Subject: Oh, hey, you got the report up already. Good stuff!
Author:
Posted on: 2014-09-10 14:08:00 UTC
As you know, my camera died a "mysterious" death (yes, I'm looking at you, Phobos) while we were trying to drag the Irish Samurai's pet away from the supply tent, so I won't be doing my own full writeup, but I thought I'd throw up my thoughts.
Actually getting to KittyEden's house on such short notice was something of a challenge; our flight was routed through Gaza, Burma Myanmar, and Amundsen-Scott Base, so it was, uh, something of a wild ride. The UK contingent were among the first to arrive, which meant I was the one who had to sort out the increasingly complex sleeping rota during the setup period. Including sofas, sleeping bags, camp beds, and the artificial treehouse (that's 'house in artificial tree'), we had about ten spaces available for a hundred people, and that assumes we could find three people willing to share the waterbed. It was halfway between 'entertaining exercise in logistics' and 'sleepless hell on Earth'. Thanks go to Seychelles for helping with the spreadsheet-wrangling - I couldn't've done it without you.
You've covered our morally-dubious fundraising efforts planning and such, so I won't bother to cover it again. I will say that it was a bit rotten of you lot not to bring me some hot chocolate when you wandered off; I know I drank it, but I can't stand coffee.
I guess you were asleep during the most exciting part of the drive over - the breakdown! Pretzel was snapping away desperately with his camera, but you've already shown how well that worked. Still, the sight of Snowy the Sane Fangirl fending off colossal squid while Sergio Turbo worked on the engine isn't one I'm going to forget soon. The bioluminescent fish really set off the scene well, I thought.
And yes, for the observant among you, that was when I let Nesh take over most of the driving. I'll say yet again that I'm convinced I didn't hit that rock - it fell under after we'd already stopped. Honest.
I know I was quite vocal in my objections to the 'Campsite Beyond The Goblin City', but I'm not afraid to admit, the final result had a certain flair. I could've wished for better neighbours (I will say no more; you know who you are), but overall it captured the spirit of the PPC, and of PPC Gatherings, very well.
I'm quite disgruntled about your pancake-thieving ways - couldn't you have waited until the rest of us were up? Just because you weren't kept awake half the night by the Boarder Snatcher of Wisconsin, doesn't mean you should lord it over the rest of us. You don't know what we saw, out in the mists! (Actually there technically weren't mists, but it works better this way) And frankly, given your shameful attitude towards pancakes, I'm not going to tell you.
The Ring Quest was great fun, of course. Thanks to firemagic for letting me use her sleeping bag as Gandalf's cloak - sorry I made such a mess of it! To be fair, I hadn't really expected Iximaz to be actually on fire as the balrog - though I was impressed! And to my 'Eagles of the Misty Mountains', SkarmorySilver and Storme Hawk - you were great. I loved the sound effects in particular. And, um, sorry for clonking you round the head with my staff; you know how it is.
Hide and Seek! See, I was convinced PoorCynic was It, but then Pretzel was running around finding people, and Phobos was up that tree playing lookout... was it actually just 'everyone whose name begins with P'? Except then what was VixenMage doing in the- well, anyway, it was fun, if inconclusive.
Oh, stars, New New Hogwarts. Kaitlyn and I took over what we decided was the Astronomy Tower - because it didn't have a roof, and was high enough that we could see past the treetops. Lovely view, if a bit cold - I spent about an hour trying to pitch our tent on the wooden floor before giving up and stealing borrowing a bunch of blankets. I've, uh, still got a couple of them, actually, so if you're missing a Fourth Doctor's Scarf blanket, let me know and I'll get it back to you.
It's a shame you skipped over the latter part of the Gathering. I think the highlight was probably Battletent Galactica vs. Startent Enterprise vs. the Imperial Tent Destroyer (and Desdendelle's Captain Kirk was spot on). Or maybe the Great Magical Showdown? Your use of toy rockets as lightning bolts was ingenious, and as for the Cassie's 'burning' pinecones - well, what more need be said?
I have a complaint about Sues Versus Agents, and no, it's not still about the fact that Outhra totally cheated in the pre-post-toss. It's the fact that we never did swap sides. I mean, my Suvian Army was all well and good (thanks to Dann for improvising that pink dye!), but eatpraylove's 'only agents can have guns, because Suvians wouldn't know what to do with them' was a little too convenient. It would've been great fun to stalk around in black for a while. I demand a rematch!
Good shot of the feast - though I notice you didn't get there until Ailavyn had already made off with the sausage rolls. Shame - they were really good, too. Still, I suppose she made up for it in advance with those marshmallows.
Nice word-choice - yes, Nesh took the wheel; she didn't let me drive at all. You weren't there when she managed to run us down a thousand feet of mountainside due to not having slept since I don't know when; it was a wild ride, let me tell you! And then there was Sergio and Dann's 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Button'... sorry, guys, I know we said we're not going to talk about it, but really? I can't believe you thought that would work.
Basically, it was great fun - but not exactly relaxing! I think we need to wait a few years before we do it all again... and next time, let's avoid the ocean routes, okay?
hS