I sat down to start catching up on the mountain of blog work that awaits me now that I’m back from my trip to London for the MADs and realised maybe I ought to write something about my trip to the UK!

You can read about my thoughts on going before I actually left for the UK here in this post which was just an excuse to be silly. Meanwhile, here’s what did happen at the MAD Blog Awards 2016 it went something like this:

• Dropped kids at school in Malta (if you’re new to my blog, I don’t mean I went to Malta to drop my kids off at school, I mean I live there) and gave them wet sloppy goodbye kisses
• Usual delayed Ryanair flight which is one of the privileges you pay for when you book with them…I always look forward to that bit…TOTAL fun (especially the bit where people nevertheless stand for forty minutes plus in the queue at the gate despite the fact that the plane hasn’t even reached the airport yet never mind be in a position for them to board it or the fact that they’ve got allocated seats which nobody is going to take away from them whether they stand or sit)
• Crazy turbulent flight in which I hung on to the iPad for dear life and got some blogging done, which was a minor miracle considering the guy next to me just would Not. Stop. Talking. (it’s my fault, I’ve got to stop smiling at strangers and frankly I do it so much I might get my British passport taken away from me  *sarcasm*
• Arrival in London and a total oh-ma-Gawd-this-is-as-hot-as-Malta-I-LOVE-it moment as I realised I could leave my jeans in my case and just keep my thin  dress on.  Yes, I was wearing white cotton in London, in September! Oh the giddy excitement; I almost did a jig on the tarmac.
• Inevitable fight with the e-passport machine inserting, reinserting and generally d*cking about with my new passport, being viewed like a total moron by the assistants (although to be fair, by now, even I don’t blame them) who are clearly wondering how someone who managed to dress themselves and get on an aeroplane can then find it so hard to put their damned passport in the right way without setting off the ruddy alarm. (I didn’t dare point out I somehow manage to raise three kids.)  Having said that, the machine probably rejects my passport each time because it doesn’t like the photo of me looking about 300 years old and like a total reprobate who sells dodgy substances to minors…should have photoshopped the fricking photo before applying for the passport.
• Further inevitable problems buying a Thameslink ticket to get me from Luton to my friends’ place because everything in the UK has gone so cash-averse that everything has to be done by card. What on earth one is supposed to do when one’s chip/back strip is knackered rendering machines unable to read the card properly, I just don’t know.  The look the assistant gave me when I explained I had to – shock horror – use dare I say it cash, I mean actual paper money. I’m surprised she didn’t call a guard to escort me out of the building.
• Thankfully, after the trauma of the train journey from Luton when I came in June, a smooth trouble-free connection (well let’s forget about the ridiculous business of trying to find a lift that worked to get me to the right platform) and train journey. I almost fist-pumped the air when I noticed I had the carriage to myself…before remembering that when I lived in London I would never have sat in a carriage by myself.  Because crime.
• Much photographing of cotton dress and bare legs due to one’s glee over the warm temperature, as well as comfortable train compartment conditions, for one’s instagram account (followed by realisation that one doesn’t have UK mobile account and cannot use 3G to upload)
• Much sending of inane excited messages to one’s friends to say one was on the way.
• Bit of an obstacle topping up my Oyster card because – you know it – the machine wouldn’t accept cash, followed by a breather over coffee and a croissant outside the station, having a bit of a London moment watching the world go by before making the final part of my journey.
• Getting to my friends’ road and totally forgetting their street number, loitering outside several houses peering above bushes and looking into people’s windows trying to work out which was the correct house before finally plumping for one with devil maycare abandon and just knocking on the door, then retreating to the safe distance of the pavement in case I had the wrong house (I even hid my case around the hedge in case I had the wrong house and needed to do a runner). The look on my friend’s face when she answered the door was priceless. #TrueStory

Anyway, I had a lovely evening with my friends, had a not so lovely night’s sleep due to noisy neighbours (I thought I was back in Malta at one point) and the foolish alcohol consumption of the evening and woke up the next day with a heavy head. Yes. On the day of the MAD blog awards. I also woke up to a dramatic temperature drop in which we’d gone from Indian summer to Autumn, just like that, in typical British weather style..

As mentioned in my previous MADs post, the one and only Talya was coming to the MADs to give me company

(such a sweet gesture as that was totally her idea) and after a close call where I almost caught the wrong train, met up with her as planned at Harvey Nichols so that we could pretend we are posh ladies who lunch (I don’t think the waiting staff quite bought that one however after our inept attempts to get a bloggers’ selfie).  Inevitably, being bloggers, the conversation of course turned to blogging and I’m indebted to Talya for helping me out with a few issues I’ve been unclear on. I can’t deny, being women, there was also talk of makeup (don’t judge me) and yes I did go in search of a Bobbi Brown counter downstairs in an effort to find that magic wand thing that’s supposed to make under eye circles/bags invisible (if you look at this post’s featured image you’ll see I don’t just a wand, I need the fairy godmother that usually comes with one) what …only to discover Harvey Nicks don’t stock it. So a mad dash to Harrods was required (where three failed shades later I gave up) and then on we went to the awards venue.

But you know it wasn’t quite that simple don’t you? You know we had a mini drama trying to book an Uber cab right? You can feel it in your bones that we then considered a black cab only to realise Friday traffic would make it pointless, don’t you? You don’t need to be told that 1) Talya started getting off the train at South Ken while 2) I stood near the doors, insisting we needed to stay put and connect two stops later, only for 3) people to huff and puff as I was apparently blocking the doors (have you seen the size of me? I wasn’t blocking the doors for flip’s sake and my home towners so need to chill out) and then 4) I basically got carried off the train in spite of myself along with the sheer volume of passengers trying to disembark (yep I’ve lived in the Med for way too long if I’ve forgotten this happens) while 5) Talya looked totally bemused at the sight of me hugging my enormous handbag looking baffled and 6) I realised she was right about the stop, culminating in 7) us laughing at he realisation that when in each other’s company, we are in fact Patsy and Eddy. We then couldn’t agree who’s who, both of us refusing to be Eddy (sorry Jennifer) and finally decided we’re both Patsy. #TrueStory Meanwhile you’re sitting here in disbelief that people in their 40’s (not Talya, me) actually still behave like this.  And given that NONE of this is made up and is as I say totally true – and I’ve actually missed bits out – I’m so with you on that.

We made it to the Royal Garden Hotel and I snuck off to get changed super speedy in the bathroom.  

Then it was time for the long wait for hair and makeup (what…you thought I’d skip the chance to have my first makeover since my wedding?) in which there was time to talk to various lovelies like the wonderfully bubbly Laura of Milton Keynes Kids, oh so supportive Josie of The Whimsical Adventures of a Not So Supermum, the ever friendly Claire of Tin Box Traveller, my blog crush Polly of Right Royal Mother and the über stylish Anna of Zeit My Geist and Fran of Whinge Whinge Wine to name not even a handful.  I can’t write this post without mentioning my Punjabi blogging twin Harps of Baby Brain Memoirs (she likes to refer to me as her older sister, I tend to prefer twin as it just makes me feel less like her aunt) whom I was so excited to finally meet and who WON BEST PRESCHOOL BLOG. Darned proud of her.

To round up and summarise the main bits of my MADs evening:

• I was stone cold sober the whole night barely touching a drop, partly due to starting the day feeling rough and ending it feeling nervous! To be honest though, I don’t think people would have enjoyed the sight of me stumbling about in heels and legless (oxymoron).
• Talya and I managed to have a total Patsy and Eddie Patsy moment and both video Harps accepting her award instead of tag teaming whereby one of us photographed, one of us videoed and hilarious words were exchanged afterwards (she calls me her blog wife, I think she’s my actual wife now and am making her sign a contract promising to stay in my life forever)
• I didn’t stay to party after the awards as I panicked about travelling back alone (you’d never think I used to be a Londoner).
• I didn’t win but on the bright side, the very person I predicted to pick up the award Storm in a Tit Cup did indeed do just that. Obviously, I’d have absolutely loved to have ‘done the double’ as the hilarious Lucy of This Mum’s Life calls it. Winning two writer awards in the same year would have been phenomenal on so many levels but was probably a bit of a greedy aspiration, (although I did nearly die each time someone pointed out how lucky our table was as we had so many winners and I just knew the lucky streak couldn’t continue by the time it got to my category!)

Finally, after declaring on social media and here on the blog, that I would not have another wardrobe disaster

after the infamous does-my-middle-aged-bum-look-illegal-in-these-white-jeans episode at the BiBs awards in June, what did I do? Yep, I forgot to pack appropriate undergarments (I’m Victorian and we say that) for the dress I was wearing and for the gazillionth time in my life, I ended up showing my bra to everyone.  I also spent the entire evening sucking my stomach in and showing people this as my party trick. #mortified

So dear reader, given that it would have been difficult to approach the stage doing a side shuffle to conceal aforementioned bra oversight, and nigh on impossible to keep my stomach in without giving myself back ache, it’s a good job I didn’t win really.

Ah, there it is…