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hathycolSo! This weekend I went to Milton Keynes for Collectormania and LO FOR IT WAS AWESOME.
In the run up to the weekend I had, coincidentally, the busiest and most professionally fulfilling week for a long time. I organised the shit out of things, was personally thanked by board members for doing stuff, and as a result of some of this stuff we've got two new starts. NOT BAD INNINGS METHINKS.
It did mean, however, that I felt I deserved rocking up super casual on Friday and bumbling off at 4.30pm. If anyone asked where I was going, I had what I thought was a bulletproof response of a weekend with the girls. I had not anticipated follow up questions.
"So where are you off to?"
"Weekend with the girls! It's great to catch up!" (Which, you know, true!)
"Oh right! Anywhere nice?"
Deer in headlights moment. "... Milton Keynes?"
"Why?!"
"Er... convention. Er. Dressed as Thor. Er, I'm leaving now."
Ah well. Still, I got home, frantically finished packing and gulped down a cup of tea just in time for Fiona to turn up, who was my lift buddy on this occasion. I drove to Milton Keynes with the usual panic and horror that London and then lots of roundabouts tend to entail, but only managed to get lost on the road of the hotel, which I'm going to take as a win. We weren't staying in Milton Keynes proper, but rather a significantly cheaper Travelodge just on the outskirts. To be honest at £22 a head for three nights I had no complaints.
By the time we arrived, Ann, Lucy, Pippa and Louise werre already waiting for us, and all professed being starving. Although we had a restaurant next to the Travlodge, it was full, so we girded our loins and headed back out to central Milton Keynes to a place my SatNAv called 'The Hub'. Looking for a cheap yet emtpty restuarant, we ended up Cafe Rouge and had a catch up, giggles, all the usual stuff.
About half way through our meal, Ann gave a slightly muffled squeal. "CHRIS JUDGE JUST WENT INTO THE TOILETS!"
So we sat and tried, in a non-creepy way, to watch Teal'c come out of the loo. We're classy. Our waiter shared our mad excitement, though, and Chris Judge was in fact having a fag when we left the restaurant. Squeeing occured. I first met Chris Judge at about the same time I met![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
loneraven, but still, pretty cool.
Chrus Judge was a fairly large component of the weekend, in the end.
We arrived back at the Travelodge to find a Tali, and once we'd got her in and made her some tea, those of us cosplaying as the Avengers did a quick outfit test, and then we fell into bed.
We got up fairly early the next day, and I dived in the shower as early as I could in order to get dressed and head out to the other room for important tea based purposes. Saturday heralded a now-traditional TrekBabes day, so as we all ventured out in our small dresses the wind was biting and harsh. Typical.
Still, as we danced awkwardly in our respective queues (Jenna Louise Coleman for me, Ann, Lucy and Pippa; Gillian Anderson for Fiona and Louise) the sun at least shone periodically. Plus, we all got our required virutal queueing tickets nice and early and bounced off to Asda, where we found Katie plus Maisie and Mohawk! TrekBabes fully assembled, we settled down to have an Awesome Day.
I met Steven Robertson from Being Human and Ripper Street because, well, Fiona told me to. It was a good investment! He was lovely and happy to burble about Ripper Street, and was very cheerful about his first experience at the convention. I also met Ellie Kendrick, also being Being Human (and, you know, some little show called Game of Thrones?) and it ended up being a rather Game of Thrones/Being Human weekend, which is no bad thing. I also met Jenna Louise Coleman who was SO LOVELY. She did personalisations! Also TEENY TINY though. Tali leaned over in the queue and said "Hey, she's like the tiny dude off the cheese advert!" which made me giggle inappropriately. True, though.
We had a lot of photos taken of us all on the Saturday. Firstly, becasue we were taking turns at Give Maisie Cuddles (and attempt to take some of the weight off Katie and Mohawk for five minutes) which led to photo opportunities, and secondly because we were really weirdly popular in our TrekBabes post. I got photos with a great Daniel Jackson (season 1!!!) and also a Guinan, who shyly asked for a photo with me and Lucy. I was surprised. We all got a photo with two very effective Klingons, and it turns out that Klingons made Maisie cry, which I suppose is appropriate?
It was also the weekend that we became official Showmasters models. ("We're like-plus size boothbabes!" I cheerfuly exclaimed at one point when I was incoherant with exhaustion, a statement that is wrong in every particularly, but I knew what I meant. At the time.) This is slightly because the marketing guy was hitting on Lucy, but hell, it worked out well for us. We ended up doing publicity stuff at the Iron Throne replica, but in return we got free copies of the photos and invited to a SUPER SECRET AFTER PARTY.
Yeah, we're fucking cool.
Also we saw Chris Judge a lot. Coming out of doors, passing us in crowds, all that stuff. Louise was the only one who went for the autograph, with Frank who emerged mid-afternoon because that is sort of thing he does.
Before that, we needed to wind down for the day and relax a little. We wanted to go out for dinner, but it turns out requests for nine people and a high chair at the last minute are vaguely impossible. In the end, we stayed in our hotel room and got pizza while drinking wine and in the case of the party-goers, got ready to go out and PARTAY (everyone else looked in amusement and horror and the Spice Girls make Maisie cry).
Fiona, Lucy, Tali, Fiona and I headed out into the Milton Keynes night (there's a weird statement) shortly after this.The party ws quite good fun, for something that was crucially free and we had vaguely gatecrashed. There was far too long a time with acoustic music and boring stuff, but man, when the music went we rocked the party right. This may have something to do with my shouting "SHOTS!" during a boring bit. Only Fiona and I partook, but hell, it was fun anyway.
We sang and we danced, with three of us wearing corsets and the other two look foxy and fierce. I miss dancing about like a crazy fool with my friends. During Pink's 'So What?' (second best to to Raise Your Glass which is sort of our anthem) we were apparently so effective we made a Klingon dance with us. Like, an actual Klingon from Star Trek V - actress called Spice Williams. I knew who she was but we were under orders from the marketing guy to 'be cool' which we were having a bash at, mostly by ignoring Chris Judge who was SAT RIGHT BEHIND US ALL NIGHT A PATTERN EMERGES. Anyway, after we danced with her, she leaned over to me and cheerfully exclaimed she loved my corset.
"Er, thanks!" I howled, trying to be cool, and then noticed her midriff tattoos. "I LOVE YOUR TATTOOS!"
"I have them everywhere!" she told me, and then flashed me her pants. That was A Moment. She showed me the Klingon symbol on her ankle, at which point Being Cool failed.
"QA'PLAH!" I howled happily. She asked for a photo with us. A theme continued.
The night ended shortly after this, probably for the best given that Fiona and I had voices like Barry White from the vodka and the singing. We sang along to Doctorin' The TARDIS on the way home (Lucy and Pippa very kindly drove) proving it is indeed possible to sound just that weird.
The next day I sounded like a small family of frogs had nested in my throat. Fiona sounded great. Such is life. Still, whilst occasionally coughing up Philippe and his small family I hoisted myself into my corset and my cape, and we headed off to be the Avengers!
I had literally the best day of cosplaying in my life. The thing is that dressing up is hella fun at the best of times, but this was absolutely awesome. At the beginning it was slightly fear inducing, as I had to go and get some fried breakfast from Asda (read above re: shots) and, you know, cape. However, once we got into the convention itself it was SO MUCH FUN. Lots of small children passed up with whispers of "Mum! It's Thor/Captain America/etc!" and I had loads of photo requests. Someone asked to give me a hug in the dealers room when I was trying to buy socks. Plus, the Mjolnir that Fiona had kindly made for me had a lot of heft to it whilst also being light, making sure that I looked suitably strong and awesome. Good times!
One slight issue was the fact that it as the only warm day I have ever experienced at a Milton Keynes Collectormania. Normally, despite being May, it's as cold as the Antartic, so I felt that a Thor costume involving a lot of black leggings etc would be fine and in fact slightly cosy. Typically it was a beautiful summer's day. At one point we had to go and get ice cream, given that most of us were in ridiculously hot clothes as well. Fiona was Nick Fury and had to hold Captain 'Ann' America's shield over her head to prevent burning around her eye patch!
I also met Bernard Cribbins on Sunday, and Bernard Cribbins is SUCH a nice man! He seemed to not mind I was dressed like, well, Thor.
I also stalked Ann to a lot of Game of Thrones guests (alas for being slightly broke) and generally had an awesome time.
In the evening we failed miserably in getting a table for anywhere again, so ended up going for takeaway in the room. To be honest, that might have been for the best, given that on going back to our respective hotels more than a couple of us ended up sleeping! Still, we all perked up when Katie and el famile came back to our hotel and we ordered Chinese food and watched Maisie cheerfully destroy her rice crackers all over my bed.
Alas, Tali had to leave early that night, and as we quietened down Fiona cheerfully recommended we watch a film called 'Drag Me To Hell'. It was fairly awful but in an awesome way, and a good way to follow out the evening. Satanic goats are the way forward, it seems.
We had a lie-in on Monday, which was absolutely blissful, before heading in the general direction of the convention. There weren't any guests I could afford to go for, but I did go with Louise to meet Carol Ann Ford, who weirdly still looks exactly like Susan! Which was pretty awesome.
Dressed in normal clothes, Katie and I ended up doing a Primark run rather than me going back into the dealers room, mostly because if I had gone back in there I would have lost all of the small amount left in my bank balance!
After lunch, we ended up heading home. Fiona was very good in the car despite a minor meltdown in Tottenham Hale ("THERE ARE NO ROAD MARKINGS! WHAT IS THAT BUS DOING? OH GOD WHAT'S HAPPENING") and we stopped off for a cup of tea before she headed home.
I wish I had done this write up a little earlier, because it was such a lovely weekend. I think a lot of us had stuff going on, with work and family and home and all sorts of things - but for a full weekend we had a great time with our friends and dressed up and danced and basically had some escapism. It was awesome.
Plus, I had hardcore postcon blues this week. Work was rubbish for long and various reasons, and I lost my umbrella and generally rubbish stuff. Luckily I have today 'off' and now I've cleaned the flat I'm going to watch Parks and Recreation all day and tonight make a Sunday roast. This is all good stuff.
In the run up to the weekend I had, coincidentally, the busiest and most professionally fulfilling week for a long time. I organised the shit out of things, was personally thanked by board members for doing stuff, and as a result of some of this stuff we've got two new starts. NOT BAD INNINGS METHINKS.
It did mean, however, that I felt I deserved rocking up super casual on Friday and bumbling off at 4.30pm. If anyone asked where I was going, I had what I thought was a bulletproof response of a weekend with the girls. I had not anticipated follow up questions.
"So where are you off to?"
"Weekend with the girls! It's great to catch up!" (Which, you know, true!)
"Oh right! Anywhere nice?"
Deer in headlights moment. "... Milton Keynes?"
"Why?!"
"Er... convention. Er. Dressed as Thor. Er, I'm leaving now."
Ah well. Still, I got home, frantically finished packing and gulped down a cup of tea just in time for Fiona to turn up, who was my lift buddy on this occasion. I drove to Milton Keynes with the usual panic and horror that London and then lots of roundabouts tend to entail, but only managed to get lost on the road of the hotel, which I'm going to take as a win. We weren't staying in Milton Keynes proper, but rather a significantly cheaper Travelodge just on the outskirts. To be honest at £22 a head for three nights I had no complaints.
By the time we arrived, Ann, Lucy, Pippa and Louise werre already waiting for us, and all professed being starving. Although we had a restaurant next to the Travlodge, it was full, so we girded our loins and headed back out to central Milton Keynes to a place my SatNAv called 'The Hub'. Looking for a cheap yet emtpty restuarant, we ended up Cafe Rouge and had a catch up, giggles, all the usual stuff.
About half way through our meal, Ann gave a slightly muffled squeal. "CHRIS JUDGE JUST WENT INTO THE TOILETS!"
So we sat and tried, in a non-creepy way, to watch Teal'c come out of the loo. We're classy. Our waiter shared our mad excitement, though, and Chris Judge was in fact having a fag when we left the restaurant. Squeeing occured. I first met Chris Judge at about the same time I met
loneraven, but still, pretty cool.Chrus Judge was a fairly large component of the weekend, in the end.
We arrived back at the Travelodge to find a Tali, and once we'd got her in and made her some tea, those of us cosplaying as the Avengers did a quick outfit test, and then we fell into bed.
We got up fairly early the next day, and I dived in the shower as early as I could in order to get dressed and head out to the other room for important tea based purposes. Saturday heralded a now-traditional TrekBabes day, so as we all ventured out in our small dresses the wind was biting and harsh. Typical.
Still, as we danced awkwardly in our respective queues (Jenna Louise Coleman for me, Ann, Lucy and Pippa; Gillian Anderson for Fiona and Louise) the sun at least shone periodically. Plus, we all got our required virutal queueing tickets nice and early and bounced off to Asda, where we found Katie plus Maisie and Mohawk! TrekBabes fully assembled, we settled down to have an Awesome Day.
I met Steven Robertson from Being Human and Ripper Street because, well, Fiona told me to. It was a good investment! He was lovely and happy to burble about Ripper Street, and was very cheerful about his first experience at the convention. I also met Ellie Kendrick, also being Being Human (and, you know, some little show called Game of Thrones?) and it ended up being a rather Game of Thrones/Being Human weekend, which is no bad thing. I also met Jenna Louise Coleman who was SO LOVELY. She did personalisations! Also TEENY TINY though. Tali leaned over in the queue and said "Hey, she's like the tiny dude off the cheese advert!" which made me giggle inappropriately. True, though.
We had a lot of photos taken of us all on the Saturday. Firstly, becasue we were taking turns at Give Maisie Cuddles (and attempt to take some of the weight off Katie and Mohawk for five minutes) which led to photo opportunities, and secondly because we were really weirdly popular in our TrekBabes post. I got photos with a great Daniel Jackson (season 1!!!) and also a Guinan, who shyly asked for a photo with me and Lucy. I was surprised. We all got a photo with two very effective Klingons, and it turns out that Klingons made Maisie cry, which I suppose is appropriate?
It was also the weekend that we became official Showmasters models. ("We're like-plus size boothbabes!" I cheerfuly exclaimed at one point when I was incoherant with exhaustion, a statement that is wrong in every particularly, but I knew what I meant. At the time.) This is slightly because the marketing guy was hitting on Lucy, but hell, it worked out well for us. We ended up doing publicity stuff at the Iron Throne replica, but in return we got free copies of the photos and invited to a SUPER SECRET AFTER PARTY.
Yeah, we're fucking cool.
Also we saw Chris Judge a lot. Coming out of doors, passing us in crowds, all that stuff. Louise was the only one who went for the autograph, with Frank who emerged mid-afternoon because that is sort of thing he does.
Before that, we needed to wind down for the day and relax a little. We wanted to go out for dinner, but it turns out requests for nine people and a high chair at the last minute are vaguely impossible. In the end, we stayed in our hotel room and got pizza while drinking wine and in the case of the party-goers, got ready to go out and PARTAY (everyone else looked in amusement and horror and the Spice Girls make Maisie cry).
Fiona, Lucy, Tali, Fiona and I headed out into the Milton Keynes night (there's a weird statement) shortly after this.The party ws quite good fun, for something that was crucially free and we had vaguely gatecrashed. There was far too long a time with acoustic music and boring stuff, but man, when the music went we rocked the party right. This may have something to do with my shouting "SHOTS!" during a boring bit. Only Fiona and I partook, but hell, it was fun anyway.
We sang and we danced, with three of us wearing corsets and the other two look foxy and fierce. I miss dancing about like a crazy fool with my friends. During Pink's 'So What?' (second best to to Raise Your Glass which is sort of our anthem) we were apparently so effective we made a Klingon dance with us. Like, an actual Klingon from Star Trek V - actress called Spice Williams. I knew who she was but we were under orders from the marketing guy to 'be cool' which we were having a bash at, mostly by ignoring Chris Judge who was SAT RIGHT BEHIND US ALL NIGHT A PATTERN EMERGES. Anyway, after we danced with her, she leaned over to me and cheerfully exclaimed she loved my corset.
"Er, thanks!" I howled, trying to be cool, and then noticed her midriff tattoos. "I LOVE YOUR TATTOOS!"
"I have them everywhere!" she told me, and then flashed me her pants. That was A Moment. She showed me the Klingon symbol on her ankle, at which point Being Cool failed.
"QA'PLAH!" I howled happily. She asked for a photo with us. A theme continued.
The night ended shortly after this, probably for the best given that Fiona and I had voices like Barry White from the vodka and the singing. We sang along to Doctorin' The TARDIS on the way home (Lucy and Pippa very kindly drove) proving it is indeed possible to sound just that weird.
The next day I sounded like a small family of frogs had nested in my throat. Fiona sounded great. Such is life. Still, whilst occasionally coughing up Philippe and his small family I hoisted myself into my corset and my cape, and we headed off to be the Avengers!
I had literally the best day of cosplaying in my life. The thing is that dressing up is hella fun at the best of times, but this was absolutely awesome. At the beginning it was slightly fear inducing, as I had to go and get some fried breakfast from Asda (read above re: shots) and, you know, cape. However, once we got into the convention itself it was SO MUCH FUN. Lots of small children passed up with whispers of "Mum! It's Thor/Captain America/etc!" and I had loads of photo requests. Someone asked to give me a hug in the dealers room when I was trying to buy socks. Plus, the Mjolnir that Fiona had kindly made for me had a lot of heft to it whilst also being light, making sure that I looked suitably strong and awesome. Good times!
One slight issue was the fact that it as the only warm day I have ever experienced at a Milton Keynes Collectormania. Normally, despite being May, it's as cold as the Antartic, so I felt that a Thor costume involving a lot of black leggings etc would be fine and in fact slightly cosy. Typically it was a beautiful summer's day. At one point we had to go and get ice cream, given that most of us were in ridiculously hot clothes as well. Fiona was Nick Fury and had to hold Captain 'Ann' America's shield over her head to prevent burning around her eye patch!
I also met Bernard Cribbins on Sunday, and Bernard Cribbins is SUCH a nice man! He seemed to not mind I was dressed like, well, Thor.
I also stalked Ann to a lot of Game of Thrones guests (alas for being slightly broke) and generally had an awesome time.
In the evening we failed miserably in getting a table for anywhere again, so ended up going for takeaway in the room. To be honest, that might have been for the best, given that on going back to our respective hotels more than a couple of us ended up sleeping! Still, we all perked up when Katie and el famile came back to our hotel and we ordered Chinese food and watched Maisie cheerfully destroy her rice crackers all over my bed.
Alas, Tali had to leave early that night, and as we quietened down Fiona cheerfully recommended we watch a film called 'Drag Me To Hell'. It was fairly awful but in an awesome way, and a good way to follow out the evening. Satanic goats are the way forward, it seems.
We had a lie-in on Monday, which was absolutely blissful, before heading in the general direction of the convention. There weren't any guests I could afford to go for, but I did go with Louise to meet Carol Ann Ford, who weirdly still looks exactly like Susan! Which was pretty awesome.
Dressed in normal clothes, Katie and I ended up doing a Primark run rather than me going back into the dealers room, mostly because if I had gone back in there I would have lost all of the small amount left in my bank balance!
After lunch, we ended up heading home. Fiona was very good in the car despite a minor meltdown in Tottenham Hale ("THERE ARE NO ROAD MARKINGS! WHAT IS THAT BUS DOING? OH GOD WHAT'S HAPPENING") and we stopped off for a cup of tea before she headed home.
I wish I had done this write up a little earlier, because it was such a lovely weekend. I think a lot of us had stuff going on, with work and family and home and all sorts of things - but for a full weekend we had a great time with our friends and dressed up and danced and basically had some escapism. It was awesome.
Plus, I had hardcore postcon blues this week. Work was rubbish for long and various reasons, and I lost my umbrella and generally rubbish stuff. Luckily I have today 'off' and now I've cleaned the flat I'm going to watch Parks and Recreation all day and tonight make a Sunday roast. This is all good stuff.
