I met a fellow BDer!!

[Faramir Jones]

It was really great to have seen so many of my fellow-Downers at the convention!

Greenie and Pomegranate I was particularly interested to see. I had been discussing with them, or rather the first, about both possibly taking a trip to Ireland; so it was very nice to meet them in the flesh.

Hooky, your portrayal of Turin's death scene on the Saturday was very nice, and provoked me to ask two questions: 1) Would things have been different if Morwen had warned her son against listening to strange swords?; 2) If Gurthang had been used to cut the lovely cake we had that night, would it decompose, turn all the people who ate it evil, or cause the dragon and Bilbo on it to come to life?

In terms of what you said about me:

Faramir Jones
We met briefly and I went to his lecture on Law and Hobbits. It was great and I really respect the time and effort Jones puts in. He's always got a neat view on the issues that I hadn't thought of before and is always a pleasure to hear out. And having a cool accent doesn't hurt, either.

Thanks to you and others for turning up. About my accent, it's the first time I've heard it called cool. Not that I'm complaining...

Mithalwen, a lovely and amusing account of what you, Bêthberry, and Poison Ivy got up to. If anyone else wants to put up what they were doing before the convention, please do. I'd certainly read it.

Galadriel55, you finally know now what I look like.

Bêthberry, your talk on Tolkien and Nonsense was also great. A big thanks from me, and I'm sure from all the others, for the photo of so many of us (including Brian).

Esty, that was a very memorable talk on the merits of the musical adaptations of the Walking Song. I agree with your conclusion.

narfforc, it was good to see you and talk with you again.

I'll be posting my view of the convention, and of what I was doing before it began.

[A Little Green]

I thought I was abominably late doing this. Then I checked a calendar and found out it has only been three weeks. (!!!) Anyhow, it is about time I recounted this summer's 'Downer adventures!

They began with a couple of days in Copenhagen with Rune. He received a proper shock when we arrived, as I had failed to inform him beforehand that we would be arriving with newly-shaved heads. He proved to be an excellent tour guide with an astonishing amount of knowledge about pretty much every building and statue (though sadly not the statue that resembled Senator Palpatine). Our stay in Copenhagen included late nights, live jazz, rider statues, red lights and beer. Rune was the same as ever - making fun of people all the time, but as soon as someone's in trouble he suddenly becomes the most caring person in the world.

Copenhagen was followed by a month of 'Downer-free travelling, at the end of which we found ourselves in a cottage filled with people who are certifiably insane. And lovely, of course.

There were two among that number whom I had not met before. Guinevere definitely has some elf in her. I was also very impressed by her and Esty's talent for recognising flowers and herbs and other plants. It's a pity I didn't get to talk to her more, but maybe next time?

Oliphaunts_Rule was another new acquaintance; calm, sensible and down-to-earth for most of the time compared to the insanity of the rest of us, she could surprise you with a sudden instance of absurd humour.

Esty was the darling I remembered from last year; I enjoyed sitting next to her on lectures as it turned out we get the same jokes. She is also an excellent cook and an invaluable friend, and a quote-machine of the highest order!

Squatter was even more of a darling than I remembered, he made us feel instantly at home at the cottage (where the rest of them had already spent a week). He served us mead and showed unexpected talents at various fields such as captioning photographs ("people" or "things" or "a castle" or "people in front of a castle"), not to mention simultaneously teaching Old English poetry and serving as a footrest!

Kath was lovely as always; always cheerful, always a sweetheart, and always ready to cuddle! I am especially grateful to her for keeping a Gollum warm during our masquerade, as you can imagine I was more or less freezing in those nylons!

Oddwen has the loveliest evil grin, and she impressed me with her extensive Finnish vocabulary which included, among other things, "I am a sociopath". She isn't, however, even though we mostly communicated with grunts and squeals and other animal noises.

What can I say that is enough about Hookbill? He was the life and soul of the Moot. Such a generous, kind, responsible person - and a complete nutter at the same time! We told him he should move to Finland. I hope he does. I remember a particularly cute moment when he was driving Pom and myself to a bus stop and Imagine started playing, and the three of us sang along and it didn't feel cheesy at all.

Then there were the ones I only met during my too-brief stay at Return of the Ring, namely Bêthberry and Faramir Jones. I had met Bêth two years ago, though equally briefly, and it was a joy to see her again. She is just such a good person, very warm and open and kind; I hope that someday we'll have time for a proper long talk about everything and nothing.

I was sorry that me and Pom's travel plans got screwed up in a way that prevented us from meeting Faramir already in Dublin, but fortunately we got to see him in RotR. He was very much a gentleman, calm and polite and easy to talk to. And I agree with Hookbill - the accent is cool. (And, given that I had only just spent a month in Ireland, it made me feel curiously at home! )

There was, of course, also the delegation of Finns and Quasi-Finns (aka Legate). Of them, suffice to say that
- It was probably appropriate that Pom and I should dress as two personas of the same character as that was more or less what we were after over a month of travelling together;
- Lommy's achievements of the week included filling the kitchen with smoke while frying bacon, and helping the Gollums dress (and laughing at them in the process);
- Agan, unsurprisingly, amused herself by biting people and, a bit more surprpsingly, was very easy to steal hats from; and
- Legate sang a Christmas carol with an impressive falsetto, and I spent almost half my time at RotR being geeky with him on religion- and spirituality-themed lectures.

To sum up - I love you, folks. Every one of you. And lastly and most importantly: where there's a whip, there's a way.

[Lalaith]

Well yesterday was a red-letter day for me as not only did I go to my first ever Tolkien event, but I also had my first-ever RL meet-up with a Downer.
Mith kindly offered me a spare ticket to the 75th anniversary Hobbit talk at the British Library.
We met up early so that we could first see the Writing Britain exhibition, also the BL. It was amazing. My only complaint was that we only had an hour and I would have liked to have spent at least twice that time there. Some highlights for me were (of course) Tolkien's watercolour of Hobbiton, a beautiful manuscript of the Canterbury Tales, Jane Austen's notebooks and the A4 notepad on which JK Rowling wrote the Philosopher's Stone.
The event was excellent. Brian Sibley (much to Mith's delight) also Alan Roberts, who was a really engaging speaker - he talked about the two versions of the Hobbit (and prefers the first) - plus Jane Johnson and David Brawn.
There was also chap from the Inner Magic Circle who did a very dramatic reading of Gandalf's rescue of Bilbo and the dwarves from the Great Goblin. I did hope, childishly, that he would do some wizardry for us as well, but the magic was purely of a literary nature. It was interesting to see too what a mixed crowd made up the audience, shows what a wide demographic Tolkien reaches.

We then had something to eat on the South Bank before Mith set off back to the south coast - unfortunately it was a journey of tortuous diversions and delays (which she may share with you). As I said to her, I hoped it hasn't put her off visiting the metropolis again. It was really lovely to spend an actual face-to-face evening with someone I've spent so long cyberchatting to over the years.

[Mithalwen]

I can only second Lalaith's sentiment on the last point (and a few others). The exhibition was fascinating. Tolkien's picture has the vibrancy of an illuminated manuscript whicb you don't quite get in reproductions and it was fascinating to see the different working methods displayed by the various authors from Stalla Gibbons' scrawled on scraps , JK Rowling's cheap A4 loose leaf pad and biro and the bound proof that Jane Austen wrote on little slips of paper (A6 approx) that she could slip under her blotter if disturbed... and her handwriting is tiny and precise.

I was ridiculously excited to hear Brian Sibley and he read marvellously from the book and while I enjoyed the other speakers and particularly seeing the various illustrations some of which are "new" to most, that was the real highlight. Apart of course meeting Lalaith herself who is lovely and funny and considerately fierce (no I have saved that seat for my friend - she has a stick!) and patient as I hobbled after her bright feet.. she was the perfect companion and I hope we will meet again somewhen.

Oh yes... I do see rather doomed by transport problems when meeting Downers.... the journey up was fine this time but someone had driven a tractor into a rail bridge at Basingstoke rendering the line unsafe.. which meant the train I caught was theoretically the one of an hour previous and didn't leave even so for a further twenty minutes, was packed until Woking where they had a train that would go to but not through Basingstoke leaving the few destined for the West heading East to Guildford and Havant before heading back in the right direction picking up a relief crew at Southampton for the onward journey. I had taken the train a couple of stops up the line to give myself a wider choice of train and so then had a half an hour drive but at least my car was warm and comfortable. I got home at about quarter past two in the morning and it should have been just after midnight... but well worth it.. though

[Bêthberry]

Galadriel55 and I were Ladies Who Lunch today and that gave me an opportunity to hand deliver some very important Shire Mail for her from Mithalwen.

She loves her wolf cub!



PS. Lunch was lovely too and we had a fantastic time catching up on Downs and Tolkien news since had last mooted. I'm so glad Galadriel lives in the same city as me.

[Mithalwen]

Hurrah!! Thank you for Shirriffing again.(The wolfcub was acquired on the Southfarthing Minimoot visit to the Wildlife park .. and since Galadriel and I werewolfed together it seemed apropriate).

[Galadriel55]

*G55 huffs and puffs as she drags her legs - eyes? - to the thread*

As Bb has already said, we have met today and talked about Downs, Tolkien, and everything, and since Bethberry has been to half a dozen cool places with ten times as many cool people since our previous moot, I pestered her about them, and she *gasp* didn't even mind!

Also, she gave me some very lovely mail.

Look at that little cub. And now look at me. Can you see the resemblance? Don't we just have the same face? Right? Right? When we're gonna grow up we're going to be as vicious as MamaWolf and we're going to feast on Seers every Night.