At this year's Oxonmoot there was a great meeting of Downers. A record 9! Here is a picture, stolen from Esty, of 8 of us...
From left to right: (front)
Finwen as Beleg Cuthalion and
myself as the Professor; (back row)
Estelyn Telcontar,
The Squatter of Amon Rudh,
Rune Son of Bjarne,
Kath,
Poison Ivy, and
Guinevere. Narfforc was ill, apparently, and so was not present. But he was there in spirit. I believe it was gin.
Finwen is the one who got me onto the Downs all those years ago. Her account lies dormant at the moment due to the forgotten password. We've known one another for years, though, off the Downs, and spent far too much time watching Doctor Who and spotting Tolkien references.
I'd met
Esty last year at Oxonmoot. She's always very cheerful and I remain intensely jealous of her artistic abilities. Her lecture on Musical Instruments in Middle Earth was excellent.
Squatter I had also met the previous year. He was very much the same old weirdo with a liking for waistcoats. We shared many ridiculous jokes about things like 'Sky deemed boring; government blamed'.
Rune was a fellow I'd not met. Gosh, what an odd person he is. When he wasn't accusing me of being a mushroom, he made pleasant conversation. I was frustrated with him in the quiz, though.
Kath was a surprise. I'd not heard she was coming. So it was nice to meet her. She was very pleasant and engaged in our ridiculous jokes with gusto. Which is always nice.
Poison Ivy, much like her Barrow Downs activity, was more of a lurker. At least with me any way. I didn't get chance to have any real conversations. Which was a shame.
It was nice to meet
Guinevere again, thought we did not talk an awful lot. Which is always sad.
I met
Narfforc once or twice over the course of the moot. He was, as usual, bizarre and twisted in his humour. Which I loved. Continuing the 'Aragorn and Gandalf went in the van' joke for no real reason at one point.
That's all I can think to say at the moment...