#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.

Clink! Clink! Loving this pic from yesterday's #britmumsxmasdo pic.twitter.com/QnZHK42PAO
— BritMums (@BritMums) November 26, 2013

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