East Midlands Bloggers Meet (again!)
So last weekend after the success of our first I held the second #eastmidsmeetup in Leicester on Saturday 4th July. It's so nice to be a part of a growing small community within my hometown and have the opportunity to come together to socialise out of the internet world for a few hours. I didn't have much planned ahead of our meet, I was very clear in that we would be going to the Western Park Festival that was taking part in the Western Park in Leicester. The rest of it was a lot of winging and making quick decisions with what we would be doing for a few hours! It was so lovely to see Sam from Cocobutterblog and Ellie from EllieKathleens from our last meet up back in May, but also to be treated to not 1, not 2, but THREE new bloggers. I will introduce you to them and their blogs later, first of all, let's talk about our meet up and what we got up to shall we?
So first we headed to a new ice cream parlour called WHIPEE! Gelato that's just opened on Granby Street in Leicester. It has the biggest choice of ice creams I had ever seen and I wasn't the only person struggling on which one to have a nibble at. In the end, I went for one scoop of Peanut Butter and one scoop of Ferrero Rocher and absolutely DIVINE! exactly what we needed before our walk in the sunshine to our next destination for the meetup. The place was really inviting in both colours and staff, I would definitely go there again (to try all of the other flavours obviously!)
We then took a 3-mile walk (sorry girls, let's face it we needed the exercise after the 478357957 calories from ice cream!) to Western Park for the Western Park Festival!
The festival was an absolute delight. There were various different foods to choose from at a considerable price (I had ham&pineapple pizza OBVIOUSLY!) and even saw a crisps sandwich tent after I had eaten, truly gutted. We all sat around talking plans for future meetups and drinking Pimms, because it was sunny and totally allowed at the weekend. There was lots of live music playing, a talent stage full of Zumba dancing and local dance groups performing their routines. I expected a lot more stalls than where available, there was a variety of activities for young people which was great! this included zorbing down a hill which would have been fun hadn't I had a big blister and was wearing shorts!
We then decided to jump back on a bus into town and headed to Turtle Bay, noticing it was 3pm and totally Happy Hours on cocktails!!
I absolutely love the atmosphere in Turtle Bay, its chatty, buzzing, full of great music and the staff are so polite when serving you. We got into pairs and got straight into having a cocktail, again chatting away like we had known one another for years. I think the connection within our group is absolutely AWESOME, we all got on so well and had conversation throughout the afternoon.
It was then that we said goodbye to Ellie and Sam who headed off to get their train in time and the last few of us (all based in Leicester) decided to head off in search of another cocktail to dig into!
We decided on a little place called Bossa Cafe Bar which was an independent place near the train station. It sold cocktails, coffee and live music great mixture for a place to chill out of the glorious sunshine! The barman Gareth quickly made sure we were dealt with and helped us in deciding on what cocktail to enjoy! I decided with Ruth on a Mojito, they are so refreshing on a warm day whilst the other two enjoyed their Pina Coladas!
It was quickly 4pm when we decided to depart our separate ways, it was so lovely again to spend the afternoon chatting and socialising with the girls.