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hathycolAfter a long week at work, I headed home early on Friday to finish packing before Fiona arrived, and we headed out into a sultry evening to drive to Milton Keynes. The traffic was difficult and the weather was hot, but it was all totally worth it as it was time to kick off the convention season again. HURRAH!
A much smaller group this year - only me, Fiona, Lucy and Ann. When Fiona and I arrived (going via EIGHT roundabouts in less than two miles, oh god how I always forget) Lucy was already in the shockingly renovated Travelodge. I say shockingly renovated as in they have REMOVED THE SOFA. This may not sound shocking to those of you who don't routinely try and sneak lots of people in to these rooms, but previously it was a double bed and a sofa with a pull out mattress. On this occasion, we had a campbed and a double bed. Oops.
Ah well. We put our stuff down and headed out to a Chiquitos in order to get some food and more importantly some cocktails. (Never make the "WOO WOO!" joke in public, though. That is an important thing I have learned.) The three of us had a good catch up, leaving only when Ann was due to arrive. She came with Alex, her new boyfriend, and we played something I've not heard of before called Cards of Humanity - it was quite good fun, although I suspect I'm probably a bad person for this...
We woke up nice and early the next day, and as always got groggily dressed and headed off into the morning. Lucy had very kindly agreed to drive us to the convention venue, and we were in the queue for fairly a short amount of time, basking in the sun and applying suncream. Even early on, we had an unusual amount of people taking pictures of us - I think maybe there were less cosplayers this year? We were all in our normal Star Trek gear, so nothing exciting. Ah well.
We got in to the arena really quickly, despite a long queue on arrival. There wasn't a 'big' guest this time around, so we managed to get early VQ tickets. We then had a look around the venue, which GLORY BE has actually changed a bit. After years of squashing into a tiny concourse, with a weird wind tunnel effect, the dealers room is now in the arena section, with lots of other guests in there as well. Bliss. And room!
First up we met Robert Beltran and Garrett Wang, who had very short queues. They were both really lovely and even slightly flirty, which was new!
After that we went to Arthur Darvill, who looked very tired and slightly hungover but was still really nice. I failed to shout "ROOOOOORRRRRYYYY!" at him and feel like I am growing as a person.
We also spent a long time waiting to meet Billy Boyd, who Ann needed to finish off her collection, having been collating Hobbits since, rather scarily, 2004. He was fabulous, a really nice guy.
Not long after this we headed out into the sun to get ice cream, eat sandwiches and generally chill out. I'm not sure what the people of Milton Keynes make of people in sci-fi outfits sitting by the side of the A5 eating sandwiches, but there you go.
In the afternoon we did some shopping, and got a few extra guests. None for me, as I managed to get all my three in the morning! However, I did do what may be the most girly convention shopping ever, managing to buy TARDIS hairclips, lovely little earrings, and a fabulous skirt. It has Marvel prints on it - Thor on my legs! Brilliant!
A friend of Lucy's who does some amateur photography wanted to borrow us for a photoshoot, so we headed around the outside of the arena to meet him. On the way there, a rather muscley chap stopped us, and asked for a lint roller. The chap is question was Chris Eubank, who admittedly I only recognised because the voice. He asked us about Star Trek and why we watched it, and I firmly said "Because it shows that there can be a better future!" because I am cool like that. He kissed us all on the cheek and sent us on our way. We realised afterwards that Mark Selby, who won the snooker championship this year, had been patiently waiting behind us to meet him. Just WHAT.
Dee and Dom turned up after this, but not too much later all of us girls headed back to the hotel, suffering from tiredness and the problems of wearing non-breathable Star Trek uniforms in 25C heat. Still, once back in the hotel we all changed and headed out to the nearby Wetherspoons and sat in the sun for hours, slowly drinking cider, gossiping, and gently burning. As I kept saying, if you were going to have a weekend with the girls I would definitely rather have one with bonus sci-fi. As the sun went down we headed back to the hotel and watched the end of First Class, although I was still sad to have missed out on Magneto NAZI HUNTER which I still maintain is a film I would like to see.
The next day entailed a bit of a lie-in. We knew we had a pretty quiet Sunday ahead, as we had already met most of our guests! Once Ann got caught up on her Game of Thrones guests and another few loops of the dealers room had been done, we managed to spend a lot of the day having people take photos of us, and taking pictures of all the other cosplayers.
The weather was really shockingly hot, so we mostly just tried not to overheat. By about 2pm, after making friends with Captain America and Winter Soldier cosplayers, we got changed and headed back home. Richie had decided he wanted a barbeque, what with the heat. So that was a nice end of the weekend.
So that was my weekend. It was much more low-key than these things normally are, with the convention being a bit on the lowdown plus less people, and the sun keeping everyone chirpy. I had a lovely time, although I must admit that it would have been nicer if more friends could have made it!
Now it's another week. I have a lot of work to do this week, and can't really believe it's nearly 9pm already!
A much smaller group this year - only me, Fiona, Lucy and Ann. When Fiona and I arrived (going via EIGHT roundabouts in less than two miles, oh god how I always forget) Lucy was already in the shockingly renovated Travelodge. I say shockingly renovated as in they have REMOVED THE SOFA. This may not sound shocking to those of you who don't routinely try and sneak lots of people in to these rooms, but previously it was a double bed and a sofa with a pull out mattress. On this occasion, we had a campbed and a double bed. Oops.
Ah well. We put our stuff down and headed out to a Chiquitos in order to get some food and more importantly some cocktails. (Never make the "WOO WOO!" joke in public, though. That is an important thing I have learned.) The three of us had a good catch up, leaving only when Ann was due to arrive. She came with Alex, her new boyfriend, and we played something I've not heard of before called Cards of Humanity - it was quite good fun, although I suspect I'm probably a bad person for this...
We woke up nice and early the next day, and as always got groggily dressed and headed off into the morning. Lucy had very kindly agreed to drive us to the convention venue, and we were in the queue for fairly a short amount of time, basking in the sun and applying suncream. Even early on, we had an unusual amount of people taking pictures of us - I think maybe there were less cosplayers this year? We were all in our normal Star Trek gear, so nothing exciting. Ah well.
We got in to the arena really quickly, despite a long queue on arrival. There wasn't a 'big' guest this time around, so we managed to get early VQ tickets. We then had a look around the venue, which GLORY BE has actually changed a bit. After years of squashing into a tiny concourse, with a weird wind tunnel effect, the dealers room is now in the arena section, with lots of other guests in there as well. Bliss. And room!
First up we met Robert Beltran and Garrett Wang, who had very short queues. They were both really lovely and even slightly flirty, which was new!
After that we went to Arthur Darvill, who looked very tired and slightly hungover but was still really nice. I failed to shout "ROOOOOORRRRRYYYY!" at him and feel like I am growing as a person.
We also spent a long time waiting to meet Billy Boyd, who Ann needed to finish off her collection, having been collating Hobbits since, rather scarily, 2004. He was fabulous, a really nice guy.
Not long after this we headed out into the sun to get ice cream, eat sandwiches and generally chill out. I'm not sure what the people of Milton Keynes make of people in sci-fi outfits sitting by the side of the A5 eating sandwiches, but there you go.
In the afternoon we did some shopping, and got a few extra guests. None for me, as I managed to get all my three in the morning! However, I did do what may be the most girly convention shopping ever, managing to buy TARDIS hairclips, lovely little earrings, and a fabulous skirt. It has Marvel prints on it - Thor on my legs! Brilliant!
A friend of Lucy's who does some amateur photography wanted to borrow us for a photoshoot, so we headed around the outside of the arena to meet him. On the way there, a rather muscley chap stopped us, and asked for a lint roller. The chap is question was Chris Eubank, who admittedly I only recognised because the voice. He asked us about Star Trek and why we watched it, and I firmly said "Because it shows that there can be a better future!" because I am cool like that. He kissed us all on the cheek and sent us on our way. We realised afterwards that Mark Selby, who won the snooker championship this year, had been patiently waiting behind us to meet him. Just WHAT.
Dee and Dom turned up after this, but not too much later all of us girls headed back to the hotel, suffering from tiredness and the problems of wearing non-breathable Star Trek uniforms in 25C heat. Still, once back in the hotel we all changed and headed out to the nearby Wetherspoons and sat in the sun for hours, slowly drinking cider, gossiping, and gently burning. As I kept saying, if you were going to have a weekend with the girls I would definitely rather have one with bonus sci-fi. As the sun went down we headed back to the hotel and watched the end of First Class, although I was still sad to have missed out on Magneto NAZI HUNTER which I still maintain is a film I would like to see.
The next day entailed a bit of a lie-in. We knew we had a pretty quiet Sunday ahead, as we had already met most of our guests! Once Ann got caught up on her Game of Thrones guests and another few loops of the dealers room had been done, we managed to spend a lot of the day having people take photos of us, and taking pictures of all the other cosplayers.
The weather was really shockingly hot, so we mostly just tried not to overheat. By about 2pm, after making friends with Captain America and Winter Soldier cosplayers, we got changed and headed back home. Richie had decided he wanted a barbeque, what with the heat. So that was a nice end of the weekend.
So that was my weekend. It was much more low-key than these things normally are, with the convention being a bit on the lowdown plus less people, and the sun keeping everyone chirpy. I had a lovely time, although I must admit that it would have been nicer if more friends could have made it!
Now it's another week. I have a lot of work to do this week, and can't really believe it's nearly 9pm already!
