I have only one complaint about the Tesco Mum of the Year event at The Savoy on Sunday: there should have been more tissues.
I started off well: I got all giggly catching up with blogging friends. I was thrilled beyond measure to be sitting with Lifetime Achievement winner Pam Clarke, and I *may* have done my best impression of a screaming teenager when I almost walked into Ronan Keating on the stairway. By the time I got to my table and realised I was sitting next to Kevin from Grimsby, within touching distance of Bryan McFadden and in the same room as singers from every group I adored in my twenties, to be honest I was acting like a spoilt child at Christmas.
But, once the presentation started, I sort of lost it. When a room is filled with the sniffs and sobs of people of all ages, men and women, unable to hold their composure hearing stories of searing grief, of child loss, of struggle and hardship, it’s kind of hard to stay cool.
There are days when I genuinely believe I have a hard life: when I am juggling children and livestock, mud and laundry and cooking and bedmaking and money worries. The times when I stay up late finishing a costume for school the following day, then muddle through the following 24 hours on the verge of tears from sleep-deprivation. The moments when one of my children has an Epic tanty in a public venue and I just want the ground to swallow me so that I do not have to endure the stares of disapproving septagenarians.
I feel generous for helping a friend in a fix, or for dumping several bags of stuff at the Charity Shop, or for bringing cakes to a playdate. I do my bit, I tell myself.
And then you come across women like these:
Is it any wonder that the room at The Savoy was packed to the very edges with all manner of celebrities, TV personalities, Boy Band members and Olympians, all paying tribute to the extraordinary women who graced the stage? Is it any wonder I came home with panda eyes and a determination to be better, try harder, do more? Is it any wonder that I think there should have been more tissues?
You can see each of these exceptional women when Channel 5 show the Tesco Mum of the Year event, hosted by Celebrity mum Emma Willis, on Sunday evening, yes, Mother’s Day, 30 March at 6.10pm.
Go on! You know you want to tell me what you think!