Having decided a while ago that we wouldn’t be going to Eastercon this year, I cancelled the hotel booking, but I forgot to do anything about our memberships. Having thought of it now, I hope it’s not too late!

I’d be happy to sell our memberships (two adult weekend memberships, and one child membership) for what I paid for them — a total of £75 (compared to the current price of £135). Please let me know if you, or anyone you know, would like to buy them.

I assume I can just change the membership ownership by editing the names and contact information on the membership details form on the Odyssey 2010 web site.

We’re thinking of not going to Eastercon this year. With our Frogmarch weekend in May and a boating holiday on Loch Ness planned for the summer, Eastercon is unfortunately the lowest in our list of holiday priorities. We’ve been to most of the Eastercons in recent years; I was happy to starting going as kateaw knew so many people in fandom, and I found that many people I knew were con-goers too. Unfortunately Kate finds Eastercon less appealing than it has been in the past; there is a magic that has been lost and will not be regained. With the Bradford Eastercon costing us about £800 (including the memberships, hotel bill, food, and travel), we decided that it was a jolly expensive way to spend a long weekend.

We’ve been at Eastercon over the weekend; drove down from there to parents’ in Nottingham today, and I’ll be here until Sunday 26 April (apart from a brief spell at the SUE-MoT Conference in Loughborough). Kate and Beth are off to Kent tomorrow for more family visits, while I spend a few days working.

Kate sums up the weekend well. The hotel was fine, bed was uncomfortable, didn’t get much sleep (not helped by noisy conversations in the hotel garden below our room), and the food was mediocre.

Meat eaters had daily specials, but otherwise it was the same menu for every lunch and dinner. And practically no vegetables. Ugh. Escaped to the local Toby Carvery (haven’t been in one of those for years!) on Sunday evening to get a pleasantly cheap plate of overcooked veg, and then I felt somewhat human again. Thanks to Fraser for inviting us out. Beth ate an astounding quantity of apple crumble and custard.

Continuing last year’s trend, I attended a single programme item. This year the National Festival Orchestra played the con, and it was a very entertaining couple of hours, marred only by the hall’s doors opening and closing repeatedly (particularly in the first half). If there is a next time (and please, let there be a next time!), don’t let people enter or exit while the orchestra is playing.

I’ve uploaded my con photos to Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/tobyaw/sets/72157616772934534/

My new lens was a lot of fun to play with. I took a lot of photos with it wide open at f/1.4, so I was fighting with the small depth of field, and a lot of my photos were somewhat out of focus. I’ll get better with practice.

I really enjoyed Eastercon this year. We were in the hotel from the Thursday to Tuesday, and other than a few minor irritations, we were very happy with the venue. They did seem a little confused about our hotel booking when we arrived, and it took a while to get a folding bed for Beth to sleep on, and our two keycards needed replacing on the Friday, but it all got sorted without hassle. Our room was comfortable and clean, if a little small. No biscuits with the tea-making equipment, though.

Pity there wasn’t a pool. kateaw tells me that were used to be a pool in the Newbury room.

The social areas of the hotel were good. I like the large oval seat in the foyer, and there were plenty of places to sit and talk, and watch passers-by. Heat, on the other hand, wasn't so consistent. In particular, the open upper area was chilly, and Newbury 2 was consistently too warm to be comfortable.

The hotel breakfasts were fine. Plentiful food of a good quality — much better than Hinckley, for example. The salad bar and baked potatoes made a reasonable lunch — at a reasonable cost — but the selection started to get very boring as the weekend went by.

The buffet dinners, on the other hand, were a little disappointing. The cost was good, and I imagine felt like good value to meat eaters, but the vegetarian options were typically dull, and I found the vegetarian curry on Sunday inedible. The buffet served in the brasserie was kept much warmer under the hot lamps than the dishes served in Newbury, which often were tepid. I only noticed that there was soup on the buffet on the final evening — was there soup every night? — but it was pretty good (and only in the brasserie). Puddings on the other hand were dull — it was not good having the same selection every evening.

The single worst thing about the con was the lack of a decent cup of tea. The two food areas served stewed, tepid tea in a paper cup at £1. It took me several days before I realised that I could get a decent-sized pot of tea with a proper cup and saucer from the brasserie for £3. This gave me more tea — and better tea — for my money than in the paper cups.

The newsletter was a bit disappointing. Not much information, and not much entertainment.

The creche was a great hit. Beth loved it, and we booked her in for every morning we were there. Well done.

The dealers’ room was large and well-stocked, and seemed to have a good buzz about it. There seemed to be more energy (and more customers) than in the last few years. Similarly, the art show was well presented, and very enjoyable.

And Mitch Benn was excellent. A highlight of the con.

I’ve uploaded my photos from last week’s Eastercon:
http://flickr.com/photos/tobyaw/sets/72157604286475131/

Welcome to LJ to richardrampant.

I’m looking forward to going to Eastercon later this week. We missed going to last year’s; it’ll be good to get back into it. Beth is excited too. Looks like this one is going to be a biggie.

We’ll be in the hotel from Thursday through to Tuesday — kateaw, Beth and I are getting the train down with qidane. Luckily there is a direct train from Leuchars to Kings X, and then we’ll get the Heathrow Express.

I’ll be in email contact over the weekend, or phone/text to 07775 795055.