A -*Scratch-n-Sniff*- View of the EuroHowl...
By MegaDog

[megadog@dogstar.win-uk.net]

Day The First: The Arriving

I arrived on Thursday afternoon (having had to see a client in the morning.. grrr!), and immediately bumped into Moonchild and Holger and Raukan and Cass the Fox, and Arcticwolf. Being a grade one idiot, i'd forgotten to bring any food, so i had to do a raid on the local supermarket to get basic things like coffee, bacon... bread, honey...

When I got back from this, I met Jim (AKA The Outsider) and spent some time talking to him while he cooked potato-waffles in the toaster and then put them in a sandwich... the rest of the pack seemed to think this was hilarious and treated it like a spectator-sport! Utlah meantime had arrived and said we were all invited to Wendy's for mulled wine and nibbles that evening.

I looked at the assembled throng, smiled, and wondered just who we would be nibbling!

The mulled wine (and syrup-smeared popcorn, and chocolate balls...) was most life-enhancing; we ate and drank while watching "WOLF", then decided that rather than watching the second video (Full Eclipse) we'd go for a long walk, so we did... up behind the botany department greenhouses, into the woods, and on to a piece of high ground overlooking Aberystwyth. From there we could see the lights of the town, the sea, the stars... and then it was suddenly seriously past Midnight (nearer to 3AM...) so we all came down the hill and went to our respective beds...

Day The Second: Hills and things

The next day we all got up late. Some of us were treated to the spectacle of Arctic dressed in a sort of green romper-suit, not necessarily the most inspiring of sights first thing in the morning... [imagine the Jolly Green Giant... but with wrinkles..]

I showed the other weres some good places to go in the nearby forest (I've got marked maps... and no, they're not marked in that way!) then went into town again, then wandered off to yomp up a hill i'd done some research on in my youth. There was still snow on top! It felt good to get my paws cold!

Coming back, I met Raukan and about three of the others; they had left the rest of the pack up another hill, so we all piled into the Raukanmobile and set off to fetch them, stopping at the local supermarket on the way to stock up on essential supplies of chocolate, Cadbury Creme Eggs (things that were to be consumed in large amounts over the next few days), and other forms of major sugar-replacement therapy.

We found the rest of the pack on a hill, at a place called Angler's Retreat, again somewhere i knew quite well (having marshalled a car rally through these woods only a few months before...) We all fed on the chocolate, did Julie Andrews impressions ("The Hills are alive.. with the sound of Howling") and yours truly was photographed kicking a few cow-turds into oblivion :)

After this, we were treated to an "interesting" ride down a forest track in the Raukanmobile... the track having a steep drop of a few hundred feet along the edge, and *no walls*. This somewhat perturbed Raukan; he was glad when once again he had proper surfaced road beneath his paws, and walls or fences along the sides.....

More food was bought when we got back to Aber; the local supermarket was just about to close when we arrived, and the staff were somewhat fazed by the sudden arrival of this curious collection of crazy people. They eyed us very suspiciously, specially when we loitered near the meat display and drooled.....

Spaghetti-cooking was on the agenda... the Great Spaghetti-Monster was called into being when enough to serve 13 people was put in a pan only big enough to hold spaghetti for eight; the resulting protoplasmic ooze having to be transferred to another pan. This was not an easy task, a bit like wrestling with an octopus...

After feeding, the video was produced, together with more mulled wine, and we spent the evening/night watching Full Eclipse, a movie best described as Robocop-with-Werewolves... followed by bed.

Day The Third: Light My Fire

The next day was Saturday; it was decided that we should hold the official Howl that night (with fire etc...). Much of the time was spent violating another supermarket (a different one this time... we wanted to spread ourselves around and give as many supermarkets as possible the benefit of our strangeness...). We also went wood-harvesting, clambering over the various skips (Dumpsters to the US packmates), bouncing round some woods where trees had been cut down, and generally loading up what scrap wood we could get our paws on.

We had earlier in the day done a recce and identified a suitable beach for the fire, but when we got to the best site that night, some guy was already camped there... so we had to move a few hundred yards further along the river bank. Anyway, by midnight, the fire was burning... various of us did some fire-jumping, while others cooked/burned marsh-mallows, or attempted to cook sausages.

[It's quite amusing how a sausage can be cremated to a cinder on the outside, but still frozen solid inside....]

There was some more fire-leaping, and occasional outbreaks of tickling... one of our number, a friend of Wendy's, rather over-indulged in the alcohol (a blend of Bailey's Irish Cream and Cider), and had to be shipped off back to Aber where she was thrust into a shower and repeatedly washed...

Eventually the fire began to burn down (we ran out of small logs, and the really thick tree-stumps we'd gathered were reluctant to burn) so we made sure the thing was properly extinguished and all went back to Aber, and bed.

Day The Fourth: Fun with Sponges!

Next day (Sunday) some of us returned to the fire-site to make sure it was all cleaned up (no cans or anything left lying about), then a group of us (MegaDog, Raukan, Moonchild, Utlah, Holger) went for a romp up a large hill (called officially Pen Dinas, but generally known in my time at Aber as "Den penis") overlooking the town, where we watched a couple of paragliders... what a strange way to try to commit suicide... then we came back down the hill, talked to a local farmer who we met at the bottom where the van had been parked, had some food, and drove out to Ynyslas sand-dunes.

The tide was out, and we wandered round on the 'beach' for a while, having a sponge-fight.

[Raukan's foxy sidekick Cass having an irrational fear of sponges, it was fun to chase her with one... there were loud cries of Go aWAYYY! as a result of this]

That night, being my turn to cook, the infamous MegaDog Curry, in vegetarian and carnivore versions, was produced. A pack of toilet tissue was placed in the icebox to cool in anticipation of the potential bum-burning effects, and we ate.

It was during the eating of my evil, Mace, Chilli and Turmeric-laced brew, that Utlah was noted as having gone an interesting color, a curious shade of pink. Indeed it was decided that he had turned a previously undiscovered new primary color; there was debate as to whether this should be named Utlah or MegaDog.

We have not yet heard from the International Committee on the Naming of Colors as to the exact procedure that is followed in the case of the discovery of new primary colors, precedent being somewhat sparse in this area.

Raukan's wonderful garlic-bread was then administered to the stricken as an antidote to the curry-afflicted; Utlah was also seen with his tongue stuck inside a full carton of ice-cream in his search for relief from the burning.

A certain were-leopard at this point produced his special "Telescopic Sponge-projector" that was used to devastating effect on the sponge-phobics.

Before we went to bed, there was an attack of mutual sponging, throwing wet dish-cloths at each other, burying various weres under piles of bedsheets (and in my case, an ironing board too!) and general fooling around...

Day The Fifth: Fogbound!

Monday we all got up late, and went down the coast to a couple of Stone-age sites, one was a burial chamber (cromlech?) called Pentre Ifan, the other a sort of stone circle.

Navigation to this site was interesting, we discovered that Wendy suffers a major lack of mapreading skills, but fortunately Faithchaser was able to come to the rescue.. occupants of the MegaDog-mobile will forever remember comments like There's a dwelling... there's another one.

Utlah also did some impromptu sheep-hunting, using the new 'Hang out the window of a rapidly-driven car and try to grab them' technique; unfortunately the Welsh sheep were just too elusive for him.. and what he would have done with one if he'd actually caught it is not immediately obvious either.

When we were at the circle, it was very misty, and rather spooky, just like the intro to An American Werewolf in London; i've got photos of various weres standing on the stones, silhouetted by mist.

Unfortunately we could not find a virgin to sacrifice, except for a can of Virgin-brand cola that Jim had purchased specially for the occasion.

[Note: the exact mystic significance of the assembled Weres running anticlockwise round the circle three times has yet to be determined]

From the circle, we went back to Aber for food (cooked by Raukan and the Fox); Wendy's friend Ragtag produced some interesting wererotic artwork for our amusement, I produced a laptop-PC with other naughty fox/wolf images, then after feeding, a few of us went for a long walk in the woods.

There were occasional outbursts of poetry, aimed at the trees, most of which started Oh Tree!, finished with a reference to peeing, and were most surreal.

We spent some considerable time just lying there in the dark talking; Wendy was amazed at just how furry my legs were [but, dammit, i'm a *WEREWOLF*!], and fun was had tracking the were-leopard with a laser-pointer as he hid behind progressively thinner and thinner trees... there was also an interesting snuggle-pile involving Raukan and Arctic, and an attempt by Raukan and Wendy to use my legs as a giant human wishbone; fortunately I managed to escape without permanent damage *YOWL*!.

Day The Sixth: All Squeezing Together!

Tuesday, we went to a place called Devil's Bridge, where there's a rather steep valley with steps down to a waterfall at the bottom.

To get into this place, there was a sort of rotating gate, designed for one person at a time to pass through, on payment of a pound a time.

Being mean, we managed to get two people at a time to squeeze through the gate, but not without much giggling and instructions to breathe out!

I'm not sure whether it was the strain of the climb down to the river and up again on the other side, or the effect of cramped rear seating in the MegaDog-mobile, but afterwards, Utlah was suffering from sore paws... :( I offered to give him a paw-rub to relieve the pain, but my offer was declined...

Then we went down the coast, stopping in Aberaeron to feed ourselves in a local cafe. Various weres chased the ducks along the harbour, but what they would have done with them if they'd caught one I don't really know...

That night, we again watched videos; someone (Utlah?) had brought the Far Side video and recordings of the Nick Parks' Wallace and Gromit animation series, then we got to discussing Utlah's fantasies, the exact nature of which weren't fully determined at the time, though he did give us some inspiring ideas for future personal investigation :). This discussion kept us awake to some silly time like about 3AM....

Day the Seventh: The Departing

Wednesday was time-to-go-home day... sniff.

Raukan, Cass the Fox, Holger, Moonchild and Arctic were the first to leave, as they had a ferry to catch back to Ireland, then I took Jim and Mandy to the train station in the MegaDog-mobile, then wandered round town for a few minutes, and bought some wolfy T-shirts and a small wolf brooch in "Stars", the New-Age shop down by the sea-front.

Later in the day, it came time for me to go... I was really sad having to depart, somehow I felt specially at home back in Aber, and being with individuals I was totally at ease with, I wanted to stay, but some of us have to work for a living... Grrr!

To Wendy and Utlah for making it all happen; to Raukan, Arctic, Faithchaser, Fenris, Laz the Bleiddast; to Jim and Mandy (though we didn't see much of you *grin*); to Cass the foxy one, Moonchild, Ka'Quaz the Leopard, to Fenris and Ragtag, I say this:-

Thank you for being such a wonderful group of tolerant, accepting, open-minded and *fun* beasties to be with. May you always find smooth ground beneath your paws; may the moon illuminate your chosen paths in life, and may no harm befall any of you, for you are all special to me.