Convention - Friday

hey peeps - long time no hear huh??  Well ok, it's only been a week but I bet you missed me all the same ;-)  I was hoping to get this update of the convention finished tonight but I've been distracted so I'll break it up into 3 parts and on the 3rd part you can have the photos ;-)

 

So let's get on with this and tell you about the convention.  It's set over a weekend in Pontins holiday camp in Prestatyn North Wales.  Trina and I have been attending them for 9 years and this was to be our 10th.  We've missed two due to not having any money and wanting a break (naughty us!!)  In the past we've always found that we have one good year, one not so good, one good, one not so good etc etc........I had my reservations about this one but I was to be proved wrong.

 

Sarah and Dan had organised a gang of about 18 people to stay in 3 chalets all next door to each other.  They had also organised what I like to call the Fun Bus, which was really a people carrier, for the people travelling up from the southwest.  As you all know I had Thursday off work to prepare myself and then had to get up early to meet Trina the next day.  We caught the 8.23am train to Bristol and met Dan, Sarah, Becky & Dave at the train station.  Once they saw Trina's bag, no-one was impressed.  The problem with people carriers is they can carry people fine but luggage is a no-no!!  We all jammed ourselves in with luggage on our knees, between our legs and in every space available.  We then headed over to the airport to pick up Gavin.

 

Eventually after a stop at Halfords we were on our way :-)  Listening to Queen most of the way and having a good ol' gossip it was a good journey.  We stopped off at the services a couple of times, and we even stopped off at Dan's gran's.  Bless her she had a whole spread ready for us to feast on :-)  She even gave us a cake to take with us!!  We left Dan's gran's and we were getting closer to Prestatyn.  It was funny at one point we were stuck behind one of those powered wheelchairs.  Anyway when we were getting closer we opened the windows and turned the speakers up and played Roger's Man On Fire Very Loudly and sang along.  It was starting to feel like the convention to me :-)

 

We pulled into Pontins and Sarah and Gavin went to check in.  Eventually they came back and we drove round to find our chalets.  Right on the other side of the camp - typical lol.......Luckily though we did have 3 altogether, so we set about getting our luggage into the chalets and settling in, waiting for the others to arrive.

 

Funster, Sam and Andy (aka Vivid), turned up.  At the same time people from our chalets were choosing who was going shopping and what we needed to get.  (Very organised)!!  After the hello's were done, the gang went shopping, and I met Richard who'd I'd heard a bit about.  Funster told him I was lovely and his response was, 'apparently your lovely, I shall be testing you on that over the weekend' lol......Great not a lot to live up to then!!  Eventually Jamie arrived too so our chalet was complete :-)  The guys took ages with the shopping but eventually called to say they'd found a fish and chip shop, did we want any?  Of course we did!!

 

When they came back we were all chatting in Sarah's chalet.  Theirs was on the end, us girls were in the middle and the quieter group were on the other side.  The chalets were all on the top row, which was cool.  After having our fish and chips and all changing into our 'In Love with a Rock God' t-shirts we ventured over to the ballroom.  It looked as though we were sharing with the netball players which they had done the previous year too.  We had arrived to see the last of the kareoke, which Jamie was depressed about but she was in luck.  The call went out for a couple of lads but they didn't turn up.  Jamie offered to do their song for them instead.  She sung Don't Stop Me Now and I was very impressed :-)  She's been training to sing properly and it's paid off!!

 

Next was the welcome from the legend that is Keith Harris - he is the leader of the Arena Team and has been doing conventions for as long as I can remember, there was one year when he was ill and couldn't make it - it wasn't the same!!  I think Jacky came on stage after him (she run's the fanclub) and showed Brian's message, apparently Roger didn't do one coz he had a cold!!  I had a feelin' we weren't gonna get a message from him :-(  Then we had the first of our tribute bands - The Queens.  To be honest I wasn't impressed but it was the start of the convention so we did try to get into it!!  The disco was next and that was ok.  They've changed that since we last went and now have a DJ who takes requests.  Amy, (who we met), an Amercian, who was in England studying, waited all night for the DJ to play her request but alas he did not.

 

I don't remember what time the disco finished, but then it was back to Wendy's chalet for a party :-)  They were in the same block as us which was cool!!  Jamie had gone to bed but the rest of our chalet popped over to the party.  I sat on the sofa next to Richard and Amy who were having a very animated conversation.  We all had to sing happy birthday to Helena's dad Mark, and it was a good laugh.  Eventually though Sam, Pam, Trina and myself decided enough was enough and we needed to reserve our energy, after all it was only the first night!!  So we went to bed.  It was about 4am!!

 

More tomorrow..............................