On Saturday 4th August I popped down to London for 'Park Meet': the annual get-together of my "Star Wars" fan friends, or "the groovy gang" as Jane has named us! We've done this since the summer of 2002, with all of these meet-ups being very well attended, and thankfully held on days of great weather! This year's was no exception. The only downer being that Carla couldn't come with me this time as she was working that Saturday. Oh well. It was Paul that came up with the idea, so before anything else, a big thank you to him for some fun days!
I got down to Euston just after 11am, and headed over to 'Planet Organic' for my vegan 'bunny munch' sandwiches etc, and then headed on over to kill some time in the book shops on Charring Cross road. What type of book shops, eh?! Ahem. I'll leave you to guess. On the way down Tottenham Court Road, I was surprised to have a flyer for a computer fare thrust into my hands by some young American lass who then said, "Wow, I luuuoooooooove your t-shirt!!" in a her croaky yankee accent. I was trying to eat crisps at the time so didn't really engage in much conversation, apart from a "Thanks, it is a great film, isn't it!" I suppose I could have stopped and chatted as she seemed friendly enough, but the crisp eating took over. Plus I had to meet my pal Sarah. In fact, I got several looks and smiles with regard to my t-shirt choice of the day: a 'Vote for Pedro' shirt, as featured in the cult film "Napoleon Dynamite". It certainly has a following! With lines like "I caught you a delicious bass." and "Napoleon, don't be jealous that I've been chatting online with babes, all day. Besides, we both know I'm training to become a cage fighter." I'm not surprised!
I got to rendezvous with Sarah about mid-day at Leicester Square, and we then checked out Forbidden Planet, The Cinema Store and Vintage Magazine collector shops for what must be the premier piece of film merchandise in the world: A Daniel Craig fridge magnet. Yes. Daniel Craig. On your fridge. We couldn't find one, but Clinton's Cards have them so Sarah can hopefully get it there! (She did, BTW - thought you should know.)
We walked over in hot sun (glad I brought the sun cream) to Green Park tube station, got some water from a local Pret-a-Manger, and then found Tess, Lindy and her boyfriend sitting in the park making friends with a VERY TAME squirrel! He was so tame; he literally came up to eat nuts from their hands! What a cute little critter. After chatting for a bit I managed to find the rest of the gang via the glory of mobile phone technology, and we moved over to our usual tree. The afternoon was a rather nice and relaxing few hours, spent lazing about talking, eating and drinking. We had a great turn out, some 25 of us I believe. People were arriving and leaving and different times.
Several of us chatted about the recently released "Transformers" film (I think about a 50/50 split there between 'like' and 'dislike'), and there was the usual chit-chat about movies and DVDs, Lego collecting, classic children's TV, and other such geeky fare combined with a more grown up stuff like impending flat purchase (Paul), weddings (Kerry-Anne, Craig and Karen), shopping and vegan diets (Tess), college stuff (Lindy). The usual silly games of cricket and frisbee went on in the background (you had to be careful - those balls flew everywhere!) as the rest of us chilled out. Some of us took photos. I went over to Piccadilly with Lindy, Tess and her bf to look at the artwork, just before they left to check out the Japan centre.
I left about 6:20pm to get my 7pm train back home. I think the rest of them went to the pub! All in all, an easy going fun day! I guess we'll have another one next year. Let's just hope for good weather.
