Virtual reality

'How do you deal with your ex-husband and his girlfriend living in your house?' 

'So I asked my therapist if I could skype her.'

'I found writing a form of therapy during my cancer.'

'I'm faking it till I make it'.

'Dancing with my teenage daughter was beautiful.'

'Vaginal dryness and hot flushes. The menopause is the next big thing.'

'He asked me out for coffee!!!!'

You might hear statements like these bandied about between old friends who've shared a lifetime of experience together. They're not the kind of things you discuss at first pass of meeting someone. So when you do find yourself looking into a stranger's face but discussing deeply personal things, it's odd. Counter-intuitive.

Yet at Cybermummy, that is exactly what you do. Because the people you're talking to might look unfamiliar, but you know their deepest secrets....and they know yours. What's more, you feel as though you know more about them than you do your real life friends.

And then you bump into a face you've only ever seen on a computer screen. Suddenly they become three-dimensional. You can't help but whoop and hug and shout: "Hellooooo!" It's a virtual reality game that suddenly becomes completely real. And there is genuine joy in the experience.

At the end of Cybermummy we were asked to tweet our favourite bit. I couldn't define one single moment. What made the experience special for me wasn't the talks or the goodie bags or the prizes or the speakers. It was simply being given the chance to bring online characters to life. I wonder now, having met those characters whether it'll colour the way I read their words. Like when you read a book and then see the film and then re-read the book. Does the book seem different?

It might. It'll probably be better. But bottomline, they'll still be a must read.

Thanks to all the lovely ladies I met at Cybermummy yesterday and thanks to the organisers for a great day.

Cybermummy for the less well organised

Well tomorrow is the big day. Cybermummy day. Until three days ago, I really haven't thought much about this. The rest of the blogosphere and twitter seems to be going slightly mad about what to wear and how to get there and where to stay and who to talk to. People have found sponsors for the day, are getting sponsored by companies to dress them, have sponsored car shares, hotels paid for, business cards made, parties planned including pre parties tonight. The excitement about it almost leads me to believe that most mummy bloggers don't get out much (well PTA meetings don't count).

On the other hand, I  plan on catching a train into London bright and early tomorrow morning. I'm going to wear flat shoes and a comfy dress. Fashion always losing over comfort in my book. I'll decide on the day which talks I want to listen to. I've arranged to meet three bloggers who I have been dying to meet in person for ages (MTJAM, Iota and Nicola). And there are several others who I hope to get to say hello to. I've also been invited to a party for expat mums (thank you Michelloui The American Resident). And then I'll make my way home.

I am excited about going - mainly because I'll get to meet the aforementioned bloggers and it's a day out in London without children (can't sniff at that). But I do feel as though I am going without a purpose. I'm not there in the capacity of a PR person given I've just sold my PR business. And I'm highly unlikely to become a blogger who actively seeks sponsorship or PR opps or tries to earn a living from it. Getting some more technical knowledge would be good and some writing advice is always welcome.  And the keynote by Sarah Brown is definitely worth going for.

Other than that, I'm agenda free. This makes me worry that I won't get the most out of it. And that I'll come home and wish I'd had a clearer agenda before I got there.

But I think I'm just going to treat it as a day out. Hopefully I'll learn something. Hopefully I'll get to meet some lovely people. Perhaps optimistically I'll be inspired to give my blog a makeover.

I did my Cybermummy meet and greet a while ago - here it is again. If you see me, say hello. You might find me hiding in the chill out room.

Please say hello to me at Cybermummy

On 25 June, I will be attending Cybermummy in London. This is a big fat get together of all the mummy (and daddy) bloggers out there to learn new things and meet each other in the flesh. Last year I couldn't go because it clashed with a weekend of fun with real life girlfriends who I chose to spend time with over those I only know virtually, as I explained in this post.

This year, I'm going to be there. I'd like to say with bells on. But I'll probably just sneak quietly in instead.

And I'm not going there with a PR hat on either. I am there 100% as a blogger. I don't know what to do with this blog. The blogging world seems to be getting bigger and more complicated and requiring so much more effort. You need a blog and a brand and a Facebook page and be all over twitter and work with PRs and take advertising and bling up the way your blog looks.

And I haven't done any of that. I'm on Twitter (for business mainly) and on Facebook to stay in touch with friends. And my blog still sports the same shite blogger background it had when I first started it.

I need to reassess what this blog is about, whether I want it to be more, or whether I'm happy with it exactly as it is. Because if I'm truthful, it's simply a place for me to empty my brain of thoughts, get words out and connect with other like minded people. Nothing fancier than that.

But who knows, maybe I'll come back from Cybermummy all raring to go. And I'll kick the whole thing up a notch!

Or not.

I'm also feeling a bit nervous about going as I've not been massively active in the blogosphere of late, what will possibly moving country and making big life decisions. I join in the odd meme. I haven't vlogged. And even the PR people have stopped asking me to do things for them (which I am actually very pleased about.)  Even though I'm sort of a blogging oldie, I've disappeared from sight and probably aren't known to that many people. And likewise, I've not kept up with all the new bloggers who've come to the fore of late. I wonder how many people I'll  know there full stop.

So if you're going to be there, and you see me, please say hi so that I don't look like Norman No Mates.

Real name: Melissa
Also known as: Home Office Mum
Real job: PR person in the parenting sector (but this will be changing soon)
Posts you might know me for: The one about Vajacials. The one about doing whale impersonations on live radio. The one where I said I didn't like my child (I'm over that now by the way). And I'm also the blogger you may remember as setting sail across the Atlantic.
Twitter: @peekaboocoms (for work) and @melissatalago (for blogging)
Likes: wine and apparently too much food, according to my bathroom scales. Walking. Girly chats. Sailing. Writing
Dislikes: Coriander (also known as the devil's herb). Hangovers.


Picture: This is tricky. I hate pictures of myself. I hate pictures of myself even more when I'm carrying about a stone of weight more than I should. And all the pictures of me seem to have sunglasses on, which doesn't do much to help me be recognisable at Cybermummy. Like this one.

So this is the best (most recent) I've got cropped out of another pic, so a bit hazy and rubbish really.  But hopefully is enough to make me recognisable on the day.

Let me know if you're going to be there and I'll keep an eye out for you.

Girly weekends - why I chose real friends over virtual ones

This weekend, it seems that most mummy bloggers headed off to the Cybermummy conference for the biggest girly weekend ever. From the bazillions of tweets and posts on it so far, it seems to have been a marvellous experience and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't just a little (ok a lot) bit jealous.

But I couldn't go. You see the week before the date for Cybermummy was announced, I'd confirmed a girly weekend with a group of my real life friends. Getting a date that suited all of us rivalled military logistical planning, so once I realised that it was going to clash with Cybermummy I was torn.

Do I go to the biggest blogging event in the UK and meet all the wonderful bloggers I've met online? Or do I go to Lymington for a weekend of drinking cocktails and talking rubbish with my 'real life' or 'offline' friends.

Wearing my PR hat, I should have been at Cybermummy. Wearing my mummy blogger hat, it would have been lovely to put some faces to names at the conference. But wearing my Melissa hat, meeting up with friends who know me in all my different hats won the day.

And it was worth it.

I haven't laughed as much (or drunk as much wine) in years. We talked, we walked along the seafront, we laughed, we shopped, we drank wine, we played poker, we drank cocktails, we laughed some more, we had thoroughly inappropriate conversations, we ate fab food, we giggled like fools, we flirted with waiters, we ate ice creams in the sun, we talked some more, we tried on clothes, we watched tennis, we laughed, we picked out houses we'd buy if we won the lottery, we had hangovers, we recounted stories from the night before that were blurry, we got told we were too old to get into a nightclub (damn their eyes), we laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

It was fantastic. So to the 4 lovely ladies who were with me in Lymington, thank you for an amazing time. To all the lovely ladies I didn't get to meet at Cybermummy, I'm sure you understand that sometimes you need to live it, rather than just write it. But next year, I'll be there with bells on.