Camp Sparkle, the recap
Mar. 8th, 2008 02:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pensnestWell. I'm back.
It is nice to be back, and to have a real mattress upon which to sleep... but... woe! I miss you all! Seriously, how do we manage to put twenty disparate people in a house together with entirely too much sugar and end up having a fabulous time instead of rampant destruction?
The adventure started ages ago, with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nopseud and me making the decision to go for The Old Stables in Lyndhurst, and for an entire week, and prodding everyone into signing up again. We even went for an advance scouting party a fortnight beforehand. And there were the consultations on menus and who was to buy what and suchlike...
No. Things really got started at about 0015 on Friday 29th, when I collected my first two sparkly people from Stansted,rikes and iconis. Alas that I wasn't able to locate the tiara, but we didn't have a problem finding each other.
The Minibus, a 15-seater: I collected it on Friday morning, and felt very grown-up indeed sitting up there behind the wheel and remembering to change gear. But I collected my next three Stansted people (bubbleforest, fadedsouls and adelate in the car because it was quicker and easier. Meanwhile, Rikes and Iconis loaded the catering supplies into the minibus.
And off we went to Heathrow! Arrived only about a quarter of an hour later than I'd thought we would, and picked up a somewhat worriedsaba1789 from Terminal 2, as planned, but there was no sign of our two Americans, who should have been waiting there to meet her when she got through Arrivals... We circled Heathrow for an hour, an interesting challenge in a minibus, investigating various terminals, and finally sent in a rescue party to extract ninjetti75 and msktrnanny from the clutches of Terminal 3, which apparently did not wish to release them.
Anyway, onward! Through the Friday afternoon rush hour we pottered, down the M3 to Southampton where there was Confusion and Too Much Traffic, but we turned out to be going the right way anyway, at a snail's pace until we got onto the M27 and then the road to Lyndhurst. Yay!
nopseud and turps33 had arrived first (good thing I sent the instructions for how to get in, heh!) and the bus people had also got there, so our minibusful brought the numbers up to nearly complete - Nopseud went out for, um, something and discovered kira_j a while later - I really should learn to turn my phone *on* for occasions like this, it would lessen the confusion.
So we distributed ourselves around bedrooms - there were more than enough beds for everyone to have a bed to her/himself this time - and sat down for shepherd's pie and teeny tiny (defrosted after long journey) cakes, and much noise was made.
That's probably the last *coherent* thing I can write, because for the rest of the time, things melted into a general bubble of squee and fellowship. I'm pretty sure we eventually watched footage, and it may even have been the 'timetabled' PopOdyssey on that first evening. Badges were made - I'd not had time to produce icon-labelled ones like before, so I brung sparkly stuff and_ducks produced some Useful Pens, and we made our own. The mountain of chocolate and sugar offerings spilled onto various surfaces, we could have opened a profitable *shop* in there. I bought more Diet Coke from the Cash & Carry, but at least 48 extra cans were purchased during the week, possibly twice that number, and the quantity we provided for recycling was incredible! (The cottage's administrator took it to the recycling centre in his van yesterday.)
The cottage was not as, hmm, characterful as Little Brampton (last year's venue), but more logical. It consisted of a large kitchen (we rearranged the long, long table into a long table we could all sit round, with a separate end table for the fizz and the alcohol and some of the snacks); a sitting room of excellent size (even if certain of the couches sulked at the prospect of actually being sat on, and spat people onto the floor) with a raised area at one end which was perfect for Nopseud's beauty treatments, and a brand new projector dvd display on the opposite wall (albeit with a somewhat, hmm, amateurish arrangement but hey, it worked very nicely); the Slumber Party room (eight beds) upstairs at one end, with three bedrooms clustered below it; two staircases up from the kitchen leading to more bedrooms and bathrooms, and one more bedroom adjacent to the kitchen.
I know we had some good discussions - the 'perceptions of Americans/Europeans + how can you tell a non-American wrote stuff, and so on' discussion brought out quite a lot of useful information, and some that's, well, good to know but less useful - "we don't think that way" is going to be a challenge for those of us who *do* think 'that way' to write! More work for our American beta people. Our 'beta discussion' on Sunday was spectacular, and I nominateturloughishere to be discussion chair at all times henceforth, as she did a great job.
There were sparkly games to be played. Ninjetti brought Sparkly Cluedo with an excellent board based on the layout of Little Brampton, and an incredible stack of cards which made us roar with laughter. The highlight of the first game was, I think, when JC (played byrandomling) announced, "Oh. I'm pregnant." Justin (aka _ducks) was all set to rule the world, and rearranged reality to suit himself *twice*, but the game broke up before he actually achieved total domination. The second game... it would have to be when Joey took one for the team, ahem, by sexing up Perez Hilton (in front of Kelly) so that the vile Hilton creature could be discarded, to the great benefit and relief of all. The first game was a learning experience for most of us, the second - played at some point during the week - was won, somewhat astonishingly, by my very own Beast, aka Kevin. (He joined us for the 'midweek' portion of our stay.)
There was also 'Cruedo' as supplied byvaudevilles, a thing of beauty which I did not have the chance to play, because there was too much else to do.
Mkstrnanny did not entirely grasp the concept (or was it the point?) of the Add Five Words story at first - yes, the notorious Pink Book resurfaced at The Old Stables - so she was required to read last year's story aloud. This went well. So well, indeed, that Msktrnanny was called upon to read Where Did You Put The Lava Lamp, late one night during the week (Monday, I believe - it was almost my Beast's first experience of Camp Sparkle). Yes.
Sadly, several of our number had to leave after the weekend. But the rest of us kept the party going quite nicely. On Tuesday we had a field trip to Winchester, which involved much squee every time we passed a road sign, and a guided tour of the cathedral, the Great Hall, lunch in a pub with, ahaha, a juke box, so there was a steady stream of Backstreet and Timberlake while we ate... My Beast and I found a tea shop called Char which contained Winchester Breakfast, Winchester Afternoon and Winchester Evening, each with a little named pot upon which was also written 'SMELL ME', but none of the Winchester squee people found this, or there would have been pictures.
On Wednesday, several of us went to see a big pile of rocks in the morning, then on to Salisbury for the 'Tower Tour' inside the cathedral. Msktrnanny did particularly well as she was rendered somewhat queasy by the wooden spiral staircases but still managed to get up the tower to the spectacular views. The weather could not really have been better, not in early March, it wasn't warm, but we had sunshine and blue skies. Interestingly, our minibus displayed a sinister warning light on the way back from Salisbury, so we had the RAC man out: he failed to find the cause of the warning light... We had a veg day on Thursday, being all too exhausted to go anywhere we stayed in and talked and watched random footage and played sparkly games, and happily the minibus was back in perfect shape on Friday for the, sob, convoluted voyage home via Heathrow and Stansted.
Sniff.
It just went so well. We had the necessary two large rooms in which we could all congregate, so there was stuff going on all the time. Much, much footage was watched (though, sadly, by the time someone had summoned up the fortitude to watch 'Harry and Max', Nopseud had gone home and there was no copy available to us); games were played; the Add Five Words story became a mutant monstrosity, because this year, nobody had the slightest hesitation about adding crack; we talked and we laughed - the felching seminar nearly killed me. It's amazing, honestly, that it's possible to put so many of us together and have everything so harmonious. Breakaway groups (there was some bandslash footage on display in the kitchen at one point, and some people also scurried into the Slumber Room to watch Dancing on Ice, or Torchwood) quietly did their thing and re-merged afterwards.
Other memories... imbibing a Pixy Stick (ew), and watching Kira_j do likewise for the first time! Iconis on Pixy Stix. Discovering the true nature of Twinkies (ie artificial food). The 'Ultraman' footage with JC laughing so hard he went off the screen. Ninjetti's explanation of felching, which makes perfect sense if you already know what it means (personally I was relieved that there didn't have to be a straw involved). The Cheese interview, which will never grow old, and the sight of Kevin in cowboy hat, which, guh! Puppet-fear. The joy of watching footage when everyone goes "Awwwwww" or "Ahahaha!" at the same moment. Improvising dinner from what was left in the fridge that could be cooked with, ie broccoli, bacon, mushrooms, peppers, cheese, and the remainder of Nopseud's scones. Purple bunny peeps doubling as the sexbots for the illustrated reading of last year's Add Five Words story. Unfortunate close encounters with height barriers. 'Bye Bye Bye' at double speed. Getting story ideas from unlikely places. "Oh! Fornication!" The pub opening up a dark section so as to seatthe crazy people us somewhere together. Eight of us forming a line at Heathrow so that Ninjetti, Turloughishere and Saba1789 could hug each of us in turn as we said goodbye.
Now I want to see everyone else's recaps, to remind me of all the things that have merged into a blur of sugar and squee.
It was a good, good time. Oh, and my Beast wants to come back next year.
It is nice to be back, and to have a real mattress upon which to sleep... but... woe! I miss you all! Seriously, how do we manage to put twenty disparate people in a house together with entirely too much sugar and end up having a fabulous time instead of rampant destruction?
The adventure started ages ago, with
nopseud and me making the decision to go for The Old Stables in Lyndhurst, and for an entire week, and prodding everyone into signing up again. We even went for an advance scouting party a fortnight beforehand. And there were the consultations on menus and who was to buy what and suchlike...No. Things really got started at about 0015 on Friday 29th, when I collected my first two sparkly people from Stansted,
rikes and iconis. Alas that I wasn't able to locate the tiara, but we didn't have a problem finding each other.The Minibus, a 15-seater: I collected it on Friday morning, and felt very grown-up indeed sitting up there behind the wheel and remembering to change gear. But I collected my next three Stansted people (
bubbleforest, fadedsouls and adelate in the car because it was quicker and easier. Meanwhile, Rikes and Iconis loaded the catering supplies into the minibus.And off we went to Heathrow! Arrived only about a quarter of an hour later than I'd thought we would, and picked up a somewhat worried
saba1789 from Terminal 2, as planned, but there was no sign of our two Americans, who should have been waiting there to meet her when she got through Arrivals... We circled Heathrow for an hour, an interesting challenge in a minibus, investigating various terminals, and finally sent in a rescue party to extract ninjetti75 and msktrnanny from the clutches of Terminal 3, which apparently did not wish to release them.Anyway, onward! Through the Friday afternoon rush hour we pottered, down the M3 to Southampton where there was Confusion and Too Much Traffic, but we turned out to be going the right way anyway, at a snail's pace until we got onto the M27 and then the road to Lyndhurst. Yay!
nopseud and turps33 had arrived first (good thing I sent the instructions for how to get in, heh!) and the bus people had also got there, so our minibusful brought the numbers up to nearly complete - Nopseud went out for, um, something and discovered kira_j a while later - I really should learn to turn my phone *on* for occasions like this, it would lessen the confusion.So we distributed ourselves around bedrooms - there were more than enough beds for everyone to have a bed to her/himself this time - and sat down for shepherd's pie and teeny tiny (defrosted after long journey) cakes, and much noise was made.
That's probably the last *coherent* thing I can write, because for the rest of the time, things melted into a general bubble of squee and fellowship. I'm pretty sure we eventually watched footage, and it may even have been the 'timetabled' PopOdyssey on that first evening. Badges were made - I'd not had time to produce icon-labelled ones like before, so I brung sparkly stuff and
_ducks produced some Useful Pens, and we made our own. The mountain of chocolate and sugar offerings spilled onto various surfaces, we could have opened a profitable *shop* in there. I bought more Diet Coke from the Cash & Carry, but at least 48 extra cans were purchased during the week, possibly twice that number, and the quantity we provided for recycling was incredible! (The cottage's administrator took it to the recycling centre in his van yesterday.)The cottage was not as, hmm, characterful as Little Brampton (last year's venue), but more logical. It consisted of a large kitchen (we rearranged the long, long table into a long table we could all sit round, with a separate end table for the fizz and the alcohol and some of the snacks); a sitting room of excellent size (even if certain of the couches sulked at the prospect of actually being sat on, and spat people onto the floor) with a raised area at one end which was perfect for Nopseud's beauty treatments, and a brand new projector dvd display on the opposite wall (albeit with a somewhat, hmm, amateurish arrangement but hey, it worked very nicely); the Slumber Party room (eight beds) upstairs at one end, with three bedrooms clustered below it; two staircases up from the kitchen leading to more bedrooms and bathrooms, and one more bedroom adjacent to the kitchen.
I know we had some good discussions - the 'perceptions of Americans/Europeans + how can you tell a non-American wrote stuff, and so on' discussion brought out quite a lot of useful information, and some that's, well, good to know but less useful - "we don't think that way" is going to be a challenge for those of us who *do* think 'that way' to write! More work for our American beta people. Our 'beta discussion' on Sunday was spectacular, and I nominate
turloughishere to be discussion chair at all times henceforth, as she did a great job. There were sparkly games to be played. Ninjetti brought Sparkly Cluedo with an excellent board based on the layout of Little Brampton, and an incredible stack of cards which made us roar with laughter. The highlight of the first game was, I think, when JC (played by
randomling) announced, "Oh. I'm pregnant." Justin (aka _ducks) was all set to rule the world, and rearranged reality to suit himself *twice*, but the game broke up before he actually achieved total domination. The second game... it would have to be when Joey took one for the team, ahem, by sexing up Perez Hilton (in front of Kelly) so that the vile Hilton creature could be discarded, to the great benefit and relief of all. The first game was a learning experience for most of us, the second - played at some point during the week - was won, somewhat astonishingly, by my very own Beast, aka Kevin. (He joined us for the 'midweek' portion of our stay.)There was also 'Cruedo' as supplied by
vaudevilles, a thing of beauty which I did not have the chance to play, because there was too much else to do.Mkstrnanny did not entirely grasp the concept (or was it the point?) of the Add Five Words story at first - yes, the notorious Pink Book resurfaced at The Old Stables - so she was required to read last year's story aloud. This went well. So well, indeed, that Msktrnanny was called upon to read Where Did You Put The Lava Lamp, late one night during the week (Monday, I believe - it was almost my Beast's first experience of Camp Sparkle). Yes.
Sadly, several of our number had to leave after the weekend. But the rest of us kept the party going quite nicely. On Tuesday we had a field trip to Winchester, which involved much squee every time we passed a road sign, and a guided tour of the cathedral, the Great Hall, lunch in a pub with, ahaha, a juke box, so there was a steady stream of Backstreet and Timberlake while we ate... My Beast and I found a tea shop called Char which contained Winchester Breakfast, Winchester Afternoon and Winchester Evening, each with a little named pot upon which was also written 'SMELL ME', but none of the Winchester squee people found this, or there would have been pictures.
On Wednesday, several of us went to see a big pile of rocks in the morning, then on to Salisbury for the 'Tower Tour' inside the cathedral. Msktrnanny did particularly well as she was rendered somewhat queasy by the wooden spiral staircases but still managed to get up the tower to the spectacular views. The weather could not really have been better, not in early March, it wasn't warm, but we had sunshine and blue skies. Interestingly, our minibus displayed a sinister warning light on the way back from Salisbury, so we had the RAC man out: he failed to find the cause of the warning light... We had a veg day on Thursday, being all too exhausted to go anywhere we stayed in and talked and watched random footage and played sparkly games, and happily the minibus was back in perfect shape on Friday for the, sob, convoluted voyage home via Heathrow and Stansted.
Sniff.
It just went so well. We had the necessary two large rooms in which we could all congregate, so there was stuff going on all the time. Much, much footage was watched (though, sadly, by the time someone had summoned up the fortitude to watch 'Harry and Max', Nopseud had gone home and there was no copy available to us); games were played; the Add Five Words story became a mutant monstrosity, because this year, nobody had the slightest hesitation about adding crack; we talked and we laughed - the felching seminar nearly killed me. It's amazing, honestly, that it's possible to put so many of us together and have everything so harmonious. Breakaway groups (there was some bandslash footage on display in the kitchen at one point, and some people also scurried into the Slumber Room to watch Dancing on Ice, or Torchwood) quietly did their thing and re-merged afterwards.
Other memories... imbibing a Pixy Stick (ew), and watching Kira_j do likewise for the first time! Iconis on Pixy Stix. Discovering the true nature of Twinkies (ie artificial food). The 'Ultraman' footage with JC laughing so hard he went off the screen. Ninjetti's explanation of felching, which makes perfect sense if you already know what it means (personally I was relieved that there didn't have to be a straw involved). The Cheese interview, which will never grow old, and the sight of Kevin in cowboy hat, which, guh! Puppet-fear. The joy of watching footage when everyone goes "Awwwwww" or "Ahahaha!" at the same moment. Improvising dinner from what was left in the fridge that could be cooked with, ie broccoli, bacon, mushrooms, peppers, cheese, and the remainder of Nopseud's scones. Purple bunny peeps doubling as the sexbots for the illustrated reading of last year's Add Five Words story. Unfortunate close encounters with height barriers. 'Bye Bye Bye' at double speed. Getting story ideas from unlikely places. "Oh! Fornication!" The pub opening up a dark section so as to seat
Now I want to see everyone else's recaps, to remind me of all the things that have merged into a blur of sugar and squee.
It was a good, good time. Oh, and my Beast wants to come back next year.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-03-09 06:43 pm (UTC)finally sent in a rescue party to extract
Terminal 3 is a creepy, evil place!
Southampton where there was Confusion and Too Much Traffic
Not to mention Rain! Very icky weather to have to wait for the bus in I can report.
even if certain of the couches sulked at the prospect of actually being sat on, and spat people onto the floor
*snerk* Very apt description! Those couches were some very underhanded and traitorous furniture, lulling you into a false sense of security and then slowly, slowly tipping you onto the floor :-)
I nominate
*feels extremely flattered* I'm used to it. When you've helped moderate discussions between 41 Extremely Fractious And Undisciplined student politicians of all political colours, moderating 20 popslashers is childsplay really :-)
it was almost my Beast's first experience of Camp Sparkle
Your Beast is a very unflappable and tolerant man :-)
several of us went to see a big pile of rocks
But a very impressive big pile of rocks :-)
the felching seminar nearly killed me
I missed that, happily enough! I wonder what I was doing. Perhaps it was when
there was some bandslash footage on display in the kitchen at one point
We also "stole" the living room a couple of times when you were all doing assorted other stuff elsewhere.
Eight of us forming a line at Heathrow so that Ninjetti, Turloughishere and Saba1789 could hug each of us in turn as we said goodbye.
It was so sad to say goodbye to everyone!!!!
Oh, and my Beast wants to come back next year.
*giggle* Your Beast is completely fearless :-)
no subject
Date: 2008-03-09 10:45 pm (UTC)We've been very lucky with our venues for Camps Sparkle so far, there have always been enough places for us to split into small groups whenever we've wanted to.
My Beast is calm and tolerant and splendid. He has had nearly twenty-five years to practise!
no subject
Date: 2008-03-10 11:03 am (UTC)