Tips for UK PonyCon-goers 10: You always take the weather with you

Here's a tip for UK PonyCon that I was considering publishing anyway, but given the weather forecast I now think it's an important one:

Tip 10: Remember, it's October. In England

That means you're not going to have a weekend of balmy temperatures and gentle breezes while you sip cocktails by a tropical lagoon. The River Avon's path through Bristol is full of mud most of the time anyway, thanks to the Bristol Channel's 15-metre tidal range – the highest anywhere in the world outside Canada, fact fans.

That's not relevant to the convention, though, What is relevant is that the Met Office outlook is currently predicting a spell of very wet and windy weather over con weekend, and you're likely to regret it if you don't prepare for it. While this area of Bristol isn't on an exposed headland or anything, it can get pretty windy during autumn gales.

So, if you're driving to UKPC, be prepared for stuff like trees blocking roads or speed limits across the Severn Bridge. If you're travelling by train, there may be longer journey times or trees or fallen overhead wires blocking routes for a while. Even once you arrive at your hotel, you may get soaked walking across the car park if the rain's falling hard enough.

On con days themselves, consider what you'll do if it's pouring down at queue time – one of those single-use plastic coats might be handy, as the wind's likely to be too strong for umbrellas to be useful. Also, bring plastic bags of some sort to wrap items susceptible to water damage. You don't want your beautiful new plushie waterlogged on the first day!

I don't want to go overboard here. Even a severe gale storm would be unlikely to be as disastrous as Ophelia was to Ireland in a non-coastal city like Bristol. But it does look increasingly as though the weather will not be as benign as it has been for the last few UKPCs, and it's better to have preparations you don't need than to need preparations you don't have!