EUROHOWL'97 REPORT

WRITTEN BY MEGADOG.

Well, I got out of bed at about 8AM (that's like seriously early for me) on the Saturday morning, because i'd totally forgotten to do any packing the night before. So it was a case of stuffing all those possibly-useful things (toiletries, batteries, T-shirts, underwear, socks, walking-boots, condoms, telephones, cassette-tapes, flashlights and the like) into a bag, and then throwing it, and a few other things, into the back of the MegaDog- mobile, and setting off. I had a train to meet in Aberystwyth, but I wisely remembered to put on some clothes before setting out!

The journey to Aberystwyth was relatively uneventful, except for the time when I was overtaking some slothful tourists, and some cretin in a Montego decides to pull out of a side-turning in front of us both... Imagine three cars, all heading in the same direction, side by side down a two-lane road, with a speed-differential between the fastest and slowest cars of near 100MPH, and you'll get the idea. I didn't need a change of underwear, but i suspect at least one of the other drivers did...

Anyway, about three hours later, I arrived just in time, parked up in Aberystwyth, and headed for the station. Utlah, Jim and possibly Locandez needed collecting.

As is usual, the train was late.... Eventually it arrived, and the three weres were disgorged. After a hug, we made a quick visit to a nearby supermarket to get some nibbly things, and had a chat with a rather nice Lurcher we met in the supermarket car-park, then we all piled into the MegaDog-mobile and headed up the hill, nearly taking out a motorcyclist in the process.

We then had fun checking in to the "reception" place at the Aber campus, confusing the woman on the desk by wondering whether we should use our proper names or not when signing for the keys...

After finding our rooms, we wandered outside, to discover that Raukan, Cass and Arctic had also arrived, as had Christoph from Germany. Guardian and Wiz were also loitering around the place, seemingly confused by sudden exposure to so much Britishness... We all wandered out to the car-park and sat under a tree talking, waiting for the others to turn up, and watching the other campus inhabitants try to drag the exhaust systems off their cars by driving over the speed-bumps without slowing down.

Eventually, Shuck and Shiraa arrived in the white Fiero, as did Tiogar in a sort-of plum-coloured Sierra. Moonchild and Fax also appeared out of nowhere, and we were a pack again.

*FOOD* was next on the agenda - we headed down to Safeway in a convoy, and stocked up on all those essential things... Bread, Beer, Bonios, Nutella, coffee, and several gallons of milk for Arctic. Then it was all back up the hill to cook something, and drink.... After we'd eaten, a small group of us went for a nocturnal yomp up in the nearby woods, wandered across the golf-course, raked some interesting messages in one of the bunkers, listened for bats, then decided to call it a night.

The following day, we set the trend for the week by all getting up late, despite having been woken at 8AM by some idiot bus-driver running up his engine right outside my window...anyway, despite this intrusion it was about 2PM before we had all surfaced, had whatever we felt like for breakfast, and felt like heading out into the wilds of Wales. By this time, Lugodoc had appeared.. Maps were consulted, and a decision was made to head for Nant Y Moch reservoir (which, for the non-Welsh-inclined amongst you, means "Valley of pigs").

After a brief stop for group photos in the car-park of Nant-y-moch dam, we all headed out along the road, looking for some woods. It was at this point that Locandez started his sheep-worrying; running up behind them and then barking/snarling/growling. Where he gets the energy from, I will never know...

After a couple of miles along the road, we turned off up a steep forest- track, and suddenly realised how un-fit most of us were. Maybe it was the hot, humid weather, but after about a mile walking up this steep incline, we were all exhausted, and it came as some relief to discover that the track was a dead-end. After a rest, during which Arctic's GPS was consulted, and we decided that hiking cross-country through the forest was inadvisable, we wandered back to the cars, slowly... and then Shuck and myself indulged in a quick cross-country blast chasing each other down twisty roads, to the terror of the driver of a car coming the other way (we managed to stop with a few feet to spare!). It was fun flying over a little yump, getting all four wheels off the ground, and watching Shuck's car disappear in the cloud of dust i kicked up on landing...

Back at base, more food, more to drink, then talking, listening to some extremely silly Tom Lehrer CDs that Wiz had brought over, and then bed...

Next day, most weres got up late (again). I, however, had got up early, to go and tell the f**king bus-driver to shut his engine off or I would give him a free program of facial cosmetic surgery. It had been deemed that since this was the night of the full moon, it should also be the night of the Official Howl Bonfire. We all went for a wander into Aberystwyth, then some major shopping was undertaken in the local Kwik-save, which was popular because it had a walk-in, refrigerated dairy area, which could contain a group of about ten hot, sweaty weres at once!

After cooling down, we left the store with large amounts of alcohol, bread rolls, alcohol, sausages, alcohol, burgers, alcohol, potatoes, alcohol, chocolate, alcohol [get the idea?], and headed back up the hill to the campus.

At this point, some of us (well, myself and Utlah) realised we lacked certain important things - barbecue skewers to cook sausages on - so we headed back into town to remedy this. Afterwards, we investigated suitable venues for the bonfire; I at first hoped that South Beach would be suitable, but after checking it out, we decided it was too rough and sloping.

A blast down the coast to Llanrhystud didn't help either, as access to all the beaches was restricted by farmers' gates and private land. On a hunch, we went North of Aber, but the only suitable beach-bonfire venue was a nature-reserve, so we decided to hold the Howl fire the same place as last year, by the river on Tan-y-bwlch beach.

So, it was off collecting wood - diving into skips (dumpsters to the US packmates) around the campus to retrieve bits of wood and pallets, then scampering round a wooded area to collect logs, all of which was dutifully stuffed into the back of Lugodoc's Citroen and Raukan's van. Then we headed back to the campus to collect the rest, and, as dusk fell, drove out to the fire-site.

As we arrived, dusk was falling, and a full moon was on the rise!

Lugodoc started the fire, and within minutes the flames were leaping several feet into the air; a cue for some of us to do some fire-jumping. Of course there were some wussy weres who decided to chicken out... shame on them!

As the heat built up, sausages began to be cooked with enthusiasm, together with a loathsome concoction that Jim made up - chocolate coated bananas. Being a banana-hater, i excused myself from sampling this, a wise move if the expressions on some weres' faces are anything to go by. Lugodoc, meantime, had come up with an interesting way to convert frozen burgers directly to charcoal and ash, without their passing through an intervening phase of edibility...

It was while we were feeding that Ragtag suddenly appeared... wearing a cat-collar and leaping around like a panther on springs. How he knew where to find us, I'll never know...

We all sat round the fire, watching and eating and talking and drinking well into the night; then some weres headed for the beach for various silly games. I went off in search of Utlah (who had things on his mind and had wandered off from the rest of the group), found him, and then, after checking that the fire was properly extinguished, we all headed back up the hill to bed.

The following morning was another laid-back affair; then in the afternoon a group of us decided to go for a wander in the hills, so we drove out to Rheidol falls, and went for a yomp up a track into the woods. It was a *very* humid afternoon, and by the time we got to the end of the track we were all sweating profusely. Locandez kept getting jumped on by Ragtag (something that was going to be repeated on numerous occasions for the rest of the duration of the Howl...), but he was able to maintain his virtue for the time being... We ate blackberries from the hedgerow as we walked back down the hill from the woods, then spent some time fooling about in the car-park, sticking barbecue skewers up the legs of Raukan's shorts (oooer!), tickling various people etc... until we were fed up and thirsty, and decided it was time to head back to the campus for food.

This night, i cooked another of my curries, aided and abetted by Moonchild, [who seems to have a thing about knives and vegetables..] but due to the necessary Birds' Eye chillies not having been available in the supermarket, this time the curry was a most mild affair. I suspect those people who were sharing rooms had reason to be grateful for this... as was Utlah, who was spared a repetition of a certain unnatural pinkness...

After feeding, we again sat around, talked, drank, and Ragtag introduced Locandez to some of the finer points of knot-tying, demonstrating using a length of rope he seemed to have brought with him for just this sort of occasion

Next day, not a lot happened, apart from a wander round town and a visit to the arcade for ice cream and playing with various video-games and the like. [Tiogar sure plays a mean game of air-hockey!]. After this, it was back to the campus for more food - Utlah and myself cooked up a large amount of sausages, mashed potatoes, and spicy beans, which were consumed with surprising enthusiasm. One thing I noticed about this Howl was that there was rarely if ever any food left over...

The evening was spent drinking (Cass and Utlah hit the Pernod... you should see what colour it goes when added to orange-juice!), playing cards, listening to CDs and tapes, tying up Locandez and the like...

The following day was truly horrible weather! They say you don't truly appreciate Wales until you've seen the rain going past horizontally; well, with any luck all the Howlers are now truly appreciative... The plan had been to go up to Walks-between-Worlds' place in the evening, for a hot-tub/ sauna/barbie, but the weather clearly indicated otherwise. Nevertheless, a group of us leaped into the Megadog-mobile and drove through the rain to try to meet up with W-b-W to explain, but despite finding the cafe/health- food shop where we were meant to meet him, he wasn't there... turns out he had also decided the weather was horrible, and had taken a lift back to where he lives [rather than walking..] Oh well.. switch to plan "B" - food, drinking, more playing of cards, tying-up of Locandez and listening to the soundtrack of "The night before Christmas", and, out of boredom we invented YiffBall!

Several games of this were played, with various degrees of success and personal injury, until somewere put their elbow through an electrical fitting, exposing live connections!

Given the extremely sweaty state of the assembled weres (and the wetness of the walls...) it was decided that sweaty weres and 240-volt power were likely to be an inelegant combination, so the Yiffball was abandoned for the night - we all wandered back to our rooms, showered off, then congregated back in the kitchen for more drinking...

Ragtag's folder of spooge-artwork was also avidly consulted by certain people... and Locandez, inspired by what he saw, drew a couple of male anthrofurries enjoying each others' yiffiness....

Next day, we had to get up early because Shiraa had to leave early; he had to be in work at some ridiculous time the following day... so we all went to the station to see him off.

Unfortunately, he needed to mark his territory before boarding the train, and while he was doing this, the train left! so we all wandered back into town, had a quick scout round, ate ice-cream, played some more games in the pier arcade [hint: the handling of the cars in "GTI Driver" is *totally* unlike the handling of a real rally-car!], went into the Stars shop for extra luminous Yiffballs, then eventually managed to get back to the station in time for Shiraa to catch his train. Then it was back to the campus (again!).

Next to leave were Fax and Moonchild... it seemed sad to feel that the whole pack was sort-of breaking up... anyway, more food was eaten, then the usual routine of playing cards, drinking (though we were rather low on alcohol at this point, a major omission), having a quick game of Yiffball, listening to CDs, talking, scritching...

Saturday; well, we all had to be out of our rooms by 10AM, so we got up [relatively] early! Things were stuffed into cars and vans, the remaining food etc. was divided up between those who remained, keys handed back, group hugs initiated, and a trip to the local shop was arranged, so we could all have a group effort at winning the lottery [we didn't, by the way]. Tiogar hurtled off back to her den at this point, then for the rest of us it was back down into town to drop people at the station.

The trains seemed quite crowded when we put Locandez on his, and so Jim and Utlah suggested that they travel to Shrewsbury with me to pick up the connecting train there. After sadly saying goodbye to the Irish/American/Canadian contingent of weres, Ut, Jim and myself made a quick dash to Shrewsbury, arriving well in time for the trains, so we decided to have a burger. Sitting in Burger King munching, then back at the station, I felt really sad... Jim was the first to leave, leaving Utlah and myself to sit on the station platform for another half hour or so, talking, thinking back over the things that had happened at the Howl... and feeling PHD [Post-Howl Depression!] starting to set in big-time... Eventually, Utlah's train turned up, and then I was all alone on the station platform . Oh well, so it ends..

Overall, I felt this Howl was somewhat different to last years'; there seemed to be more underlying interpersonal tension to this one, less of a "pack" spirit. And we didn't seem to *do* so much... which could probably be put down to the couple of days when it rained heavily. Either that, or weres are naturally lazy! (yes, i think that's it...)

Whatever, it was good to see some old friends again, and meet new ones. If there's a Howl next year (and i hope there is...) then i for sure want to be a part of it; dammit, if you buy me enough Bonios, i might even *organise* it!

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