hurrah for meeting twitter pals in real life

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this title should actually read 'hurrah for making new friends' because that is what has happened.

say what you like about twitter but it has some huge plus points. now, i don't normally blog about my social life. this isn't what this blog is for. plus i think it's important to actually live my life rather than feel i need to document every twist and turn. in fact, dani hampton writes a lovely 'small reminder of being in the moment and blogging' here.

however, i have made some truly wonderful connections through twitter. i am a very proud 'twitter knitter' and was all set to meet many of the (mainly london-based) twitter knitters at a party but then couldn't afford to get there last month. but there are more parties being planned and i'm so excited to meet people in the flesh that i've been chatting to on twitter for almost two years!

there is a huge community of tweeters in bristol and i was invited along to a foodie gathering at the lido last summer. it was great fun and i met some really lovely people. because i was planning to move to brighton, i held off on meeting more bristol-based people since i already have a good amount of friends here and didn't want to meet new people that i would then not have time to keep up with. i have always been someone who doesn't have tonnes of friends but the friends i have are very dear to me.

then it turned out i wasn't leaving bristol after all and, after quitting a facebook and (temporarily) falling out of love with the internet, i decided to throw myself into reconnecting with old friends (which has been just lovely) and meeting new ones. i had initially followed emily when i thought i was moving to brighton as i thought it would be a great way to establish a set of people to meet for coffee etc. despite culling lots of brighton-based tweeters, emily and i had regularly chatted on twitter so i stayed in touch with her. there were regular attempts (still ongoing i'm pleased to report) by me, hels and fritha to get emily to move to bristol. emily mentioned she'd come to bristol to meet us but i never thought it would materialise. but, the other week, on her way back from a long weekend in devon, emily stopped off in bristol and met me and fritha for drinks at the deco lounge (hels was in thailand so unable to join us). it was *such* a lovely evening and i regularly cried with laughter.

a week later i met up with lia for the first time. we had hoped to bump into each other at the inaugural montpelier basement supper club but i was unable to go. we had drinks at moreish on chandos road since it was near where we both live and it was *so* lovely to meet her in real life. i know we'll stay in touch and i'm looking forward to knitting on her veranda at some point over the summer.

last week, i organised a big bristol twitter meet-up and 11 of us had drinks at the lido (pictured above via). i was *so* nervous (as i often feel anxious about big gatherings) but a great time was had by all. about half of the faces were knew to me but i already felt familiar with them from regular twitter conversations. i commented that fritha (who i'd only met a fortnight before) felt like an old friend. weird but true! the lido was a lovely backdrop for the event - (i have already blogged about the lido here, here and here. can you tell i'm a fan?) the only drawback was that they had arranged the tables (for 20 guests) in a horseshoe shape so it looked like we were at a wedding. a bit odd.

anyway, there were 11 of us there (all on twitter) including four knitters, a few foodies, a writer, an illustrator and a baby! jo had brought her sweet (still very new) baby, mersina, along and so we were all thrilled to get to meet her (and her mum!) for the first time. the only picture of the night shows fritha holding M. i borrowed this image off fritha's blog and you can read her write up of the night here.

(photo taken by martin, M's dad).

i am about to become a hermit in order to get my thesis written on time but, having met people from twitter over the past few weeks and many of us having exchanged mobile numbers, i know i'll see lots of them again (soon) - fritha and hels for drinks this week. also, lucy (a 'real-life' friend who is now a fully-fledged twitter knitter) and i are booked to eat at the montpelier basement supper club in april hosted by elly and dan. to read more about the supper club, you can see dan's blog entries here.

exciting!