Carpooling, Motels, and Models

The Bookings were made months ago, plans for models even longer, holiday forms put in, discussions, e-mails ,Blog posts, etc. Yep well it's finally here, this Friday four of us head south to Armidale for the New England Convention. I have been waiting for this one since the end of the last convention at Ebor, about three years ago I think.

So when we first heard about the chance of a convention, then confirmation of the dates I think we scared Warren a little bit with our enthusiasm for attending. the Motel was booked pretty quickly also, with staff there trying to convince me that we'd booked on the wrong weekend!??? I know! Golf was their reasoning, and we'd booked on the weekend of the women's competition. That of course mattered nought to us, but they were rather confused when i did set them straight about our real reason for coming to town, the pause was a little long ( all modellers have experienced the pause at some point, I'm sure).

The car pool made perfect sense, and Peter kindly offered to provide the transport. The discussions very recently revolved around the route of the trip, inland via Warwick then south, or towards the coast through Grafton. Inland first making the trip shorter, and remembering the loss of the hour due to daylight saving. Then there is the discussion about breakfast, beds and of course pyjamas... nothing more be said on that one I think.

That leaves us with the actual weekend and deciding what sessions to attend, and the worst bit, what sessions we were prepared to miss! Not happy Jan! Numbers that I've heard seem to be rather high, great for the organising club, and even better for the hobby as a whole. For me if I could be a bit philosophical for the moment. I think that our hobby is well and truly alive and well, not at all in trouble. It will cycle over time, highs and lows, but it will always be a real opportunity to create our own version of history, just a little bit and this convention proves how active we are as modellers.

Those that know me, know my job, and it's transfers, and the fact that yesterday I had to lodge another holiday form for friday and Monday, damn and blast! Yet another store to work at, and another group of people to experience their ...PAUSE when I tell them what my hobby is. A strange sort of inquiring normally follows, especially when I tell them that this weekend I'm going to a convention. The best question that I've been asked so far is...'What do you wear?'

That cracks me up! See you there if you're going, Geoff.