What I Did On My Holiday

It was an uneventful journey up to Hinckley and we arrived to be greeted warmley by all of the staff and management of the hotel who could not believe that we wouldn't be working at this convention. We've been involved at so many at that hotel, they think of us as part of the hotel team. Many, many friends had doubts at our abilities to keep uninvolved and, I must admit, some of the egging on by the tech team, the_magician and others was difficult to resist. The fact that I assisted a young man to identify where his programme item was on did not consitute work. In fact, I couldn't make it out so took him along to Ops where the wonderful, but busy,  cobrabaysorted him out.  

We attended the Opening Ceremony which was MC'd perfectly once again by  the_magician and we chatted at our table with total strangers for some time. The ice-breaker was quite amusing but we couldn't get anywhere with the quiz so we escaped to the coffee bar to sit and chat with old friends. And that, yerronner, is why we completely missed the Filking AND the Ceilidh which I'd earmarked for a visit. We went to bed late. And I must have had something funny in my wine because I awoke Saturday with an almighty headache.

We tried breakfast Saturday morning and concluded that the hotel had not improved on their catering front since the last Discworld convention in August. Nor did it overly concern us as we had other plans for the day and evening. I attended the First_timers meeting in the Hanson suite at 10am because this was the first time I'd ever attended a Redemption convention and wanted to know what it was like from the other side. I was seriosly impressed with the floor costumes that day and, on looking in on the fancy dress rehersals, but not interfeering, I could see that it was going to be an excellent event. Late morning, we visited friends in Leicester and, on our way home, picked up sandwiches from Sainsburys. I did a trawl of the dealers' room and obtained a beautiful satin-like suit for lewis_p_bear.  That evening we dined across the road at the lovely fish restaurant which, while the food was wonderful, the price was something to behold. Meeting friends again in the coffee bar, we set up camp, ourselves and lewis_p_bear, and sat drinking, chatting and catching up with gossip until it was time for bed. And that, yerronner, is why we completely missed the fancy dress, the filking - in fact any programme items that evening. And there must have been something wrong with my wine again because I was a little unsteady on my feet going up the stairs.

Sunday, up bright and early, avoided breakfast, got coffee. Popped in and out of a few panels, gave up on the Lego workshop as it was a tie between this and the "It's poo but we like it" panel to which we arrived late but had bags of fun, laughs and groans dredging up all those cheesy old programmes. It was like being in confession. Quite cathartic. Another trip around the dealers room - this time to seek out a buyer for my STNG video collection - then hovered around until the closing ceremony. 

Which was excellent.  watervole got a well deserved round of applause as did the whole crew, the guests, the hotel and I was particularly pleased that   micavitygot a mention for his first stint as Head of Tech. He and his able crew worked it like true professionals. I got confused with the RotU results because there seemed to be twice as many votes as voters, everyone was making alliances on the fly and yet, somehow, the loser won. How does that work? Oh well, all in good fun.

After a quick change into something slinky, we went back to the bar to sit up and chat and sing and wander around simply enjoying the atmosphere. At one point, I managed to persuade The Bloke and GS to swap shirts in the middle of the coffee bar. If anyone has photos, I'd love to see them. Sadly, we were asked to keep the singing down - and that's the main problem with not booking out the whole hotel for a con - we'd already been asked to move from elsewhere. I was also accosted by a couple of mundanes asking what we were all about and "respecting everyone's right for self expression[1], but aren't you all a bit wierd?". I could not be offended.

[1] English translation of the drunken, inarticulate statement.

Went to bed early. Slept well. Awoke quite refreshed and determined to avoid breakfast. Was that really tinned fruit cocktail they were serving? But, but, everyone was leaving. I got in as many "goodbyes" as I could when I went down to pay the bill (which was right!) and then, when we'd finished packing, we took the stuff out to the car before returning for one last sit in the coffee bar and one last chance to accost people as they left. People looked tired but happy. I heard from many people that this was the best Redemption ever. For my part, it certainly was. I had time to relax, I won my bet with colleagues that I could do a convention without working, I met up with friends I only ever see at conventions and I got the chance to dress up and be told I looked lovely.