Are you new to Tangerine Turtle?

Happiness is Heart FM and Christmas Angels

As you know, we went to the Birmingham Christmas Market this weekend. We had a nice time, but there were some…’issues’… But you already know about that, so I won’t re-hash the details here.

I want to tell you about what pretty much saved my day and restored my faith in humanity and the Christmas spirit.

Before we had even made it to the Market, we had been stopped (pounced on?) by a friendly guy and girl who gave the kids paper reindeer hats and told us that there was free tea, coffee and juice available inside the door where we were standing. It turned out they were from Heart FM. We thanked them for the reindeer hats and went on our way. I’m not sure what everyone else thought, but I was skeptical. ‘FREE’? Hmmm…..nothing is free…. What was the catch? Did I want to enter the lair and possibly get some kind of sales pitch? The simple answer would be ‘NO’. But luckily I didn’t have to make that decision at that moment. I could forget about it and have a nice time at the Market.

So, four cranky adults- three crying kids- freezing wet- several- exhausted hours later, we were ready to leave the Bullring. The grown-ups wanted a cup of tea (come on people, this is England, of course we did!) The little people wanted a drink. We all wanted somewhere we could sit down and relax with our drinks. It was then that my fantastic mother-in-law remembered the offer from the Heart FM people. Best of all…it was FREE! We made our way over, (the place was almost right next to our car-park so it was perfect.) We walked in the door and couldn’t have been more pleasantly surprised. It was like entering a magical other-world. The place was quiet, warm and relaxing.

Heart FM Sparkle Shopping Sanctuary at the Bullring in Birmingham

We were greeted by two friendly girls who showed us to a seating area and took our drink orders. They also offered to take the girls to a table at the side of the room to write letters to Santa. I don’t need to tell you they jumped at the chance! The teas came in just a few minutes and we sat back and breathed a humongous sigh of relief. What an amazing place! We were seven highly stressed out people when we walked in, and in only a few minutes, we were all relaxed and happy.

The girls writing letters to Santa

Now, I know you’ll laugh at me, but I leaned over and asked Chris ‘what do you think the angle is here? What is Heart FM trying to get out of us?’ In the end we decided it was just to get publicity. I couldn’t argue with it, it worked. The actual place had a ‘Feelgood Zone’ where we had our drinks. There was also a ‘Ladies Area’ where you could get your hair styled and a ‘Man Creche’ which had a bunch of video games for the guys to relax with.

Feelgood Zone

Because I was so bowled over by the whole experience, (and obviously I never take my blogging hat off,) I decided to ask the Heart girls if I could take their picture and write about it here. They were excited and immediately said ‘yes’. We got to chatting and they told me that they are the Heart FM Angels and they do all sorts of events throughout the year to support communities in partnership with various local  groups and businesses. They were so friendly. I really loved meeting them and hope I’ll be able to work on future projects with them in 2012.

Heart FM Angels
Nikki, Patsy, Hayley and Becca

I really want to thank Heart FM for totally saving my day and giving me back my Christmas mojo. Oh and by the way…they play great music too!

Unfortunately the Sparkle Shopping Sanctuary is now closed. But you can check out Heart Angels and find where out where they’ll be in your area, or even invite them to your own event!