UK PonyCon, Monday: Throng, numbers make you strong

The Legend of Hash Magnus

And there, sadly, it was. The end of UK PonyCon 2022. It had been a really great convention, which I'd agree with a friend was a "solid 9/10" event. Not everything was perfect, and I may end up doing a little "what worked for me, what didn't work so well" post in due course. But my memories are overwhelmingly happy ones. Last year's con was great as well, but in a different way owing to it being the first UKPC for two years and my more hurried schedule in 2021. This felt like a normal UK PonyCon again, for the first time since 2019. That's a good thing.

There was still a little part of con weekend to go before we were done, however. First up, Hawthorn had arranged an informal morning coffee get-together at a Starbucks near Nottingham station. The information he'd been given was that this place was "huge", which didn't actually turn out to be entirely accurate but it did the job. But first I had to get there! That meant packing up all my stuff, checking out of the hotel, walking to the station (fortunately the overnight rain had cleared by dawn) and then actually finding the blasted Starbucks. I can get lost easily!

But before even that, there was something important to be sorted. Breakfast. I hadn't booked this with the hotel as I hadn't been sure whether I'd want it, so I made my way there and (when someone finally appeared at the bar) paid up. It was the usual British hotel buffet thing, fully back to self-service these days after the Covid-recovery-period "table service only" interlude. Bacon, sausages (excellent), scrambled eggs (dull), hash browns, tomatoes, you get the idea. Since it was included, after the fry-up I also had a croissant. Untoasted – sticking a croissant in a conveyor toaster will make you the enemy of hoteliers forever. With marmalade, at least.

EvilShyBat, controller of the 1% unethically sourced coffee

The hotel restaurant was fairly empty at 7:30 on a Monday and moderately comfortable, though I would personally have preferred the sound to be off on the telly. It was covering a lot of unhappy stuff going on in various places and, important as such reporting is, I could have done with the real world staying away from me for just a few hours longer. Anyway, having finished up I slogged upstairs to get my bags,¹ checked out with no problems, then headed for the station. Fortunately the train I wanted was actually on time, since this day the only rail strikes were in Scotland!
¹The lifts were fine, actually very nice and fast, but I tend to use the stairs when I can for health reasons

As I had confidently expected, I got briefly lost between the station and the coffee shop, despite it being about two minutes' walk away. Nice to see Logan living up to his ideals right to the end! Anyway, I found Hawthorn and a few others there, so we commandeered a big wooden table. This was cunningly situated so that the sun glared in everyone's faces, and the "power under table" sign appeared to apply only to one socket right at the end – which someone was already using. Ah well, not a big deal. There was some kind of youth sports team or similar in the place, so it was a bit crowded until they went a little later.

This being a coffee shop, I of course ordered tea. This being Starbucks, I got it in a takeaway cup despite drinking in. This is a small irritation of mine about Starbucks and one reason I don't usually go there. Still, the tea was fine and, much more importantly, the company was good. One or two people I didn't know asked if they could join our table, and of course we were happy to make room. I'm hopeless at making small talk with new people in these circumstances, so I'm grateful to Stu for coming over and striking up a conversation about one person's Spitfire plushie so that they didn't feel too left out.

On my way home: Henry VIII fitting in with the con T-shirt theme

It was lunchtime now, but after my large breakfast I wasn't hungry. Besides, Mike needed to get going to ensure he had plenty of time for his plane back to Ireland at Birmingham Airport. So we travelled from Nottingham to Birmingham together, just as we had done in 2019. It was a generally fairly quiet trip, albeit a pleasant one; I think we were both pretty tired. However, Mike did treat me to a fairly lengthy in-development snippet from a forthcoming fanfic. I of course will not give anything away, but suffice to say I'll be very interested to read this story when it does eventually reach publication.

We parted at New Street station, and that was that in terms of being with other Pony people for the weekend. As such, this is how a unicorn ends this song.