Hils's journal

So. Castiel.

Hee! Merlin meetup was fun although littlehollyleaf and I spent most of it sat in a corner talking about Supernatural. Castiel to be more specific, with a bit of Sam and Dean on the side. Hee! It was fun.

Between the two of us, plus added comments from yavannauk and complicat we pretty much put everyone off ever watching Smallville. I consider this a service to fandom. I mean I'm sure you all know how much I loved the show for a long time, but I don't think any other show has caused me as much pain as that one.

There was also pie porn. I feel Dean would approve.

Oh, and there was also discussion of tentacle rape, fics where people get turned into inanimate objects (does anyone want the bandom hair straightener fic?) and other silliness. It was fun.

Oh, and of course the slash dragon cake!

( Merlin meetup and Hils's adventures in the woods )

Best. Day. Ever

I have had an awesome day! Seriously, I don't think anything tops hanging out with a bunch of like-minded people in a pub *g*

I had a couple of nice surprises too! lex_a_like turned out to be on the train just behind mine so he came and joined us in the pub for lunch. Also, while I was on the train spikewriter called me. She's in the UK to see David Tennant in Hamlet so she came to the pub to to say hello. WHEE! *loves meeting LJ people*

yavannauk, complicat and I arrived at the pub just after 12, which was handily just as it opened. We must have looked like total alcoholics wandering in as soon as it opened. Hehe!

spikewriter arrived not long after that and we decided to order lunch.

lex_a_like got lost finding the pub so I had to go and rescue him, which is impressive because I didn't know where I was myself. LOL! It all worked out ok in the end though and we finished eating just as the Merlin fangirl posse arrived.

For reasons only lou_angel will understand I had a steak and cheese sandwich. It was delicious and also hilarious. I'll explain why in another post.

I pretty much leapt on lou_angel when she arrived. Hehe! I also got to meet Rizzy who has been working as our colaborative beta. He was fabulous and it's a shame he couldn't stay. I'm making it my mission to get him onto LJ

j_apollo had name badges for all of us to wear so that was cool. There's a pic of mine under the cut.

Then multiclassgeek had the awesome idea of doing a round robin fic and pretty soon a notebook was being passed around for us all to add a few lines. It turned into something quite epic. j_apollo is going to type up so I will link you to that as soon as I can. Once it was finished someone read it aloud to the whole group. LOL! Awesome.

(Fic can be found here)

I did my best to mingle and I did meet some new people so that was fun. It was also a mini Smallville meetup because as well as me, complicat and yavannauk we also had littlehollyleaf join us which was awesome. She's lovely! *waves*

I also met lisson17, krazykipper, ionaonie and kelene from my flist. It was awesome!

I'm already very much looking forward to the next one.

( Piccies )

( Canary Wharf )

Ok, that's all of them. There may be more to come after our adventures on Wednesday

( The Ritz, London Arts Academy and something for the Harry Potter fans )

Right, I'll post the rest tomorrow. I needs my sleep now

It seems I took a lot more photos than I thought. LOL. I'll post some now and the rest tomorrow. I'm too tired to resize them all tonight ;)

( Wicked )

Had an amazing time in London this weekend. It's weird but the more time I spend there the more I like it. Still don't want to live there though.

Friday
Train arrived 45 mins late (surprise, surprise!) but the tube was running fine and I was soon at Derek and Matthew's. They cooked me a lovely meal (which was a little too spicy for me but I managed most of it) and we had chocolate cheesecake for pudding. WHEE! We watched a few episodes of American Dad and Matthew had me cringing at the episode that involved a sci-fi/fantasy convention. I was pretty tired after that so I went to bed.

Saturday
Had breakfast then went to Canary Wharf and had second breakfast. LOL. Took a boat up the Thames a way and had to make an inpromtu stop so I could get some batteries for my camera. Looked at HMS Belfast and some weird sculpture thing which I think was supposed to be a ship and then carried on. We went and had a look at The Golden Hinde which is a reconstruction of one of Francis Drake's ships. It was quite small and we didn't go aboard because it was quite expensive but I took some photos of the outside. We had lunch and met up with one of the girls I used to work with. We then went for a walk and wound up climbing the 311 steps of The Monument. My legs ache still! Got some nice photos at the top though. After that it was time to go to the IMAX to see Superman Returns. I didn't realise some bits of it were in 3D! Very cool! And on the biggest screen in the UK too. After that we headed to Chinatown and had dinner. We finished the evening with a drink in a nearby pub and then headed home. Somehow I ended up staying up until 2am watching selected highlights of Star Wars and Indiana Jones. Matthew was horrified to discover that I wasn't a Star Wars fangirl. Hehe!

Sunday
Had a reasonable lie in, watched some Baywatch and Hollyoaks and then headed out. Took some photos at Canary Wharf and then took the train to Greenwich. If I was going to live in London (which I'm not) then this would be the place. Got off the train, rounded a corner and there was The Cutty Sark just sat there (not moored, it wasn't on the water). I bounced and squeed. Before we went to look at the ship we went to Ottakar's because Matthew had mentioned seeing a book he thought I might be interested. That book was Vampirates. Seriously, they are vampire pirates. How cool! It's actually a kiddie book but then so is Harry Potter. I bought the first Vampirates book and if I like it there is another one. Was amused to see that the junior novelisation of Superman Returns completely ignores the subject of Lois having a child. Clearly it might have raised issues about sex which the author didn't want to be responsible for. LOL.

After that I went aboard The Cutty Sark while Derek and Matthew went and found somewhere for us to have lunch. Took lots of pics. To be honest, I preferred the Trincomalee. The entire lower deck of The Cutty Sark was just filled with figureheads from various ships. Not that interesting really. I took lots of pics though.

After lunch we went for a walk up to the Maritime Museum. Didn't have time to go in unfortunately, just for a poke around the shop. Managed to resist buying anything despite there being two bookcases full of nautical books of both fact and fiction. Vampirates was there too. Hee!

Then I had to make a frenzied rush back and I caught the train back to York with 3 mins to spare. LOL

I must say thank you to Derek and Matthew for indulging my Age of Sail obsession all weekend. I had a great time, guys!

A few pics of my time in London. The night shots aren't very good as my camera is a bit crap. I need a new one with a better flash really

( London pics )