I began to write about it in this post, but decided I was going too offtrack and took the paragraph out. From what I read when researching that, the Bedlam name came from the hospital’s particularly grim years, which occured when it was located on the site of the current Liverpool Street Station.

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published.


*


CommentLuv badge

Plugin Support By Next Post