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hathycolSo this weekend I had a weekend with the lovely Tali and Lucy and we went to LFCC AND DID SOME TOURISTY SUMMER STUFF. We were totally awesome like that.
Tali arrived on Friday night, a Friday I had not spent productively. Although I had a productive Friday morning, I went out for a birthday lunch with some of the admin girls. On the way back, it dawned on us there were no directors in. So we hid in the basement bar of the building and had a large glass of wine before I went back to work, which was in retrospect a terrible idea as I managed to totally forget that I was meant to take Monday for a training course. Whoops.
However, I was correctly distracted because Tali was on her way! Her satnav, despite trying to send her somewhere else, actually led her directly to my work. We went home very slowly due to problems with the buses and spent a lovely Friday night chatting and watching some TV. We had a leisurely morning, too. Lucy was due to arrive just before 11, so I cooked brunch for us both. I had French toast for the first ever time a couple of weeks ago so I decided to make it for us, with fruit and enough sqooshy cream to drown a battleship. It was jolly nice, if I say so myself.
Lucy arrived not long after we'd washed up, so after a cup of tea we headed out into the wide world of London. One of my favourite things to do is to go for Borough Market for lunch and then amble along the South Bank, and we were rewarded with brilliant weather. Plus Lucy and Tali liked the market, which doesn't necessarily always happen as it's very crowded! We ate delicious food. It was the first time I'd ever eaten koshari, an Egyptian street food that is basically "HERE, HAVE SOME CARBS WITH YOUR CARBS" (seriously, it's rice, pasta, vermicelli noodles, tomatoe sauce, lentils, chickpeas, AMAZING DELICIOUSNESS) and we sat in the shade at the corner of the market and consumed. We then toddled back for enormous cookies and pieces of cake and some cider from the cider stall. What more can you ask for than a delicious lunch like that with your friends?
Digesting, we perambulated along the Thames and managed to snag a table as a riverside pub, so drank expensive drinks again in the shade while the river gently sloshed and we waited on Richie. Crossing Blackfriars bridge we went to The Blackfriar pub which I had heard had an amazing interior; it was in fact full of REALLY FREAKY MONKS HEADS so we grabbed a table outside as soon as could!
Fiona joined us post-quiddithc practice and we got some more food before heading home. It was an evening of Psychobitches, showing Tali The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt for the first time (we shouted "WHERE IS YOUR ADULT?" on more than one occasion the next day) before the depressing realisation that those of us who were con bound had to get up in about six hours. Oh dear.
We only had tickets for Sunday due to it selling out on the Saturday, which really surprised me. So we got up super early and got the first train out of the station, dressed in Trek garb, OBVIOUSLY. It was a good moment when we finally got to Russell Square and could wave at Thor. We got a bit lost on the way because I forgot they had changed venue, but we made it in reasonably time, settling down to wait in the queue, periodically drinking from the flask of tea I had made that was a disaster because it turned out the flask tasted of coffee and chocolate instead. It was a hot, brown, caffeinated drink and that is really the best we can say. Tali dubbed it 'chocofftea', a name that stuck. (Pronounce it like Chakotay)
Being the only one on a guest hunt, we swarmed in eventually and picked up virtual tickets for Catherine Tate, Richard Dean Anderson and Hayley Atwell. ALL OF THE EXCITEMENT. The con itself was huge, over several floors, and I think we still missed out on some of it. As we had middling VQ tickets for them all we spent an enjoyable couple of hours looking at tat before trundling into the Star Trek talk we only knew was happening because three other girls in Trek dresses told us. It was held by Tim Russ, who was a engaging speaker and talked about Renegades, and Garrett Wang who was brilliant. He did uncanny impressions of a lot of the cast (his Shatner, Takei and Janeway were all astonishingly good), wore a K-9 t-shirt and enthusiastically talked about Doctor Who and overall was a Grade A human being. WELL DONE HARRY KIM.
Feet refreshed, we managed to get as far as Catherine Tate who was... not that good? Really? She wasn't personalising and just gave me a 'thank you' despite having no queue and me asking her about Psychobitches. A bit of a shame, really. So we stopped off for tea - bought from the venue this time, no chocofftea - and sandwiches before once again assaulting the tat area. I was really good this time! My main purchase as a £5 wooden spatula. Many of these had beautiful geeky designs but the one I got simply reads "I WAS GROOT" which made me cackle because I am an awful person. I instead worked on persuading Lucy to buy lots of comic books and Tali to buy lots of jewellery and an Andorian bobble head. "Have nothing in your house that you do not absolutely need or brings you joy," I counselled. "How would an Andorian bobble head NOT bring you joy?"
It was not long after this that Richard Dean Anderson walked past me. I waved without thinking and smiled, and he smiled back and looked a bit confused. Then I realised exactly who I had waved and flailed incoherantly for a while. During this con we were passed, as is now traditional, by Sylvester McCoy. As is equally traditional, Lucy failed to notice. This is about the fifth time this has happened with Sylvester McCoy. Really. We were also passed by Bill Paxton, who I utterly failed to explain properly, instead describing all of the films he had never been in. Oops.
I then went and joined the wait for Hayley Atwell. I follow her on Twitter and she always seems to be lovely at cons but I got her on a bad day - she did write later she was horribly jetlagged. She was unbelieveably beautiful, of course. And whilst waiting for her to arrive I got to stare longingly at Finn Jones from across the room which is always a good point...
The day was stretching on and exhaustion and sore feet were starting to rule supreme. I turned a corner and unexpectedly found Sean Gunn, though, who I had really wanted to meet and hadn't been able to locate. He was really nice! We chatted for a bit and I actually managed to get a photo with him, which was different for this weekend.
Lucy had to leave then, which was super sad but it ha been lovely to catch up. Tali was a star, though, and bravely joined the World's Longest Wait with me for Richard Dean Anderson. My feet hurt. It was expensive. I do already have his autograph. There were no personalisations. The queue moved super slowly, and I thought perhaps not.
I'm so glad I did. As he signed my autograph, I took the time to very shakily tell him what I had wanted to for many years. I thanked him for Stargate, and for the community that had given me. I thanked him for being the spark that led, directly and indirectly, to the majority of my friends, my husband, my confidence levels, all of the good things in my life. He stopped for a moment, looked at me, asked how the marriage was going, and said that he always enjoyed hearing about these things, before clasping my hand with both of his. I was, at this point, shaking fairly heavily and then cried on my way out and then cried a lot on Tali. It was slightly the exhaustion but, well, it's been over half my life now and even if I fell out of love with SG-1 post-O'Neill, it doesn't take away all of these good things.
It was a lovely note to end on. We trundled our way home on a crowded set of Tubes, feet aching, sweating desperately, but overall happy. Tali left pretty much as soon as we got home, which was a shame simply because it's always nice to have friends around.
So that was my weekend. I am now full of con lurgy and in the process of losing my voice, which is fun. However, this weekend it's time to see more friends and go to Birmingham for a beer festival, so I shall ignore this and pretend to be healthy. Woo!
Tali arrived on Friday night, a Friday I had not spent productively. Although I had a productive Friday morning, I went out for a birthday lunch with some of the admin girls. On the way back, it dawned on us there were no directors in. So we hid in the basement bar of the building and had a large glass of wine before I went back to work, which was in retrospect a terrible idea as I managed to totally forget that I was meant to take Monday for a training course. Whoops.
However, I was correctly distracted because Tali was on her way! Her satnav, despite trying to send her somewhere else, actually led her directly to my work. We went home very slowly due to problems with the buses and spent a lovely Friday night chatting and watching some TV. We had a leisurely morning, too. Lucy was due to arrive just before 11, so I cooked brunch for us both. I had French toast for the first ever time a couple of weeks ago so I decided to make it for us, with fruit and enough sqooshy cream to drown a battleship. It was jolly nice, if I say so myself.
Lucy arrived not long after we'd washed up, so after a cup of tea we headed out into the wide world of London. One of my favourite things to do is to go for Borough Market for lunch and then amble along the South Bank, and we were rewarded with brilliant weather. Plus Lucy and Tali liked the market, which doesn't necessarily always happen as it's very crowded! We ate delicious food. It was the first time I'd ever eaten koshari, an Egyptian street food that is basically "HERE, HAVE SOME CARBS WITH YOUR CARBS" (seriously, it's rice, pasta, vermicelli noodles, tomatoe sauce, lentils, chickpeas, AMAZING DELICIOUSNESS) and we sat in the shade at the corner of the market and consumed. We then toddled back for enormous cookies and pieces of cake and some cider from the cider stall. What more can you ask for than a delicious lunch like that with your friends?
Digesting, we perambulated along the Thames and managed to snag a table as a riverside pub, so drank expensive drinks again in the shade while the river gently sloshed and we waited on Richie. Crossing Blackfriars bridge we went to The Blackfriar pub which I had heard had an amazing interior; it was in fact full of REALLY FREAKY MONKS HEADS so we grabbed a table outside as soon as could!
Fiona joined us post-quiddithc practice and we got some more food before heading home. It was an evening of Psychobitches, showing Tali The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt for the first time (we shouted "WHERE IS YOUR ADULT?" on more than one occasion the next day) before the depressing realisation that those of us who were con bound had to get up in about six hours. Oh dear.
We only had tickets for Sunday due to it selling out on the Saturday, which really surprised me. So we got up super early and got the first train out of the station, dressed in Trek garb, OBVIOUSLY. It was a good moment when we finally got to Russell Square and could wave at Thor. We got a bit lost on the way because I forgot they had changed venue, but we made it in reasonably time, settling down to wait in the queue, periodically drinking from the flask of tea I had made that was a disaster because it turned out the flask tasted of coffee and chocolate instead. It was a hot, brown, caffeinated drink and that is really the best we can say. Tali dubbed it 'chocofftea', a name that stuck. (Pronounce it like Chakotay)
Being the only one on a guest hunt, we swarmed in eventually and picked up virtual tickets for Catherine Tate, Richard Dean Anderson and Hayley Atwell. ALL OF THE EXCITEMENT. The con itself was huge, over several floors, and I think we still missed out on some of it. As we had middling VQ tickets for them all we spent an enjoyable couple of hours looking at tat before trundling into the Star Trek talk we only knew was happening because three other girls in Trek dresses told us. It was held by Tim Russ, who was a engaging speaker and talked about Renegades, and Garrett Wang who was brilliant. He did uncanny impressions of a lot of the cast (his Shatner, Takei and Janeway were all astonishingly good), wore a K-9 t-shirt and enthusiastically talked about Doctor Who and overall was a Grade A human being. WELL DONE HARRY KIM.
Feet refreshed, we managed to get as far as Catherine Tate who was... not that good? Really? She wasn't personalising and just gave me a 'thank you' despite having no queue and me asking her about Psychobitches. A bit of a shame, really. So we stopped off for tea - bought from the venue this time, no chocofftea - and sandwiches before once again assaulting the tat area. I was really good this time! My main purchase as a £5 wooden spatula. Many of these had beautiful geeky designs but the one I got simply reads "I WAS GROOT" which made me cackle because I am an awful person. I instead worked on persuading Lucy to buy lots of comic books and Tali to buy lots of jewellery and an Andorian bobble head. "Have nothing in your house that you do not absolutely need or brings you joy," I counselled. "How would an Andorian bobble head NOT bring you joy?"
It was not long after this that Richard Dean Anderson walked past me. I waved without thinking and smiled, and he smiled back and looked a bit confused. Then I realised exactly who I had waved and flailed incoherantly for a while. During this con we were passed, as is now traditional, by Sylvester McCoy. As is equally traditional, Lucy failed to notice. This is about the fifth time this has happened with Sylvester McCoy. Really. We were also passed by Bill Paxton, who I utterly failed to explain properly, instead describing all of the films he had never been in. Oops.
I then went and joined the wait for Hayley Atwell. I follow her on Twitter and she always seems to be lovely at cons but I got her on a bad day - she did write later she was horribly jetlagged. She was unbelieveably beautiful, of course. And whilst waiting for her to arrive I got to stare longingly at Finn Jones from across the room which is always a good point...
The day was stretching on and exhaustion and sore feet were starting to rule supreme. I turned a corner and unexpectedly found Sean Gunn, though, who I had really wanted to meet and hadn't been able to locate. He was really nice! We chatted for a bit and I actually managed to get a photo with him, which was different for this weekend.
Lucy had to leave then, which was super sad but it ha been lovely to catch up. Tali was a star, though, and bravely joined the World's Longest Wait with me for Richard Dean Anderson. My feet hurt. It was expensive. I do already have his autograph. There were no personalisations. The queue moved super slowly, and I thought perhaps not.
I'm so glad I did. As he signed my autograph, I took the time to very shakily tell him what I had wanted to for many years. I thanked him for Stargate, and for the community that had given me. I thanked him for being the spark that led, directly and indirectly, to the majority of my friends, my husband, my confidence levels, all of the good things in my life. He stopped for a moment, looked at me, asked how the marriage was going, and said that he always enjoyed hearing about these things, before clasping my hand with both of his. I was, at this point, shaking fairly heavily and then cried on my way out and then cried a lot on Tali. It was slightly the exhaustion but, well, it's been over half my life now and even if I fell out of love with SG-1 post-O'Neill, it doesn't take away all of these good things.
It was a lovely note to end on. We trundled our way home on a crowded set of Tubes, feet aching, sweating desperately, but overall happy. Tali left pretty much as soon as we got home, which was a shame simply because it's always nice to have friends around.
So that was my weekend. I am now full of con lurgy and in the process of losing my voice, which is fun. However, this weekend it's time to see more friends and go to Birmingham for a beer festival, so I shall ignore this and pretend to be healthy. Woo!
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Date: 2015-07-25 03:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-09 08:24 pm (UTC)