Delft meet: Report

From: Karen <Karen@lspace.org>
Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett
Subject: [F] MSN European Tour - Only NL Date, Saturday 18th
Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 01:22:32 +0100
Message-ID: <naFSMOCIzEh7Ew5L@goodgulf.demon.co.uk>

Don't kid yourselves this isn't anything approaching a meet report, 
Jeroen 'Labrat' is firmly in charge of that one. This is more by way of 
a 'thank you' note.

"Get thyself to Delft," they said, "get thyself on our side of the 
channel" they kept saying.

In the end promises by various Beneluxers to drown the kids in a lake of 
Chocomel for us, wave pancakes under my nose, and the chance to meet 
Mary a week early convinced me that it was indeed *far* too long since I 
last visited the land of yellow furry clog shaped slippers [I noted with 
some joy that the shop also now supplies them in Friesian Cow pattern ] 
and so off we headed to the land of windmills, clogs, tulips and cheese, 
undersized mugs of coffee and of course Dutch afpers at meets. And 
German afpers. And French and US afpers and Canadian afpers.  I believe 
there were also one or two  Dutch afpers in the corners, even if only 
half Dutch mostly  0:}  "One of the plus points" I thought to myself, " 
of lots of furriners at the meet is that mostly they need to crash and 
so will still be around on the Sunday as well".  And I was right, I 
think the meet gathering eventually broke up after dinner on the Sunday 
night, and then with considerable reluctance. 'Was this the longest 
Benelux meet on record?' mused Leo.

Those of you who have read my announcement regarding the London MSN meet 
coming up at the Green Man on Sunday next [not that I'm plugging it or 
anything...] will note that I am being green myself and recycling the 
next paragraph.

Last weekend I eventually made it, in a rather haphazard way, to the
warm up gig in Delft. En route I managed to get us lost three times in
three different countries within the space of two hours. This for some
reason induced considerable stress by cellphone and SMS to a poor ageing

Ent [how did the quote go now? 'gods woman you have given me RSI of the 
SMS fingers' before we succumbed to ruinous rates charged on 
International Roaming on mobiles, after repeated messages debating in a 
civilised and adult manner [1] the precise whereabouts and direction of 
the E17 and the E19 and the value of tunnels under Antwerp]  but enabled 
me to grab the chance to meet Mary for the first time IRL myself. As 
well as being great fun this made me the only Green Man afper with 
'previous' as far
as Mary was concerned. Or so I thought... Once again we will also have
visiting Beneluxers at the Green Man :}}

Having enriched my Euro culture credentials by forming an intimate 
relationship with a variety of roads and villages between Lille and 
Delft [direct routes are so boring doncha think?], and apparently 
contributed to stress levels in Delft whilst so doing we finally made it 
to our destination on the Friday evening. The sun shone and butterflies 
sang, the road maps had been binned and all was well with the world.

Next afternoon, Leo and myself toddled off to Amsterdam airport to meet 
Mary, Kimberley and Patrick detailed to be early at the pre meet at the 
designated Cafe [more of which will doubtless appear in the official 
meet report] all seemed to be progressing smoothly. Of course it didn't 
work out quite like that but in between Heathrow failing to load half of 
Mary's luggage and emergency shufflings of premeet locations and a 
number of hasty phone calls eventually we all made it to the Athene for 
dinner.

As well as Mary, I met Maaike for the first time, dropping in from 
Canada via her summer course in one of the Frankfurts [I think...], 
Boris and his incredible unicycle, and Cindy and Olaf and was  able to 
re meet a number of people whom I shall simply describe for now as The 
Usual Culprits. Oh alright then there was a Patrick, a Jeroen, a Rolf, 
an Uwe and a Kimberley [no not the biscuit]. If I have missed anyone 
from this lot just yell.

Rumours that  Eelco and Jos had gone heading for the hills at speed on 
hearing I might actually turn up complete with the ankle biters were 
greatly exaggerated. There are no hills in .nl, and they had already 
planned to go anyway. Really they had. No honestly. And in fact Eelco 
missed out on great vulturing opportunities with at least three of us 
unable to finish off the huge pancakes on the Sunday evening. I'll leave 
quotes and details to the meet report, and to others to fill in, since 
my brain is decidedly fuzzy for detail but a good time was had by all 
not least when Mary revealed her huge stash of Jelly Beans and some 
beautifully decorated little tins of her own devising in which to store 
them.

After dinner and thunderstorms we decamped to a local cafe before 
finally drifting of homewards to catch a couple of hours sleep before 
starting on phase 2 - the post meet Brunch at Leo's. This commenced 
somewhere before midday when the first returners appeared. Sadly we had 
lost a Boris, as he was off on the early train to Paris and ultimately 
en route to the Toulouse summer afpmeet and sunny weather. Please being 
some sunshine and dry weather back Boris! But we did gain a Reinier for 
the Sunday, complete with his incredible modelling balloons [yes he can 
even do deformed rabbit].

Maaike was generally agreed to be very Lara Croftian [as dubbed by Leo] 
and general conversation and banter ensued. Later in the afternoon most 
of the group went off for a walk around the block for some fresh air and 
exercise for an hour or so. Kimberley and myself were very noble and 
self sacrificing about this and generously volunteered to be the two 
staying behind to keep the sofa warm and the kettled boiled, and the 
comestibles safe, maintain the flow of conversation ready for the 
returners to rejoin.  Life is tough at times. *sigh*

Sadly Uwe, Rolf and Maaike had to return to .de at the end of the 
afternoon, but those of us hardy souls  remaining launched an attack on 
not one but two pancake houses before finally returning to our various 
beds for the night.

A good time was had by all, including the ankle biters who were spoiled 
rotten by everyone and will probably have lost all their teeth before 
their next dental check up after a weekend of pancakes, coke, games, 
staying up late and unfettered access to the Entish comic collection.
And especially by me. It was well worth getting lost three times in 
three countries, and bursting a few Entish blood vessels on the way. 
Well from my point of view anyway :}


-- 
Karen/hypatia                                     Karen@lspace.org
              ** AFP will be 10 years old in 2002 **
Want to come to a world wide party?
                          http://www.lspace.org/fandom/afp/afparty/

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