EuroHowl’97 Howl Report

Written by Guardian.

Grrreetings Everyone!

Well, Utlah suggested that all of us write Howl reports. I've never been one for writing these things; in fact I've failed to complete one for any of the 8 howls/gatherings that I've been to. You could say that I'm inherently lazy. ;-) So for now, I have just a *couple* of corrections/additions to Megadog's report. Who knows, I may actually write enough original material in here to convince me to write a complete report of my own.

Anyway, here goes from MegaDog's post to the NG...

MegaDog the Nettweiler (megadog@canis-major.daemon.co.uk) wrote:
MegaDog's EuroHowl97 Report
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Complete with interjections from Guardian...

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!

Well, I wasn't quite this bad. I got back from the TX howl the Monday morning before the howl began. I then had to wash several loads of laundry and pack to leave for Ireland on Wednesday afternoon. Did I mention that I had to work on monday and tuesday? (g)

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.

Planes seem to do both, actually. Even going overseas, they're early getting you to your destination and late getting you back home. Point in case, one slightly exhausted Guardian arrives in Shannon airport about 15 mins ahead of schedule to be panicked when he couldn't find his party. Then, upon leaving, he is dropped off at the Shannon airport and bid farewell only to be delayed 4 hours by (first) fog and (then) a massive regional power outage. Then missing connecting flights, etc... :-P God I wish I could fly in RL instead of just in my Dreams...

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.

Actually, We saw you a couple times before you found us...but I honestly had you mistaken for local *female* inhabitants. I saw three people with long *straight* (note the envy here) hair in ponytails and one with with short that I'd never seen before. Call it premature culture shock. At any rate, while we were trying to figure out how to ask what party you were with, you found us. ;-P

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.

Honestly, I didn't start to see the "pack" mentality for some time after people started arriving. It wasn't until about an hour under that tree that I started to see people loosen up and *talk*. Then when Fax and MoonChild arrived it took a while for them to really be "accepted", as it were.

*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,

...being careful not to alert anyone in the house of our presence...

raked some interesting messages in one of the bunkers,

..."WOLVES HERE", courtesy of Utlah. The picture of that came out pretty good, btw! I'll get it up *eventually*...

listened for bats,

Is that what you all were doing? I thought we were just watching the cityscape. (shrug)

then decided to call it a night.

Upon arriving back, some of us changed clothes and stayed up talking a bit. Not long, tho.

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...

You noticed that too, eh. :-{

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...

You know that blood-red 'minerals' that he had? (g)

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,

...much to the delight of those of us who wore shorts...

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...

Exactly *how* much of this kind of driving did you do, anyway?

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...

Ahem, *Guardian* brought over. Sheesh, I didn't contribute much, but at least recognize me for what I did do. (G)

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.

...And that explains why I got a chance the sleep the rest of the nights...

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.

Nutella! Don't forget the Nutella!

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!

Some of us wished to preserve our leg hairs. ;-P

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...

Yeah, yeah, yeah...so it wasn't a fantastic idea...

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...

Weeeell, here's the scoop. Being the extremely well-prepared Were that I am, I had left my jacket at base and was trying to make do with Cass' very nice but very small pullover. And some of the others had epressed some interest in some bread, butter, etc for the burgers. Christoph was kind enough to take me back to base to get these things and my Blanket. When we arrived, we found a curious note on the door into block K. "Ragtag is here. [license plate #]" I'm glad Christoph knew it was a license number because I wouldn't have had a clue.

Anyway we hustled together everything and hurried down to find RagTag. We found him sitting in his car dozing. Christoph quickly explained that we were all already at the bonfire site and that he should just follow us back. So back we went, with RagTag in close tow. RagTag was apparently planning on making a little more of a suprise entrance than just showing up so he turned off his lights as we approached. And that's about all there was to it. He showed up like a panther on speed and made his presence *well* known. (g)

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.

Which is what I was involved with. We rolled and romped in the sand having a blast while getting multiple minor abrasions. (g) RagTag was definitely the "smash" of the evening. Here's a hint: never knock the legs out from under a 300lb (137 kilo) Were while *under* him. (G) And somewhere in this mass of euphoric confusion some sand worked it's way into my camera rendering it slightly less than useable past that. :-/ I got a pretty cool overlay shot from it not advancing, tho. ;-)

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.

Very bushed, all of us.

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.

I *do* hope Raukan saved the sound files that were recorded on his camera during this. They were most entertaining. (g)

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...

Yesss, so I heard from last year's Howl. (g) It was quite good this year! Incidentally, why the decision to use honey? Oh, and the "eyeball in the brew" shot came out pretty good. ;-)

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 (GRIN!)

Yes, some us were getting slightly worried as to how 'wrapped up' in this mess Locandez was getting...

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...

FooOODdah!

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...

I thought it was Black currant juice. BTW, that mixture has taken rather well over here with a local Pagan group. (g)

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...

Yesindeedy. At some point it was raining *up* as well. The draft into one corner of the complex was forcing rain upwards. ;^P

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..

Which I was rather disappointed about, really. I was *very* much looking forward to this event. I almost wish it could have been done one day earlier to avoid the weather...

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!

BTW, would whoever posted the official instructions for this to the NG be so kind as to send them to me as well? I missed them.

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...

Oh come, now. It wasn't all that bad. Compared to some groups I know, this one stayed reletively *dry*...

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....

Whatever became of this, anyway? There was this one and the one of Locandez barking at the sheep from a moving car. I've seen the latter on the net, but... Oh, also, what became of his and Tiogar's shirt design? I kinda favor Tiogar's personally...

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...

Yes, I noted that the Howl was starting to go downhill at this point. Although, Fax, MoonChild and Wiz seemed to get quite a lot accomplished while they were together...

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...

Yes, definitely tryin to fight the feeling of premature PHD.

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].

Damn :-{ I was so looking to being called back...

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

And *German*! Don't forget poor ArcticWolf... ;-) Oh, there's a story about this, actually. See the end of this post for more...

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 (sniff). Oh well, so it ends..

Yes, it does feel bad. On the way back from my first howl, I honestly think that the PHD is what caused me to cling to my (then un-named) Guardian so tightly. It's times like that when I need him most.

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.

Since I wasn't there last year, I can't give an accurate opinion here. But for the most part, this Howl went better than several over here in the states have gone. I was *very* happy with the way things turned out. One thing that I might suggest is more communal sleeping quarters. I don't know how you all are about privacy when you sleep, but one of the things that has helped to cement the US weres at the Howls I've been to over here has been at least semi-communal sleeping arrangements. Of course, it's best of those of us that snore can sleep slightly further away... (g)

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...)

Bingo! Tell the Were what he's Won, Rick! "Well, Guard, MegaDog will never have to worry about dirty teeth and dog breath again with his new lifetime supply of Bonios..." ;-}

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!

Oh *do* try... I doubt I'll be able to make it in '98 either in the spring *or* summer, but I want the tradition to at least last until '99 when I can come again... (g)

And until then, can someone *PLEASE* send me a couple boxes of Bonios?!? I've finally found a source of Nutella over here, but dangit if I can't find Bonios! I've been sitting here finishing off a jar of the stuff with soda crackers wishing for some...

And lastly, that story about the Irish/Canadian/American/German group. On the way over from Ireland, not only did we hit a bird in Raukan's can (or van, depending on your point of view) and subsequenly get pulled over for speeding, but we got pulled over and checked at Customs when driving off the ferry in Wales. It was rather comical explaining to the officer that we had 5 people of 4 nationalities traveling to meet an undisclosed number of others in Wales for a convention of sorts for WereWolf fans. [Giggle!] The office had such a laugh out of it that he had to call over another with a "Hey! You'll never believe this one!" [g]

And so my first EuroHowl ended. I've missed each and every one of you something fierce since. I've got all my pictures back (all 14 rolls) and will get busy scanning sometime between now and Xmas, I *promise*! :-} They'll subsequently be made into a howl page of some sort.

...and I've droned on long enough here. Megadog, again my deepest apologies for using your work as a base for mine. I look forward to hearing from the rest of you, even if you don't write howl reports. Howls, Growls 'n Purrs...

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