Sunday 17 August 2008

Blimey, I'm tired

But..... I am a bit earlier 'tonight' with this entry, and I am determined, once again, to do this now rather than wait until the morning.

The list of speakers for today's programme were Jon and Richard (An introduction to cryptozoology), Jon (The Owlman and Others), Dr. Mike Dash (In Search of Dr. MacRae (Loch Ness), Matt Salusbury (Water elephants of the Congo), Tim Matthews (Weird Stuff Happens - my part in UFOlogy's downfall) Ronan Coghlan (The theology of extra-terrestrials) Richard et al (Guyana 2007 Expedition Report), Graham Inglis (CFZ Museum - annual report), Jonathan McGowan (the last 12 months in Mystery Cats), Oll Lewis (the last 12 months of lake and sea monster reperts), Chris Moiser (Confessions of a Fortean zookeeper) and Richard et al (Russian 2008 Expedition Report).

I will not go into details of the talks for two reasons - the first being that I only saw Ronan's and a bit of Chris Moiser's, and the second being that notes are again, this year, being taken by Helen Lester of all the talks which will once again be posted at a later stage. Thanks to Helen for offering to do this mammoth task.

The CFZ awards this year went to: Dave and Joanna Curtis (for their stirling input with the children's entertainment - all at their own expense), Simon and Sharon Bennett (for their stirling work with the organisation of meals and children), Mrs. Braund (for being such a good neighbour, supporter and 'second mum' to Jon for so many years), Dr. Karl Shuker (for his superb crypto writings and support), Adam Davies (for his expeditionary services) and Ronan Coghlan (for his endless support of the CFZ and the fact that year after year he still manages to make it over to the Weird Weekend).

There had been a fraught few hours spent whilst we waited for Karl to arrive to promote his new book, Dr Shuker's Casebook, and we were, for a short while, running a horrible hour and a bit late, but we eventually finished not too far from the published time and all breathed a sigh of relief that all went well.

The 'Mad Hatter's Tea-party' spread cake around the bar area much the same as it did last year - I felt sick just at the thought of eating so much cake, but as usual the children proved that they have stomach linings of concrete as the two sides battled it out as to which could finish their cake first. Olivia offered, and was duly appointed by me, to wander around and take photos with my camera throughout the weekend, and the picture below was taken just as the winning team were finishing off their calorie laden task.



Their prize?

Another cake of course......

One of our exhibitors this year is Metamorphosis, run by our good friends Graham and Janice Smith. You will know them from our forays into the Bug Festival world. The praying mantis below was determined to show off as much as she possible could - well I don't really blame her - just look at those wings!


Richard looking somewhat furtive and Graham looking rather pleased with himself - I am not too sure what those stick people are doing on the sign on the front of the desk though.





Anyway, I will post more photos in the next few days - they take ages to load up on my slightly exhausted computer and as it is now 2.00 am I reckon I am going to sign off for today.
More tomorrow.

3 comments:

Gorilla Bananas said...

That praying mantis would have made a tasty little snack - much better for you than cake.

Anonymous said...

Hmmm, somehow I don't think that the children would have appreciated a plateful of mantids for their cake party!

Nick Redfern said...

Richard looks suitably sinister! LOL