A Bloggers Meet Up At Malmaison Newcastle

I've been sore and tired LouLou over the last few days but in all honesty it was worth it. As I've said before on my blog us North East bloggers can often feel a bit left out when it comes to events, but thanks to several lovely North East based ladies, more and more events are taking part up north. The latest was Meet Up At Mal, a bloggers social event, which was organised by the lovely Hannah in association with Malmaison Hotels, and Maggies Cancer Charity.

The event as the name would suggest took place in Newcastle's prestigious Malmaison Hotel, located on Newcastle's famous Quayside.

The Quayside has changed almost beyond recognition over the last 10 - 20 years, from a widely neglected and ignored part of the city, it's now a trendy, vibrant place, full of hotels, restaurants, bars, coffee shops, and of course bridges :) The weather on the day wasn't the best but here are few pictures that I took, first up the fabulous tilting Millennium Bridge, you can just see the famous Baltic Centre For Contemporary Art, on the Gateshead side of the river, on the left hand side.

here it is again with the Sage Gateshead  in the background, again on the Gateshead side of the river.

and finally it wouldn't be a picture of Newcastle / Gateshead Quayside if I didn't include a picture of the famous bridges that cross the River Tyne, you can see the famous Tyne Bridge, the High Level road and rail bridge and the Swing and Metro bridges.

Newcastle Malmaison is in the perfect position to experience the city at it's finest and being only a short walk (all be it up hill!!) or bus ride from the city centre, it's an ideal base for a luxury stay in Newcastle.

The meet up took place in the intimate but luxurious Chateau Lounge, which has it own bar, comfy sofas. and a huge TV, which was playing music channels.This intimate venue really gave the nearly 50 bloggers (and Hannah's parents and some of her friends) the perfect opportunity to circulate, chat and get to know each other better.

(The ladies with the amazing hair - Libby and Amy)

As soon as we entered the lounge we given name stickers and drinks either glasses of bubbly or soft drinks - I went for a glass of bubbly first (thanks Amy ;) and then I was good and stuck to soft drinks.

I'd already met quite a few of the bloggers who were in attendance but the casual, social nature of the event meant that it was great to chat and get to know new some new people too. I'm only sorry that I didn't get the chance to talk to everyone.

About an hour into the event, waiters came around with super posh canapes, their were cheese ones, mini flatbreads with aubergines and tomatoes, and canapes with seared tuna, and crab. I had several of the mini flatbreads which were spicy and so nice. After the savoury canapes waiters then came around with huge slates with chocolates on them, there were chocolate cups filled with chocolate brandy cream and topped with popping candy, and chocolate bombs which were filled with lemon posset cream, and a piece of crystalised lemon zest. Both of these were amazing and the bombs really lived up to their name and had a tendency to explode when you picked them off the tray as you can see here :)

During the event we also had a chance to buy some raffle tickets to support Maggies Cancer Centres, which has centres across the UK and abroad. Its Newcastle branch is based in the Freeman Hospital where my Godmother had her treatment so I was more than happy to buy some raffle tickets. You can find out more about Maggies here x  Alas I didn't win but the prizes were amazing and included stays in the hotel, spa treatments, jewellery and a goodie box donated by local retail institution Fenwicks.

Now I know that events aren't all about the goodie bags, but thanks to Hannah and Co these ones were pretty impressive.

Every bag came complete with a tag which was handwritten by Hannah thanking us for coming, which was a really sweet touch x

The bags contained all sorts of goodies from Malamaison including one of their CD's supporting Bottletop, a sexual health educations charity, some of their in house body wash and some meal discount vouchers. We also got some goodies courtesy of Fenwicks, which included lots of high end cosmetic samples, including some Marc Jacobs, YSL, Kiehls and Molton Brown and the cutest Hunter wellies key ring.The goodie bags also contained lots of discount and promotional materials, a Sexy Hair product, some Lush samples, some Paul Mitchell hair samples courtesy of Boilerhouse Hair And Beauty in Jesmond, and a piece of jewellery from Miss Geekay - I got a really sweet neon bracelet which I love :)

I have to say despite the aches and pains, and exhaustion since I thoroughly enjoyed this event. The venue really gave us the chance to mingle and to get to know each other better. I really liked the fact that this event was for all bloggers - there were food, fashion, beauty and lifestyle bloggers in attendance, and it's really helped me find some more new blogs to follow. The lovely Sarah has complied a list of some of the other bloggers that were in attendance so please check out her blog here to find some more new blogs to read.

I just want to say a huge, huge thank you to Hannah for all her hard work, it really paid off. I also want to say a huge thank you to the staff from Malmaison, the venue and service was fabulous, they really couldn't do enough for us. I had a fabulous time and I really hope that we can all do it again sometime x