CF2012, eh? What a bloody good laugh.

Probably the best CF I've been to, and a staggering amount of work and organisation went into it - and it showed. So to while away some sunny afternoon time, here's my rundown of CF's glorious weekend in Hinckley.

FRIDAY
Arrived with Gen'Ichi into Hinckley Island Hotel in Leicestershire and got our impressive room and had a gander around the amazing hotel - a vast improvement on the old place. With a large rotunda, lots of social space and fab rooms, the hotel was screaming out for a furcon - what a great find! Hinckley is officially on the furry map. First things first - I picked up my superb new tail from Faruku and paraded it proudly all weekend - it's superb, and served me well! Weirdly, the first thing we did to the convention was to leave it, as Awkore and Sayre drove me and Gen into nearby Rugby for a "Beast" - a 24-inch rectangular pizza. The lupo-vulpine corners did well and demolished through our bits - the one with the tiny dragon stomach limped to the half-way point and no further. Lizards, eh? XD I don't have any photos of the remainder of the evening as I proceeded to get blind drunk. I recall dancing a bit and crying with laughter at Red Dwarf (unusual as I don't normally like the show) and seeing a hedgehog (real one!) at about 3am or something stupid o'clock. Apologies if I lurched towards you somewhat. There was plenty going on, I just don't recall any of it.

SATURDAY
Very, very hungover and rather tender all day. But, got up early enough for one of their breakfasts (it seemed you either loved it or hated it - typically I was sort of in-the-middle) and headed on down to the Dealer's Den. For the first time ever I was a sponsor, so managed to take advantage of the early entry by picking up a fox plush before they vanished, as they disappeared rapidly. Also picked up my customised Mood Badges from TaniDaReal, who has done a marvellous job on those! But, apart from those, and a small keyring tail, again from Faruku, I didn't pick up anything else. Then we had a highlight - I'm not sure if any furcon anywhere has had a football competition before, but we staged a football match in the opposite field with a variety of footballfurs, including Ani Boxer, Baekho, Tirrell, Stuart Otterson and about 5 others. It was exhausting as the weather was about 24ºC, but such great fun! I was on the winning team, and even scored a goal. Awesome. This would only interest a pawful of con attendees, but we had enough to set it up and it went down a storm on the pitch. I caught the end of the furry fiasco and started recovering, showering, eating the hotel's fine burgers, and generally making plans for the evening.

The evening arrived and me, Callisto, Tirrell, Jasper Wallace and Orion piled into my room to watch the Eurovision (or, as they say much more poetically on the continent: the "Melody Grand Prix"). Going easy on the drinks as I was still feeling rough (the football didn't help) but glorious Sweden won! An enjoyable evening I think had by all. After some ambling around and chatting to various people, I made for an early night.

SUNDAY
Feeling refreshed, I was up and busy from the off, helping to build a Frankensuit to represent Born Free with Natu, Damian Tanuki and a couple of other charming peepers. It looked pretty damn good, but not crazy enough to win. XD Without my fursuit I didn't do much on the parade but instantly made my way to "Meet The Sponsors", where I came face-to-face with a real fox! The Nuneaton And Warwickshire Wildlife Sanctuary - the CF charity of choice - brought in a few of the animals they've adopted and are looking after, which included a tarantula, a large snake, a barn owl, an eagle owl and most impressively of all, Roxie - an 11-year old vixen, who's somewhat of a celebrity in her hometown of Nuneaton. UK viewers of Channel Dave may recognise her from the Old Speckled Hen adverts! But, in that session alone, the charity raised £650.

No time to rest! Straight on to the free sponsor buffet (which to be honest was a little bit disappointing, as there wasn't much of a selection) but oh well... and then *another* football match, in which I had the joy of saving a penalty... but had to stagger through most of it as V managed to balance himself on a bollock I had just lying around. >.< Ouchie. Didn't win that game though, but it was fun. And so, off to the Fursuit Dance Competition to watch Gen'Ichi put in a valiant effort on the dancefloor. A quick burger later and we were off to the live auction, where I actually won a thing! It took 5 conventions but I finally put in a winning bid at an auction! XD Truth be I won two things, a Shirik piece of art in the live auction, and a wonderfully crafted foxed-up bottle by Jasper Wallace, which you'll be able to find in my favourites folder here. It was then back to drinking, where we managed to get Syreko drunk for the first time in 5 years and then, for a reason I cannot remember, we chased him through the Rotunda. Oh well, I'm sure there was logic in there somewhere.

MONDAY
Up. Breakfast. Closing ceremony. That was about it.

TL;DR VERSION
There is no TL;DR version. If you can't be bothered to read it you don't deserve to know about all the awesome fun I had. ^.^

THANKS to all the people below for making this weekend one of the best on record. Hugs and such are in the post.