What I did on my holidays... with pictures of food!

[curiouswombat]

I have written quite a long piece containing thinky thoughts after the weekend at WriterConUk in Coventry - but I think I will post it to the community later. This is more my 'report'!

S2C and I set off from home on Thursday morning, had a pleasant crossing of the Irish Sea, a leisurely light lunch on Lancaster Railway Station, and a pleasant train trip to Coventry where we were met by the wonderful gillo who chauffeured us to the Ramada. We found our room, dropped our cases, collected daiseechain, and Gill took us back to her house for a good natter, a check that we, as the committee, hadn't forgotten anything major, and pizza, salad, and Italian hazelnut cake with strawberries and cream. A good day.

And yes - we knew WriterCon didn't start till the Friday - but Daisee and Gill and I thought it might be nice to be around first to welcome everyone - and we had a couple of meetings with the conference organiser and the dining room manager at the Ramada on Friday morning to make sure everything was just as we expected/ordered. There was a moment of shock when we realised they'd taken the sexy chairs from the breakout area - but after a chat they did, at least, make sure there were enough other comfortable chairs there to fit us all.

Then we settled ourselves in the bar and people started to arrive; as always it was lovely to meet friends again for the first time since last year.

We even had an official sign -



As the group expanded we decided to have lunch - and I got out my camera to take a picture of S2C's as he didn't just get fish and chips - but there were 'leetle fishieees' as well. I'll cut here.



S2C's lunch -



And once I had the camera out - here's my chicken Caesar salad -




And the chips came in little galvanised buckets! How cute is that? I think these belonged to lilachigh -




As we ate, more people arrived, those who had forgotten about quiz questions all borrowed my paper to write them down, and by 6.30 almost everyone had assembled. We proceeded up to our base for the event where Gill welcomed everyone, we got our goody-bags (bogwitch is a star - she personalises them every year, whilst also adding something fun to get us all laughing) - and soon there were buzzing, whistling balloons flying around and everyone was giggling. Most people continued to do so for much of the next 2 days.

Teams for the quiz were decided by lot - and I found myself with Quinara, Booster, and Colonel K. This turned out to be a wonderful team - everyone knew different stuff and to our great amazement we won by a half point - our prize was a bottle of bubbly that the four of us eventually drank on Saturday evening!

Next a walk of... oh... twenty yards across the road, to Mint this year, for yummy and very pretty Indian food. Those sitting at the other end of the table to me will realise, when they see these pictures, why their dinner took a long time.

Here is S2C's starter -



And here are Kazzy-Cee and Lilachigh deliberating over the starter they shared -



No-one else had ordered a starter... which is why everyone at the other end, who might not have noticed these three, may have wondered what they were waiting for! Well now you can see what you missed! Oh - and it gave brutti_ma_buoni time to slide into the empty chair at our end having dashed up from London.

And on to the main course - the plates were all beautifully decorated - I took this picture of Kazzy-Cee's



And then my dinner arrived and there was no room for the camera - so I put it away - and didn't get it out again for most of the rest of the weekend! But all the rest of the food for the weekend was good, too. Food is always an important part of the event. (Talking of which, the hotel provided us with warm Danish pastries, and then warm freshly baked cookies, at each tea/coffee break too.)

wildecate joined us at breakfast next morning - and the hotel staff were all friendly and even seemed to recognise some of us from last year - Saturday was set fair from the start.

It always surprises me just how much enjoyment we all have whilst learning about things - others have given more detailed descriptions of all the talks, all I will say is that the day flew past much too quickly, I laughed and learnt in more or less equal amounts, and managed to do my job as treasurer ensuring that everyone got what they had ordered for lunch and paid for it, and everyone was paid up in advance for the Event Dinner so that I could enjoy that too!

I fear that S2C, Booster 17, Wildecate and I really shouldn't be allowed to spend much time together - we managed to hijack chunks of Quinara's poetry - ably aided and abetted by Maz amongst others, and my favourite moment of the weekend might well have been when Audio&Video asked us what we had noticed about a vid he was using to explain techniques to us. I am pretty sure he was expecting an insightful technical answer along the lines of "The whole thing was actually well cut stills" except that Wildecate answered - quite rightly, "She's got a cat on her head...!" (A&V's session about making fanvids was fascinating - I hope he didn't think we weren't taking him seriously at the back - and she definitely did have a cat on her head...)

But the four of us, as has happened before, got into full swing over dinner. (I managed to fit in a committee meeting to decide on the winners of various awards whilst everyone else got ready for dinner - and then showered, dried my hair, and changed in ten minutes - I impressed myself.)

Letting Wildecate and I drink Pimms, and the wine Gill and Dave brought back from Italy - and a reasonably sensible fannish conversation about characters in Stargate 1 ended up as a multi-crossover romp that included fireman Sam, Captain Jack, Elvis Criddlinton, and Pingu - with the voices. As there was also a more serious discussion during the evening about the Olivier version of Henry V all I can say is those of you who weren't there

Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap

Which is a line we really should have added to the tale.

We gathered in the breakout area once all replete - and didn't sing along to Once More With Feeling. Honestly. And drank more wine, and laughed, and laughed some more.

On Sunday the committee had another quick meeting to finalise the Sparkly Umbrella award winners - the rest of you will not believe just how much hard work Gill put into getting hold of the cocktail umbrellas - at one stage Daisee and I thought we might just have to drink 10 cocktails each...!

Awards were awarded, there was a raffle in which everyone got something - I got a New Zealand selection of cookies and biscuits which were all really tasty - we have now finished all but the ginger-nuts - there are a few of those left that may just hold out an hour or two longer yet.

There was, as there has to be, a businesslike AGM - I took notes as poor Daisee had a horrible migraine and as Audio&Video had also recorded the meeting, those of you who are interested should find the minutes available soon - and the poll about dates for next year as the Olympics may cause us a degree of inconvenience.

Sunday lunchtime saw us back in the bar, slowly saying farewells as our numbers dwindled. Eventually only S2C and I were left - it was all over. (We stayed as our boat home was at 2,15pm on Monday).



I would say to all my LJ friends who live within reach of Coventry that this is a brilliant weekend - there are people from many, many fandoms and people who are not really into any fandom, but just like to meet other LJ people.

It is not an expensive weekend at all - especially if you share a room; we reckon that, without your travel expenses, it comes in at about £150 for the Friday evening to Sunday morning - including one course at the Indian restaurant, a sandwich lunch on Saturday, and the dinner on Saturday night... all this and Goody Bags too.

And the best bit is that everyone is incredibly friendly - even if you didn't know anyone when you first arrived you would feel you were amongst friends within minutes.

Comments

[estelcontar1.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I read your post right after lunch. Those pictures are totally mouth watering. LOl

[cairistiona7.livejournal.com]

I should have, like Estelcontar, read this *after* my evening meal, but silly me read it before and now I'm well and truly famished!

[clodia-metelli.livejournal.com]

I'm hunnnnnngry now. It does all sound like great fun!

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

It all sounds wonderful! And you're making me wish I didn't live so far away...

I'm still boggling a bit over S2C's lunch. There really was just a side dish of little fish? I can't say that I've ever seen anything like that before...

Absolutely love getting to see photos of Kazzy-Cee and Lilachigh! Always great getting to put faces to names.

[nutmeg3.livejournal.com]

::is hungry now:::

Are those little fried sardines or smelts or something in the first food piccie? They look yummy.

[bogwitch.livejournal.com]

Those little fish would have broken me I think. I don't think there's any way I could have eaten them, but I believe that I should always eat all the meat (or fish though that doesn't happen often) on my plate as they laid down their lives for my lunch!

In future, perhaps I could suggest these for the awards:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/100-Foil-Cocktail-Drink-Sticks-Parasol-Umbrella-Picks-/170681435588?pt=UK_Home_Garden_Celebrations_Occasions_ET&hash=item27bd6805c4

That pack would do us for years!

[shirebound]

Love the chips bucket!

[rachel2205.livejournal.com]

That looks like lots of fun! How many people were there?

[quinara]

Mmmm, tasty... God, I wish I hadn't been sitting down all day and worn my favourite-but-perhaps-unfortunate-for-digestion trousers to the restaurant. I could have enjoyed it so much more! And my dupiaza was really so nice... *sadface*

It's nice to see that the food was adequately documented, though! :D

[bojojoti.livejournal.com]

What a marvelous gathering!

(I feel uncomfortable eating things that can look back at me, so I would have passed on the little fishies. I'm sure if I were starving, I'd get over my squeamishness, but I'm far from starving!)

[zanthinegirl.livejournal.com]

Are the little bitty fish smelt? Not sure if you have them; tiny herrings that you fry and eat whole. You dip them with a net. I hated them as a kid. I remember telling my parents one year that I'd given up eating bait for lent. Didn't go over well!

But otherwise that all looks amazing. What a fun trip!

[kazzy-cee.livejournal.com]

Foooooooooooooooood!!!!! :D

It was all so delicious!!! I wish I'd not had the starter (or possibly not eaten half my goodie bad sweeties during the quiz) because that main course was lovely!

Great report!!

[engarian.livejournal.com]

It sounds as if you had such a wonderful time, and I just knew you would.

- Erulisse (one L)

[ellynn-ithilwen.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's good that I am not hungry, otherwise this post would be very tempting for me! *lol*
The report sounds great. I'm glad you had a good time. :)

[just-shy-1.livejournal.com]

It sounds like a lot of fun!

[ayinhara.livejournal.com]

WriterConUK sounds like great fun, good food and convivial people.

[inzilbeth-liz.livejournal.com]

I see you were very well looked after!

[miso-no-tsuki.livejournal.com]

I had the chicken Caesar salad for lunch on the Sunday.
I don't think there was *any* chicken in mine!
But even so the Food was good! :)

[desdemonaspace]

Oh, how wonderful a time it sounds! The pics are lovely, too. The only LJ-er I recognize is Lilachigh, she of the clear new eyes. I look forward to your expanded post on this.

This post has made me hungry--must eat now!