Blogfest With Coca-Cola

I told you a little while ago that I had the pleasure of being sponsored to attend Blogfest by Coca-Cola. It was a great honour to be chosen by such a lovely and well known company.

I may not be a huge Coke drinker but it is my drink of choice when out for meals, day time meals out I will choose regular Coke and if drinking I will have a Bacardi or Vodka and diet Coke. Paul on the other hand drinks it all the time – regular only, he will not even entertain the idea of anything else.

My weekend started a little later than planned as Paul was late home from work so I had less time unwinding in my hotel than planned but it was still lovely. I managed to dump my bags and then head down to the bar to start on the cocktails with Jen, Jaime & Jo and later Jacinta joined us – yes let us Mummies loose and we hit the bar. We chatted, we laughed lots and we had a lovely evening but child free for the first time in forever for most of us we retired early to enjoy some peace and quite.

I went equipped for a quiet evening on my own – TV to myself and a HOT bath – and of course Gin in a Tin, a face mask and trashy mags – perfect!

I got to enjoy this lovely room all to myself, I got my hot bath and as always nothing was on TV but that was fine, I starfished in the middle of the bed and grabbed an early night ready to be downstairs to meet the Coca-Cola team way too early, but it’s OK they knew how to look after us and had laid on Coffee, juice and pastries and of course there was Coke – it’s why we were there after all!

We were introduced to Coca-Cola’s newest product – the green can you’ve probably seen it by now already Coca-Cola Life. This is a lower-calorie Cola which is the closest in taste to the original Red Cola but sweetened from natural sources. Coca‑Cola Life is made with a blend of sugar and stevia leaf extract, and contains a third less sugar and a third fewer calories than Coca‑Cola.

I hadn’t actually tried the new Cola yet so I did over breakfast and I liked it, it was pretty close in taste to the regular coke and although you can taste the difference it’s not a watery taste like the diet versions. When I got home I got Paul to try it and his response was “It’s actually OK!” – Now anyone who knows Paul knows that’s a huge compliment – he will only drink the regular Coke so this was his seal of approval.

Here’s what Coca-Cola say about Stevia:

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We also heard more about Coca-Cola Zero Park Lives activity, a nationwide programme of fun, free, family activities in the heart of local communities – the parks! This programme kicked off in the Summer in Birmingham, Newcastle and Newham but it is set to expand in 2015 and could be in your local area, so do keep an eye out for venues and I will let you know once those areas are announced of course. Activities from Tai Chi, Zumba to Table Tennis, even the cleaning up of local parks – Coca-Cola are investing a lot in this scheme to give back to the communities and they are completely FREE!

We also got to see the new Christmas ad before it was aired on TV – sorry about that but yes I saw it before you!!

It’s OK though as the Coca-Cola truck isn’t coming my way so you can brag about seeing that if you like – does it come your way – see the schedule here.

Lastly we were reintroduced to the Caffeine Counter and Work It Out Calculator – these are simple tools on the Coca-Cola website that you can try for yourself at home. The caffeine counter tells you how much caffeine is in your foods and drinks, I was actually surprised at how much caffeine was in a bar of chocolate and I was also surprised that chocolate had more caffeine than diet coke.

Using this you can work out how much caffeine you have had for the day – I’ve not done this as I know mine is high, very high – My kids don’t sleep through the night, I blog into the early hours and they then wake early – caffeine is how I get through my day!

By using the work it out calculator you can see how much exercise you would need to do to burn off the calories consumed in the different varieties of Cola – for example:

Coca-Cola (original red can) =

51 minutes of vacuuming
or 29 minutes of moderate dog walking
or 18 minute of swimming

There are many other options.

I would like to thank Coca-Cola for sponsoring me, I had a wonderful time and also learnt a lot.

Blogfest was great and I had a wonderful time – however, to me it doesn’t warrant a post as yes I did attend some talks and I learnt from those talks but putting that down in writing is hard as the learning was personal to me – I took away from it what I wanted to, it was more learning about myself and where I want to go from here, what I want to achieve and the goals I want to set myself – I have a plan but I’m not ready to share.

There will be more charity involvement however – Cancer Research UK and The Lullaby Trust will be featuring again next year as I have agreed to Sky Dive again in memory of the beautiful #MatildaMae.

All I can say for sure is watch this space – who knows what will happen next – I certainly don’t know YET!