GMOH - The Dinner

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By the time I came downstairs, the 'seminar' room was open again and the tables were set back up with most people sitting around them. I went and sat down on the table where luicat, suemc, alibongo, gillyp, rhianne and fluterbev were all sitting, with an empty chair between myself and fluterbev. At that point, I had no idea why.

Pretty soon, our table became known as the "naughty table". Before anyone jumps to any conclusions, this was solely because we were sitting in the corner. The fact we had the above list of miscreants fans at the table, does not mean a thing.

I think everyone was armed with a camera, and we had tons of fun splitting up into couples and (on one occasion) threesomes. Yes, we were sober. suemc, btw, is a demon with her camera. As she has an advanced camera with an adjustable view finder, she could position her camera on the table, casually pointing in your direction, and snap away with you being none the wiser. None of that giving the game away by holding her camera up to her face! God knows how many photos she has. I caught her umpteen times with her camera pointing at me! At one point, to get revenge, I asked that everyone at the table take photos of her, but she wasn't bothered one jot and just laughed loudly as we all snapped away.

Garett arrived, and took a seat on what I think was the Dignified table. Pretty soon, every table except one had a name. There was the Naughty Table, the Dignified Table, the Intellectual Table and The Table With No Name. Personally, I would have made that last table do bad Clint Eastwood impersonations, but I wasn't in charge and Rae's too kind. :oD

After a while, the staff gave us some jugs of water and set up the buffet, then announced the buffet open. Sooner or later, everyone made their way down the line of hotplates. gillyp and alibongo were ahead of me in the queue and they, like me, are vegetarian. Therefore, I was warned by hearing their complaints that there really wasn't much available for those people who didn't eat meat. To be specific, there were egg sandwiches, cheese and olive quiches and slices of garlic bread. There weren't even any lettuce leaves for decoration. Returning to the table, I sat down with my plate and found out that I didn't have egg sandwiches - I had some weird cheese mixture. I didn't see any dead animals in there but given the hotel's phobia about vegetarians, I really didn't feel like eating any more of it without knowing what it was (or what it was supposed to be). I returned to the buffet and searched for egg sandwiches, finally returning triumphant with a couple of extra ones.

Due to gillyp and alibongo cornering the waitstaff and complaining, pointing out that there were three starving vegetarians in the room, the waiter soon returned...with two salads. Once my fellow veggies realised that I'd been left without, they offered to share, but the salads looked to be mainly comprised of peppers and onions so I declined. I did warn luicat that the mini Pringles in our room were mine and, as I was prepared to eat the crisps or her, she disavowed any interest in them.

I don't know how much of his meal Garett got to eat, but soon he was on the move, circulating to sit at each table - which made it obvious what the empty chair at each table was for, as the guest of honour couldn't perch on someone's knee (not that anyone would have objected). Finally, he ended up on ours, and once we'd all got over the shock of having Garett sitting at our table (between myself and fluterbev - swoon), asking if we were having a good time and joining in the conversation, we had a ball. We got talking about accents, and fluterbev pointed out that although we (she and I) were born in the same town, we sound totally different. fluterbev spent most of her life in Lancashire with some years in Ireland while I spent 30 years in Liverpool. According to Garett, I elongate my words (don't ask me - I have no idea what I sound like), and apparently that is a Liverpudlian trait. The others promptly declared that I was a Scouser and, once he was told what that was, Garett agreed with them. I hate to do this, but he, and they, were and are wrong. I was born in Lancashire and I live in Lancashire now. Therefore, I am Lancastrian. :op

Tales of Liverpool led gillyp to tell how she and alibongo were both in the main square in Liverpool town centre the night John Lennon was killed, though they didn't know each other then, and never met until some years after The square was crowded, and gillyp ended up climbing a flagpole to get out of the way. Unfortunately, she was stuck up there, due to the press of people. Fortunately though, that allowed us to pick on her for going around climbing flagpoles. Tsk, tsk, gillyp!

However, the discussion on accents led me to comment on punctuation, and the entire table (including Garett) became convinced that I have Punctuation Rage. After Garett had left the table (still convinced), the others decided that I'd been bitten by a comma as a child and my family was slaughtered by a semi-colon. o.O

To be honest, it's hard to keep the topics of conversation straight as it was so funny most of the time. At some point soon after Garett sat down, we talked about policemen and how they're called Bobbies (after Sir Robert Peel, who set up the police force), and Peelers (for the same reason, though Peelers has totally fallen into disuse). Garett admitted that he thought the policemen's hats were called Bobbies, and I said, "No, I think they're called stupid." He laughed, said, "That went well, didn't it - let's try it again!" and got up, left the table, returned and said, "Hi, you all having a good time?" He didn't get an answer that time as we were too busy laughing.

It was while Garett was sitting at the Intellectual Table that luicat produced her balls. Juggling balls that is. Nagged by all and sundry, she finally gave in, lurked by our table and juggled them. We applauded her, and Garett stood up, bowed and thanked us, whereupon fluterbev told him, "It's not all about you!"

Uh, Bev? The Belfry? Us all being there? We didn't go for the food!

Anyway, not to be outdone, Garett promptly grabbed luicat's balls (juggling balls - keep it clean), and juggled them. He got a round of applause too and smirked at fluterbev and said, "See? It is all about me!"

By the time Garett returned to our table for the second time, Norah had stolen his seat. However, gillyp and alibongo had taken a spare chair from another table and plonked it between them. I can't imagine why. :oD Btw, Norah, ended up being called "The Red Baron" by Garett, due to the wide, red velvet scarf she was wearing. :oD

It was while andeincascade was sitting at our table that the Mexican Hug began. Everyone knows a Mexican Wave, well, this was the Hug version. andeincascade hugged fluterbev, and I said something like, "No fair!" and demanded a hug too. She gave me a hug (which fitted just nicely) then demanded I pass it on to luicat. The cry went up at the table, "Mexican hug - pass it on!" and the hug was passed from person to person. Once it reached fluterbev again (with all the other tables giving us That Look which suggested that we were nuts), fluterbev jumped up and ran over to Rae and gave it to her, insisting that she pass it on. She did, and the hug went around that table. However, once it reached Christine, she abandoned the person who was supposed to receive the hug and ran at Garett. He looked pretty well taken aback, but submitted gracefully once she explained. At that point, the Mexican Hug died.

At some point in the conversation, while Garett was there, he started asking what we did for a living. As fluterbev had already declared herself to be a doxy (and she and gillyp had explained what that was), fluterbev promptly declared that she'd moved to Lancaster "for her career". o.O I think he asked if there was a lot of work for doxies in Lancaster, but finally she 'fessed up to being a musician. alibongo told Garett about an incident at work where she'd broken a tooth off an exhibit that was a only few thousand years old, then put it back in the wrong way around. Fortunately, she managed to fix it before anyone saw it! After hearing a few career tales, Garett declared that we were "just like real people!" Yes, even fans can be real people too. :oD

I'm so glad that none of us had to say we lived in our parents' basements as I'm sure that would have confirmed any stereotypical ideas he had of us!

In the end, Garett left. He was supposed to have stayed for 2 hours, from 7 until 9pm; he stayed until just gone 11. Proof positive (IMO) that he had fun.

fluterbev, rhianne and gillyp (I think) decamped to the bar and came back with drinks and a waiter. We didn't get to keep the waiter though, which I think relieved him. I'm pretty sure he has an odd idea of seminars now.

It was either around midnight or nearly 1am that I decided to go to bed. luicat decided to go too which was lucky as we found a red carpet on the way and took turns posing on it and taking pictures of each other. If I ever get my pictures developed, I'll post them (assuming they're not too blurry). I know that most people were heading to bed at that point, but gillyp and fluterbev stayed up - possibly until 4am, I'm not sure - along with a few other die hards. At that point, I just needed sleep!