I wrote down a list of all the things I went to, then a list of all the ones I wanted to go to and it was almost as long. I had a good time though, despite the cold (not helped by my roommate and I not being able to agree on the temperature, so our compromise was that I was cold and she was hot). I've signed up for Redemption '07, will be stewarding again (it does remove the indecision on which panel to go to when they all look equally interesting), and even came up with an idea for a panel to run. Oh dear.

Here follows a fairly lengthy report, with images.

Friday:
When we eventually made it (due to slight trauma of locking keys in boot) the first place I went was the dealers room. And did very well - I only bought one book. Then there was the first book panel, at which I picked up a few recommendations. Or would have if I could remember any of them, or had written any of them down. Then I stewarded, dinnered and opening ceremonied before getting bored waiting for the pub quiz to start and wondered off to the alien lifeforms panel. Which was interesting, although wondered off topic into depressing!

The evening was the celidh, which was interesting on carpet, but at least easier than in two inch heels. As I'd woken up at the usual time that morning (annoyingly, because I didn't need to) I went to bed early, in order to stay up late the other two nights.

Saturday:
Saturday began with talking about slash - which did become something of a theme in the writing panels. Although, for the life of me, I can't remember what we actually discussed. Then the veil dancing workshop offered a chance to get up and do something practical (I can only sit down and listen to/talk in panels for so long). The veils were remarkably easy to get tangled up in, and involved more exercise than it first looked (my arms got quite tired!). It came in handy for recognising moves made by the dancers in the cabaret.

Then I went to hear Jason Carter talk and found out who he was in Angel (I didn't recognise him, or remember seeing his name in the credits when I saw the episode). He was very interesting and funny. I was quite impressed he remembered the words to Modern Major General (or whatever its called), if not the tune. The fanfic writing styles panel, I suspect probably went a bit off topic, as I can't remember any of it. After that I got to steward the dealers room, so I could see Blakes Junction 7, although not hear it. It was enough to remind me how funny it was though.

I then couldn't decide between two different panels, so I wondered round the Zocalo instead. I was attracted by (and did play) Giant Jenga, which was good fun. Although I ended up late to the next panel because I couldn't leave until we had finished the current game - the tower wasn't getting quite thin in places by then. I also went along to the Beeblebear's picnic - and ended up with a Beeblebear. Admittedly, I have been meaning to buy one for years but could never quite decide what colour to get. I now have a mint coloured one, imaginatively named Minty.

The next panel was discussing how much exposition we need, which went into different sorts of media, and generally agreed that most of it was because the author/producer/writer/whoever was assuming we were all stupid and had the memory of a goldfish. After this I spent some quality time in the bar and had a very nice dinner. Or at least it seemed nice at the time.

The panel on the Star Trek and Blakes 7 Federations was most interesting because someone fell asleep in it (and snored quite loudly!). After that I missed half of the fancy dress and cabaret because something I ate for dinner disagreed with me and I went to bed in order to avoid throwing up. The worrying part was the number of people who remarked on Sunday about how much better I looked!

Sunday:
Sunday had lots of writing workshops going on. The first I went to (well, was late to, 10am seemed quite difficult to manage for some reason!) was about editing fanfiction. There were lots of different ideas at that one. After that was Blakes 7 Fashion - otherwise known as a good excuse to laugh at the costumes. The people doing it were quite organised, as they had a projector and some pictures, which was handy because there were some I'd forgotten (or possibly just blocked out of my memory).

Then there was the writing workshop, where we got some interesting stories from people who had turned pro, and others who were hoping to. Then I couldn't miss the Ruler of the Universe hustings. I was impressed by all the candidates - it was really hard to choose just one. The fanfic writing workshop afterwards was smaller than the writing one, so it was quite a nice friendly group It was interesting to hear how different people write, and how many problems seemed to be universal!

I only made it to half the B7 signing workshop, as I had a stewards debriefing. I don't remember half of it, but it was much more interesting to learn words like thief, rebel and psychostrategist, than it would have been to learn ordinary boring words. I stewarded during the closing ceremony, so that was interesting to see from the back.

Then I managed four panels in a row. First was on Tolkien - I realised in that one that I've read very few fantasy books, even though my absolute favourite book is fantasy (Alice in Wonderland). The Egyptian gods panel did turn into something of a general discussion into Stargate, Xena and other historic (and not so historic) gods. Books 3 was nice and small, although I did manage to have the opposite opinion to everyone in it, on every topic, it seemed!

The future of SF and Fantasy was the biggest, but was one of the times it seemed everyone at the con agreed on something (apart from how good it was) - we don't like reality TV! Being the last panel of the con, it overran of course. And could have gone on all night, except the bar was calling. I was relatively hardcore, staying up till 2.30am (even though the bar shut at 11pm!). The time seemed to go so quickly.

Monday:
I'm not sure how we managed get woken up by the alarm at the same time as previous days, but still not be ready for 11. It takes talent, I think. There were plenty of people hanging around though, so we could put off the con ending for another hour before driving home in the snow (and spending an hour in the coldest Little Chef ever).

The most interesting thing I found about the people there, beyond being able to talk to absolutely anyone, was the variety of different opinions there were on most topics.

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