Blogger Blind Date!

Saturday was the big date. On Friday night I washed my hair. Despite blow-drying it, the fringe I cut myself didn't get any longer. I even shaved my legs. I regretted this as I watched blood pour down the plughole. My scabby ankle looked worse than a hairy one!

I took Presley along for moral support and took a seat in the Preston PizzaExpress.

After a few minutes the first of my 'dates' turned up. Lindy from Squidgyboo arrived with her beautiful daughter Squidge. Presley and Squidge eyed each other up and then decided to do some drawing with the pencils provided.

Next to arrive was Yummy Mammy. Closely followed by Sally from Who's The Mummy? with her adorable daughter Flea.

I felt slightly awkward to start with. As Sally pointed out we all know a bit about each other from reading our blogs, but this is the first time we have met in person. This awkwardness didn't last long and we were soon chatting away. We talked about blogging, but we mainly discussed our lives, where we lived and our families.

I'm no stranger to this blind date business. I met my husband Andy on the internet. We even went to a PizzaExpress as part of our eight hour long first date. We both had the same pizza, but different drinks. Ahhh.

Anyway, I digress, back to Saturday!

We all enjoyed the food. Dough balls, unsurprisingly, were a rather popular starter. We all had a pizza. I was the only one who tried the new Leggera, the pizza with a hole in the centre filled with salad. I normally order pizza and salad anyway and never eat it all, so this was ideal for me. I would have preferred less rocket in my salad, but was pleased the salad came with dressing.

Only the children had a pudding. They all had ice cream with chocolate sauce.

There was only one major incident. We didn't see it happen, but Presley was the main suspect. One of Flea's play people (a policeman no less) met a sticky end in Presley's ice cream. Six baby wipes and four napkins later he was returned, shaken, to his rightful owner!

We had a lovely time, but I'm sorry to say the service was shockingly bad. We hardly saw a waitress. We had to wait AGES for our food. The children were starving. Every time Presley saw someone in the restaurant with a pizza to pointed at it longingly.

Also there were no children's drinks on the menu. Everything came in a glass, well drinks and ice cream anyway. One waitress put my pizza and a sharp pizza cutter down next to my two year old. Not a good idea! Glasses were also put down within grabbing distance. Presley had his first taste of diet coke.

After two hours we all needed to go home, poor Lindy had already got a £25 parking ticket that day and didn't want another. We had our coats on. We were standing up. No one came. In the end I went to the counter and asked for the bill. I left the payment on the table. I'm not sure if anyone noticed we left!

I have to say this is the first time I've been to PizzaExpress and had bad service, it's usually excellent.

It was a lovely idea to get bloggers together and I hope we'll all meet up again.

Huge thanks to Louise Bury from We Are Social for matchmaking!