cough

one third of a Gathering report

tea_fiend — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 03:12:18 GMT

On the fifth of September, the PPC Leeds Gathering 2009 took place. I and my crappy phone camera were in attendance, and so here we have photos and ramblings.

We begin with the obligatory Me Before Setting Off picture:

I don't know what that weird wobble is all about. It's not usual behaviour from my chest, I promise. Anyway, this is me, all ready to go at the crack of dawn, aka half past eleven in the morning. Leeds is just up the M62 from where I am. We were a bit late setting off, but not terribly late arriving, thanks to the ability of cars to travel at a hundred and twenty miles an hour. Speaking of we, I suppose I'd better explain. Two non-PPCers came to Gathering, ostensibly because they wanted a day out but really because I'm a cheapskate and wanted a lift. They don't have strange internet names, because they're not strange internet people. One of them, however, is very definitely strange. This is Becky. She's a hippy:

And this is her bloke, Steve. He's an accountant, with a really nice car and a habit of breaking the speed limit:

In case you're wondering, he's looking at google maps, because it didn't occur to him to check the location of the Armouries, or the restaurant they were going to later on, or the hotel they were staying in, before setting off.

When we arrived in Leeds, we found PPCers:

That's Laburnum on the right, and Cassie on the left. Note the excellent flashpatch Cassie's sporting. Mine, of course, was on its collar round my neck, but you can't see that, because I was hiding behind the camera. Although they both had cameras too, so the other two thirds of the Gathering report might have a few pictures of me in. Only time will tell. Anyway, after a quick cigarette break, we headed in to the Royal Armouries. They're a) free and b) full of shinies:

And more shinies:

And yet more shinies. This is a decorative bayonet. So decorative, in fact, that to properly affix it to a musket would damage the decoration. Bit of a pointless weapon then, really:

We weren't quite sure if this constituted a shiny, because the associated card said it was a sword for thrusting, and my brain immediately went to a very bad place. Maybe I've spent too long in the DBS:

Of course, a photographing frenzy is obligatory at this sort of thing:

We found a little living room to have a sit down in. It had a pretty picture, though the seats were not as comfortable as they appeared:

We also found more shinies, this time in crossbow form:

And a tiger:

And an excellent rug. I totally want one of these for Christmas:

There was quite a lot of wildlife on display, actually, considering the place is supposed to be about weaponry. But I suppose the horn on this thing counts as a weapon:

And I definitely wouldn't want to meet this chap in a dark alleyway:

Although I wouldn't mind getting one for Christmas. Soon after, we abandoned the top floor of the Armouries because a) there was jousting and b) I needed a fag. No pictures of the latter, so you'll have to use your imagination, but I did get some shots of the horsies, because I know agenttrojie likes that sort of thing, and I wanted to wake her up at two in the morning by texting her blurred photos of jousting. Unfortunately, my camera excelled itself, and no blurred photos were achieved. There were three horsies. This one's name escapes me:

I couldn't get any good shots of the other two horsies, because the damned things kept moving, but I did manage one of all three:

The white one's called Charlemagne, and was deemed the overall winner of the day's events. He was ridden by a movieverse Elf, if the flowing blond hair is anything to go by. The one in the back is Saxon, who'd only been with the Armouries for two months. He was my favourite, though, because his rider had ever such a silly hat with a big red feather in.

After the jousting, I had another fag, and then we went to squee over the animals in the menagerie. Laburnum was quite taken by the ferrets:

Personally it looked like a vicious little sod to me. Laburnum had no trouble stroking it, as you can see, but the lady on the right here had her finger bitten, and the little bugger refused to let go, although, alas, I didn't have my camera out at that point:

She can keep her ferrets, anyway. I preferred the birdies:

And also, of course, the horsies. Here's Saxon again, sans silly-hatted rider:

We also found more shinies:

Which Laburnum was also quite taken with:

Then it was time to hit the gift shop: the most important part of any day out, as everyone knows. Cassie got herself tooled up:

While Laburnum decided it was time for more photographing frenzy:

After all that, we were thirsty, and Cassie and Laburnum had promised to try some Belgian fruit beers. We'd chosen the pub in honour of Ansela, who was supposed to be coming too but couldn't make it in the end, although I did manage to get a shot of her the previous week in my local:

Before we reached the pub, however, we had to walk a gauntlet of mini-moshers (I swear the buggers get smaller every year; no photos because I didn't fancy getting my phone out in front of them cos they looked scary. And twelve) before being sucked into a bookshop, where the obligatory sighting of Acacia took place:

At last we made it to the pub:

The selection of Belgian fruit beers was excellent, but unfortunately completely wiped my mind of any knowledge of my camera. I only took one photo in there. This is Steve, reading Legendary Badfic:

He cracked up before even starting to read it out loud. We'll make a strange internet person of him yet!

We then proceeded to spend several hours sitting in the pub. Laburnum disappeared at some point, and Becky and Steve went off to their restaurant, leaving Cassie and me to ramble on at one another before heading off to get our trains home at 9pm. With my usual affinity for public transport, I managed to miss mine, and had to sneak on the next one instead. However, displaying a true Yorkshireman's talent, I managed to make it home to my local just in time to persuade my dad to buy me couple of pints before last orders. Thus ended the Leeds 2009 Gathering, in an alcoholic haze. But really, did anyone expect anything else with me there?

Mog

tea_fiend — Fri, 23 May 2008 17:58:43 GMT

CRIM0027
Originally uploaded by Briggly

The second birthday tattoo. Far less painful than the first. Cìara was a little freaked out when the eyes filled with blood.

the Grim Squeaker

tea_fiend — Thu, 22 May 2008 22:45:07 GMT

Will be taking better photos once it's healed.

CRIM0025
Originally uploaded by Briggly

tea_fiend — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 08:06:44 GMT

Title Being an Account of the Love Life of Seamus Finnegan, Aged 16, as Told by His Rapidly Disappearing Sanity. Featuring a Full Cast of Cooing Girls, Disgusted Boys, Imaginary Squibs and Twinkle-Eyed Professors. With 1000 Elephants!
Author tea_fiend and agenttrojie
Pairing Seamus Finnegan and Albus Dumbledore. Unrequited, in this snippet at least.
Disclaimer We don't own them. If they're going to do things like this, we don't want to own them, either. The desire for Seamus/Dumbledore is the sole property of ilthit

Seamus Finnegan doodled idly on the desk in front of him. It wasn’t like he ever really paid that much attention in Charms; Professor Flitwick's squeaky voice bored into his skull and made concentration seem like some diseased figment of his overheated imagination. And the other figments of said imagination that paraded in front of his inner eye this morning were far more interesting, particularly the blue-eyed, gently smiling ones. With the beards. His vulture-feather quill dug deep into the desktop, the wood made spongy by centuries of abuse and scratching from bored Charms students. The quill gouged a heart, and then ‘SF&AD 4eva’, lazily. Seamus didn't really register what he was drawing; he was too busy daydreaming of berobed, twinkle-eyed sirens.
'Who's AD then, eh?' muttered Dean in his ear. Seamus woke up, suddenly.
'What?'
'Who's AD? Is she in Ravenclaw? Or Hufflepuff?'
'No,' whispered Seamus, without thinking. He would later come to greatly regret this undue haste in answering.
'Well she's not Gryffindor or I'd know her name, unless she's a first year... or is she? You sly dog!'
'No!' hissed Seamus a trifle hastily. 'She's not in first year. And that’s disgusting, by the way.'
Dean's eyes narrowed. 'You're never dating a Slytherin.'
'No, she’s, ah, she's not at school.' That could work. Dean would have no way of exposing the slight white lie. And, in all fairness, it wasn’t like the subject of Seamus’s daydreams was a student…
Dean opened his mouth to let forth a veritable flood of questions, but the gods were obviously smiling on Seamus today, as Professor Flitwick told them to pack up and head to their next class. Fortunately that was Potions, and even Dean didn’t dare risk the wrath of Snape by asking any questions unrelated to bats’ spleens and cauldron sizes.
Seamus thought he was safe.
Dean, however, had not been idle as he muttered over his cauldron and narrowly escaped setting his eyebrows on fire several times. His fertile mind had been bubbling with possibilities, all of which he sprung on Seamus at lunchtime.
'Pass the potatoes, please Neville,' said Seamus wearily, hoping that having a full mouth would excuse him from answering Dean's queries.
'She's a werewolf! Like Professor Lupin! No, wait, she'd be at school then. She's a Muggle. You're dating a Muggle. With all these fine witches around us, your heart lies with a Muggle. Seamus, I'm ashamed of you.'
'Seamus is dating a Muggle?' asked Neville, leaning closer. 'What's her name?'
'I can't believe you're dating a Muggle,' said Parvati, swinging her plait in disgust. 'Does she know about... well, about magic and things? Will you tell her?'
'Maybe he's going to give up magic for her,' said Ron, sniggering. 'Gonna become an accountant for your girlfriend?'
'She's not a Muggle!' said Seamus hotly, his face burning with embarrassment.
'Then why's she not at school?' asked Hermione.
There was only one plausible way out of this. Curse Dean and his sharp eyes! 'She's... a Squib,' said Seamus, lamely. At Beauxbatons! his mind screamed, seconds too late. A foreign girlfriend had overtones of suave sophistication. Going by the looks on the faces around him, a Squib didn’t.
‘Well,’ said Hermione, breaking the uncomfortable silence. ‘So long as she treats you better than Filch does.’
Seamus sank lower in his chair, uncomfortable in the attention of his classmates. His eyes darted round, looking for a way out of what was quickly becoming a ludicrous conversation.
‘It’s quite romantic, really,’ Lavender announced. Parvati, next to her, nodded sagely.
‘How is it romantic?’ Dean asked. ‘Even a Muggle’d be better, because you can lie, but a Squib? You’ll be spending your entire life having to do things for her.’
Hermione elbowed him sharply in the ribs. ‘That’s not very tactful, Dean!’ she hissed, but Seamus wasn’t listening. His wandering eyes had alighted on the source of all joy in his heart, and he watched, entranced, as the object of his affections delicately nibbled a miniature sausage.
‘Seamus? I said, aren’t you even going to tell us her name?’
Albus Dumbledore.
Seamus was doomed.

tea_fiend — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 15:04:56 GMT

*cough*

one third of a Gathering report

Mog

the Grim Squeaker

cough