The gathering

So I went to yesterday's blogmeet and am no longer a meet-newbie. It was fun, and now that my compulsory week-long business course in August has been cancelled, I'm going to the next blogmeet as well.

There would have been photos included with this write up, but since I was late and rushing not to miss my train, the digital camera was inadvertantly left in the car. Still, at least that potentially reduced the embarrassment factor for other people, if not for myself.

I met dvd at the tube station and we walked to Regent's Park, not really knowing where we were going. We talked about the numerous things that we forgot to bring - me: the camera and some snacky things to eat; dvd: a frisbee ("In case people aren't talking, I thought we could at least stand far apart and throw things at each other") - and found York Bridge by use of the extremely foolproof tourist maps of the park that are situated every hundred yards or so. Having got there we looked in vain for a group of possibly geeky people anywhere near the bridge. I started panicking slightly, as I am liable to do when I'm trying and failing to find people, and phoned Aquarion to be told that he and LoneCat were making their way over.

Eventually the four of us met up and Kevin bumped into us soon enough, whereupon we wandered around the area for a bit looking out for any other people wandering around aimlessly. However, seeing as it was now just after 3pm, we thought that there wouldn't be anyone still waiting from an hour before, when we were supposed to have met. Then the general feeling was, "Sod it, let's go to the pub." Which we did, and remained there for several hours - we were joined by Dave, mrtn and Stuart Langridge, as well as a couple of non-bloggers (one being my dad) before I left. (Apparently, having a dad who comes to blogmeets and buys rounds for people is a surefire way of raising your blogger status.)

It was interesting meeting everyone who so far I'd only known online, and in most cases I was rather gratified as to how nearly my image of them matched the reality. I enjoyed myself although, being rather quieter in person than online, I'm not sure whether this was evident. I'd like to assure people that if I'm sitting there quietly, listening to conversations rather than actively participating in them, and smiling or laughing in the right places, I am actually quite happy. Shyness is another thing I have to work on :)

All in all, it was very good. Hopefully there'll be more people at the August meet though. And I'll actually bring the camera next time.