| Articles EuroHowls Werecards Humour Community Fluffy Bits Email | |
|||
|
|
||
|
|
UTLAH'S EUROHOWL '96 REPORT.WHAT I DID ON MY HOLIDAYS:( A EUROHOWL REPORT, BY ITS ORIGINATOR, UTLAH ) “UTLAH!” screamed the teacher. Utlah’s ears pricked up, and he looked towards the front of the classroom. He quickly hid the book about wolves under his desk. “Urf?” replied Utlah. “Come here now!” ordered the teacher, looking over the top of her metal rimmed spectacles. ”This report of yours is absolutely diabolical!” Utlah jumped from his chair, and scampered to the front of the classroom, where the teacher was waiting. “So you really expect me to accept this rubbish Utlah? It says here you spent a week in Wales, with a pack of Werewolves and other Weretypes. There is no such thing as Werewolves! Next you’ll be saying you’re a wolf yourself. You even have the nerve to say it was sunny. It’s never sunny in Wales!” The teacher sharply hands Utlah his report back, slapping it hard, back into his awaiting paws. “Go to the back of the class Utlah, you’re abnormal and a freak, and I don’t want to see you again!” Utlah turns tail and heads back to his desk. A slight grin spreads across his muzzle. Utlah forgot his lunchbox again...
EuroHowl ‘96 Attendants:
WARNING: The following is a personal account based on what I remember... my memory isn’t the best at times, so if I get anything wrong, don’t blame me! It’s my mind, or did you forget? DAY 0: Wednesday 3rd April 1996 Well, after a nervous few hours trying to sleep, the time had come to head down to Aberystwyth in Wales, the location for the EuroHowl. Bags were packed, clothes, books, toiletries, what have I forgotten? Ah yes, Moonchild, the first Were to arrive. So meeting up with Moonchild at the local train station, we head down to Aberystwyth by train. The weather was very warm and sunny, a complete contrast to the freezing temperatures and snow in the rest of Europe. There were quite a few awkward silences on the way down, as we were stuck for things to say to each other, and I began to doubt the wisdom of having a Howl. But, after a reasonably uneventful journey we arrived in Aberystwyth, to be met by resident Were, Laz. ( a.k.a Bleiddast ) The rooms at Rosser which we were all to stay in were not available yet, so we hunted for the Bed & Breakfast I’d booked Moonchild. And I do mean hunted, the place wasn’t exactly well advertised, and finding it proved difficult. But we found it in the end, and we parted company, since I was staying with friends that night. There was the lunar eclipse that night, and the moon appeared to pass through all it’s phases in one night. The moon was slightly less impressive than I thought, turning a mucky brown instead of the promised blood red. It was still breathtaking though. Meanwhile, two Irish and two Germans observed the sky from an unmarked van, parked by the roadside. No arrests were made... DAY 1: Thursday 4th April 1996 Rising at about 10am the next morning, myself and Moonchild proceeded to prowl the town of Aberystwyth. Aberystwyth, the town of pink buildings! We had to meet up with the rest of the pack who were arriving that day. The first people we met up with were Wendy and Mandy. We all met at the pier, and then proceeded to prowl more of Aberystwyth. This included seeing the Monument near the castle, the best bare babe in Aber. :) Just after 1pm we went and met up with Jim and Dave ( a.k.a Outsider and Ka-qu’az, ) at the rail station. We then went back to the pier and waited for Raukan, Cass, Arctic Wolf, and FaithChaser to turn up in a van. Unfortunately they failed to show, so we caught a bus up to the rooms at Rosser. After claiming the keys for said rooms, Raukan and Co. showed up in the van, delayed due to a late running Ferry. The last to show that day was Megadog, in his Megadog-Mobile. The pack however, was still not a true pack. There was still a lot of awkwardness between people, unsure of what to do, despite a lot of Email between Weres. Since no food was available, the pack went to the local supermarket to get supplies. So there were eleven of us all descending on this single shop, and chaos ensued as everybody bought food for themselves. This caused quite a few supermarket officials to walk past us all looking very suspicious... As a pack we received quite a bit of attention! In the evening, the pack got together to watch videos over in another building. With the help of Mulled Wine, tongues loosened, and the pack began to get to know each another whilst watching “Wolf” on video. Very potent stuff Mulled Wine, resulting in this particular Were nodding off on occasions. :) After the film ended, everyone decided to go for a walk in the local woods, in a vain attempt to ward off the effects of the Mulled Wine. The moon was full and the sky clear... The hills were steep and the woods were dark... We headed back to the rooms at Rosser, very tired indeed. Over the following week, Cadbury’s Creme Egg sales soared dramatically... DAY 2: Friday 5th April 1996 The morning was very quiet, since everyone was still in bed, but by early afternoon, life emerged and started to find their way into the kitchens. After pouring over Megadogs Ordinance Survey maps, a “green bit” on the map was selected, and vaguely driven towards in the van. The route to the site however, took us along a narrow road with a very steep drop at the side... A steep side with no form of barriers... This made the driver, Raukan, ever so slightly jumpy. We suggested that he drive with his eyes shut, which just made everyone else nervy instead. :) But we found a nice open area in the middle of nowhere, and we all bundled out of the van. Unfortunately, this meant there was no-one to meet Fenris, the last of the pack to arrive. So after a short walk half of us turned tail and headed back in the van to pick up Fenris. Which left half of the Weres stranded in the middle of nowhere, with the rest travelling back along the steep drop to pick up Fenris at the train station. After a minor pit-stop at the shops for what would now be very peckish Weres on the hillside, we returned and gathered everyone back together. At last the pack was truly becoming a pack. And with that, Megadog guided the van back via a less steep route which was less wearing on the underwear. It was at this time that yours truly, Utlah, won “Best Ass at the Howl”.:) I was harassed by a certain Werefox all week, who constantly checked to see if my ass was still there. It was very embarrassing... OK, I lied... I loved every minute of it! :*) Since everyone was having trouble cooking for themselves, a communal
feed was agreed on, and so more supplies were purchased, with the intent
that everyone fed at the same time. However, cooking for twelve people
at once can prove difficult, even with a simple Spaghetti Bolognase. It
was found that pasta for twelve people will not fit into a single pan.
So two pans were tried, and that only just worked. The result was spaghetti
everywhere... lots and lots of spaghetti everywhere... The evening consisted of watching a video called “Full Eclipse”, while drinking even more Mulled Wine. Everyone spent the next two hours picking out all the films in-house jokes, such as a cop called “Dire” and a villain called “A. Garou”. Spotting who was a Werewolf in the film proved very easy! :) It should be pointed out the cruelty of taking advantages of peoples phobias. Namely Cass The WereFox’s phobia of sponges. Foxes are very agile and speedy creatures, especially when chased by a sponged armed leopard! At one point, a sponge was placed on an extendible fishing rod, allowing a sponge to be used up to a range of 6 feet. This behaviour went on all week, until eventually the sponges all disappeared under mysterious circumstances... DAY 3: Saturday 6th April 1996 Howl Day! With the weather still warm and sunny, and everyone getting to know each other well, it was decided the actual Howl night would go ahead today. So during the afternoon, some of us bundled into the back of the van, and went on a wood hunt. Our mission, to find and recover lots of wood for the bonfire on the beach. After raiding a few skips for wooden pallets, and a few cut down trees near development work at the Uni, we had enough wood for the fire. Meanwhile, the others fetched food and other campfire goodies for the Howl. After a communal feed, there was a psychological test on the pack, organised by Wendy. You might have done this one, you have to draw....
Some of the results were very interesting... ( In case you’re wondering what happened to them, I “rescued” them! Bribes to the usual address... :) ) The Sun and Moon are supposed to reflect your parents, your tree is supposed to represent yourself, the house your family, the road your journey in life, and the snake is your sex drive... Some were quite frankly worrying. Raukan had no snake, but had his Van instead. He said he loved his van but... Arctic needed a microscope to see his picture it was that small... Mandy had a Snake the size of a juggernaut, and a sun which was very scary. Mine caused the most worry... the tree had a hangman’s noose in it, the house was a large fort, the moon had a bat, a gravestone in the garden, there was roadkill on the road, and someone had driven over the snake... Apart from that it was perfectly normal. :) We all headed off for the beach in the Van and the Megadog Mobile. After waiting in the van for what seemed like a decade, a site for the Howl was found. The beach proved to be host to a lifeform known as “Seafishermanus Lateus”, so we picked a sheltered spot behind a rise near a river, away from everyone, and began to set up camp. Things went wrong from then on... Firstly, most of the food had been forgotten in the rush to leave. This left us just two packets of sausages and a few packs of Marshmallows for us to devour. Also, the sticks to cook the food were too short for such a large fire, so singed paws and fried fur ensued. But the booze had not been forgotten, and no-one seemed to mind too much, and once everyone had cremated their food, we all began to settle down into a Were huddle, and talk amongst ourselves. After a while, murmuring could be heard from a secluded part of the pack. The only Vamp of the pack, had consumed a good half bottle of Baileys... A can of White Cider... another can of White Cider... and a good bulk of a very large bottle of Old English Cider ... The result of which resulted in poor Mandy puking her guts up and virtually comatose. So half the Weres vanished in the van, with Mandy in the back, to get her cleaned up and into bed. Unfortunately, the most talkative part of the pack left with her, resulting in the rest who stayed behind remaining quiet and staring at the camp fire. If a campfire could attempt to stare back at someone, it would still feel very nervous... You’LL be please to know that the next day Mandy was up and about... and to annoyance of the rest, she did not even have a hangover... DAY 4: Sunday 7th April 1996 Most of the Weres were ( Weres were?? ) tired after the nights Howl, so failed to emerge the next morning. Those that did, Megadog, Raukan, FaithChaser, Moonchild, Cass, and myself were treated to a leisurely drive back to the Howl site to clear up any mess. Reluctant to return back to Rosser on such a sunny day, we decided a hike up Pen Dinas was in order. Cass, who had more sense than the rest of us, stayed in the van. As before, there was a steep drop by the path, but Raukan wasn’t so bad with this one. Alas, the uphill grind was a bit too much for this poor Utlah, who had to rest every five minutes. But we finally reached the monument at the top. ( Why can’t they build monuments at the bottom, so you don’t have such a long walk to see them?? ) For those who haven’t seen Pen Dinas, it’s a big hill with a large *erection* on the top... Downhill was a lot more fun, using the “Utlah Pounce” method of descending... straight across private land and towards an awaiting farmer. Thankfully the farmer was very understanding, seeing we were not students, and was very friendly about the whole thing. He was also the most Welsh sounding person we met while down there. Evening brought untold horror and terror. Yes, it was the time of Megadog Curry! Were immunity was taken to extremes as Megadog created new life in the Rosser kitchen... I know a few Americans out there don’t know what a curry is. ( You haven’t lived! ) It’s a rice dish, with meat and vegetable pieces in a VERY spicy sauce. But I digress... After a few bites of this wonderful curry, a new primary colour was discovered by the pack, to be called “Utlah Pink”, which is the colour my faced turned after eating it. This was shortly accompanied by beads of sweat and anguished howling. Fortunately I had made sure that ice was at hand! ( I have no idea at what colour I actually turned, so I’m dreading the photographs! ) After the meal, the pack watched Highlander 3 on video. Still restless, we then watched “Tales from the Far Side”, including the sad bit about a Wolf losing his mate, Urf. :( This was then followed by the entire series of “Wallace and Gromitt” films. By now it was around 3am in the morning so everyone who was still awake, decided to head back to bed. It was at this point, that one Human and one Vampire, who shall be named
to embarrass the hell out of them ( Jim and Mandy!!! ) got to know each
other very well indeed. There was also a mass and rather energetic sponge / towel / bedsheet throwing fight in the kitchen. Perhaps it was something we ate? DAY 5: Monday 8th April 1996 With the afternoon still young, everyone got out of bed and planned what to do next. Since there are a lot of stone circles and other ancient sites in Wales, the whole pack went a wanderin’ and came across a burial site. This can only be described as what looked like a Bus Shelter for the Flintstones. A big rock supported by three other pillar-like rocks, in the middle of a field, surrounded by sheep. ( What do you call a sheep with no legs? A cloud... ) Unimpressed by the bus stop, and everyone’s terrible sheep jokes, we travelled on to the stone circles. It is at this point I should note the creation on a new wolf hunting technique. First, find a narrow country road with hedges at the side, and one sheep (the “prey”) running along the side of said road. Now que one Utlah, leaning madly out of the window of a Megadog mobile, trying desperately to grasp and claw at aforementioned sheep. And I would have had it too, if it hadn’t dived down a side road! :) I missed the hares around the next corner too. Damn! However, I don’t know what happened to the bunnies after that, since everyone else was in the van following, and apparently the van stopped... When we reached the area of the stone circle, a mist had rapidly descended. But we struggled on into the field blindly, hoping to find any American tourists lost on the moors. :) We did find the stone circle, minus any American Tourists. The stone circle consisted of about 16 knee high stones arranged in a circle about 10 - 15 meters, 35 - 45 feet, across. We all then stood on one of the stones, so that we had a circle of Weres stood on a circle of stones. It was quite impressive, bar the two empty stones left over. Once a bit of Howling and gesturing of “So what now?”, we all headed back in the vague direction of the vehicles. I say vague, since we could no longer see them. But we found them OK. An extra Were turned up by the name of Ragtag, sporting a rather nifty blue folder containing quite a lot of Were and Furry Erotica. He was immediately welcomed by the pack. :) In the evening the pack discovered another way of producing “Utlah Pink”, with some humorous and bazaar “Urfs” to go with it. This involved picking on poor innocent me ( :) ) and tickling me. It got so bad at one point, Raukan just had to walk near me and I turned colour. I’m a Wolf not a chameleon! Evening saw me disappearing, but the rest went for a walk into the woods until 5am in the morning, where they came up with the following little ditty... "Oh Tree!" DAY 6: Tuesday 9th April 1996 The last day the pack spent together. Laz also arrived for the last day, so we took to the hills again, this time to a place called “Devils Bridge”. Devils Bridge is basically, a small bridge stacked upon a small bridge stacked upon a small bridge. Quite why they had to build three is a complete mystery to me, but considering people pay to see this maladjusted bridge, there is at least one reason to this. To go along the associated nature trail, people have to pay a pound (about 2 US dollars.) to pass though an unmanned rotating cage. So to save on money (we didn’t have enough pound coins!) we fitted two Weres into the cage with each use, where normally one person would go. How many Weres can you fit into a one-man cage? Quite a few. The idea was to put one small and one large Were in together. But it ended up that all the small Weres went first, and the largest last, the latter being extremely crushed! Well, it was very funny at the time... After walking up and down the sides of a very steep valley with a mediocre waterfall, we returned to the vehicles and rested. After rechecking the existence of Utlah Pink, we sped off to a restaurant on the coast, where we all had a meal of varying descriptions, and threatened to throw people into the local harbour. Back at Rosser, Wendy saw me looking a bit down and asked me what would make me happy. I answered something unethical, immoral and illegal. The following three hours ( and an hour the following day! ) were spent trying to guess what fiendish act my imagination had spawned. Answers at the end of the program... DAY 7: Wednesday 10th April 1996 Alas, it was time for everyone to leave. Fenris and Ragtag snuck off in the middle of the night, just in time to catch Fenris’ plane. Moonchild left by train in the early morning, apparently with reluctance... Raukan, Cass, Arctic and FaithChaser all left in the van, after a minor shopping detour. Jim and Mandy left together under suspicious circumstances, but apparently travelled together only as far as the next train station. Megadog then sped off in the Megadog Mobile, a vehicle with headlights so illegally bright, they stun small mammals. I’LL never curse a Reliant again... :) That just left myself, Ka-qu’az in the rooms, and Wendy and Laz, who were resident Aberites, left behind. This left us the task to divvy up all the food left behind by everyone else. There was quite a bit of it too. Four large tins of rice pudding, five unopened packets of biscuits, quite a few cans of beer, and one half finished bottle of 10 year old whiskey, to name but a few. DAY 8: Thursday 11th April 1996 At noon, it was time to leave the rooms at Rosser once and for all. It’s corny, I know, but it was rather heartbreaking when I locked my room door for the final time. I had been the first Were to arrive at Rosser, and now I was the last to leave. It sort of signified the end of the Howl for me, and I knew when I locked the door all that was left was to say goodbye to Wendy and Laz, before the long journey home. But, I remembered the good times over the past week, and I grinned a very wolfy grin.:) (Rare for this Utlah!) PERSONAL BIT:It was very important that this EuroHowl was a success. If it failed, then the chances of another Howl in Europe for the next few years would have been pretty slim. But it worked, and proved that a Howl in Europe was possible. It also provided a foundation on which to organise further EuroHowls. We can learn from the first, and use them to help plan the next. Transportation for example is vital. Raukans van proved indispensable, and allowed us to go where we liked, and also allowed transportation of firewood etc. We lucked out on the weather too. Sunny all the time, except for mist on one day, which made the stone circle visit even better.:) The only thing I would have changed was the Howl night itself. Forgetting half the food, and then having to drag someone home put a damper on the whole thing. We left for the site far too quickly, too late, and badly organised, so half the stuff we needed was accidentally left behind. I’m glad no-one asked me why I first organised the EuroHowl, or what caused me to start such a task, simply because I don’t know! I surprised myself at even organising the Howl, since it’s completely against my nature. I’m a quiet little wolf who passes by unnoticed, I don’t go around arranging mass pack gatherings like Howls! I guess I turned towards an old fave of mine, Wile E. Coyote. Someone who redoubles his efforts in pursuit of a goal, even when the original purpose has been forgotten. But I’m glad I never gave up. Thanks also at this point to Wendy, for helping to organise the rooms, and Farthing W. Fox, for the use of crucigera’s mailing list. Also thanks to Raukan and Megadog, for the use of the vehicles, and thanks to Cass, for saying I have a nice butt! :*) The EuroHowl meant a lot to me. Just before the Howl, I was suffering all sorts of problems, and I also feared I had lost my Wolfish side. So not feeling Wolfy and going to the Howl, filled me with dread. But once at the Howl, and everyone started to feel comfortable with each other, I felt strangely at home. Also my Wereside returned stronger than ever. It helped to repair a broken spirit, as it were. I know it also meant a lot to everyone else too, I hope you all enjoyed yourselves too... Until next time, my friends... I am Utlah,
|
|
 |
|
The WEREWeb
|
All work copyright
Utlah ©2001 unless stated otherwise.
|