Join the @BritMums Carnival!

Follow your dreams

On 12th February the BritMums Blog Carnival is coming over to my place! Every two weeks a different parent blogger "hosts" the carnival. Bloggers submit posts from the past month. I thought I'd do a loose theme of canals, boats and water, and/or following dreams, because that's what my blog is about. But if you don't have anything that fits that then send whatever you like. (But you do have a dream to follow don't you...?) :-)

All the rules are here The BritMums Carnival.

Please send me,
1) Your name
2) The name of your blog
3) The url of your chosen post

Before Sunday 10th February. Contact Peggy.

Thank you! 

Peggy
xx

It's me! Live! On BritMums Live!

Just a short note to let you know I'm excited to be guest posting on the BritMums Live blog today! Pop over to read about BritMums Live, what it is and why I'm going.

CyberMummy 2011

The Brewery, EC1

Last Saturday I got up at Stupidly Early O’Clock, caught a train to London, battled against tube line closures and only just made it on time to a swishy EC1 conference venue. A very dapper feller in a top hat ushered me towards the entrance and my name badge with blog name was waiting for me at reception. When I arrived in the main conference space I was overwhelmed by a huge room of circular tables and a subtly lit stage with large boards displaying sponsors’ logos: This was big. There were over 400 delegates (and I estimated that only about four of them were men).
The number of UK mummy blogs has increased to around 2,500 in the last two years and the parent bloggers social network Brit Mums has a rapidly growing membership. The lead speaker was Sarah Brown, mum, campaigner, writer (and wife of the former prime minister), and the choice of seminars to attend throughout the day was mind boggling.

An array of big name brands dispensed free goodie bags within a market place of stalls at ‘CyberMummy Central’ and the spontaneous comments and thoughts of the social networking twitter-bugs were displayed on an ever rolling Twitter wall. In the Recharge Room you could get your hair or make up done, and enjoy a massage.

The conference opened with Lord Richard Allan, Facebook’s director of policy for the EU. I attended workshops on Marketing Your Blog, Working With Brands and Making Money, Blogging Essentials (Stats, SEO, RSS feeds, design) and Blog-Life Balance (time management). I scribbled furiously in a notebook (supplied free in one of the goody bags) and absorbed a phenomenal amount of information. I was inspired by Erica Douglas’s seminar and really enjoyed chatting to Antonia Chitty about the exciting new direction that I’m taking my life into.

I’m doing Erica and Antonia’s Become a Mumpreneur course at the moment and I’m loving it. It’s delivered in bite size chunks to my email inbox in a way that allows me to progress at my own pace without feeling overwhelmed. I already have sixteen ideas on how to create multiple income streams which will allow me to work flexibly from home, and I've only been on the course for a month. Erica now earns a full time income in part time hours whilst also studying full time. Antonia Chitty is a researcher, journalist, mumpreneur, and author and is full of amazing ideas to help me to create my own business as a freelance writer and much more.

I was initially worried that the event was going to be full of career driven super-mums who are way more confident than me. However, everyone I met agreed that although it felt a little odd to approach a complete stranger with “Hi I’m (Blogger) from  (My Mummy Blog) we were all in the same boat and it was actually quite exciting to meet bloggers in real life that I previously only ‘knew’ on line. I also found that even the most influential, charismatic, high profile bloggers were people, just like me, and not intimidating at all!

The day was rounded off by crowd sourced keynote speakers reading inspiring posts from their blogs. We were in tears at a mothers tale of childhood cancer, and then in fits of laughter at the witty words of others.

At the after party (sponsored by Three) I got tipsy quickly, ate crisps, mingled and left the building at the end of it all completely exhausted and laden with bags and bags of free give-away goodies.

The next day The Sunday Independent (26/06/11) reported,
“Forget Mumsnet... A new breed of “cybermums” is using the internet as an office, PR agency and campaign HQ to launch businesses and charities from their front room.”

Some bloggers were sponsored by brands to attend Cybermummy, but I bought my own ticket as a treat to myself. For the experience, the amount that I learned, the lovely people that I met and the bubble of inspiration and motivation that I floated home on, it was worth every penny.

CyberMummy 2011 Meet and Greet

Cyber-what? It's a conference for British Mummy Bloggers on 25th June. The venue is about ten minutes walk from our winter mooring and probably even closer to my childminders place, but by then it will be summer time and we will have cruised off into the sunset and will be lost on the Grand Union Canal in Hertfordshire somewhere. I'm really looking forward to meeting some of the other bloggers I've met in cyberspace, going to writing workshops and also learning cool things like how to make money from blogging, get more blog readers and my personal favourite "Effectively use social networking (without it taking over your life)".
Carly at Mummys Shoes is hosting a 'meet and greet' on her blog so that some of us can get to know each other before the big day. So, introducing...



Name: Peggy

Blog: The Real Life of a Narrowboat Wife

Height: 5ft 2 (Can fit under most canal bridges without ducking.)

Hair: Long ish, straight ish, dark, dark brown.

Eyes: Dark brown and mysterious, good for intently gazing, and fortune telling ;-)

Likes: Rioja, Camembert, writing, blogging, narrowboating, travelling, woods and trees, the sea, the moon and the stars, India, candlelight, The Doctor, and my two tiny boat girls.

Dislikes: War, famine, disease, gongoozlers*, and the really annoying American bloke on the Muzzy advert, “Kids are open to languages...” aaargh.

*I don't really dislike gongoozlers they just make me feel self-conscious, especially when I am doing a lock. (A gongoozler is a person who enjoys watching boats and the such-like on the canals.)

Blogging Carnival

Today I am in a blogging carnival! Every two weeks a different British mummy blogger “hosts” the carnival. Bloggers submit posts from the past month. It introduces you to new blogs.

The carnival on 1st February is hosted by Maggy at The Good Life Blog. I love her header picture because it looks like a tree-misted waterways scene. Some carnivals have themes and this one is themed on the question ‘what’s good in your life?’ It’s come at a perfect time for me, to take a break from blogging about anti-depressants and bereavement and focus on the good things in life (my girls, The Doctor, sunny narrowboat cruises, a job I enjoy, amazing friends, writing, etc etc...). So head on over to read cheerful things about the good things in life!