On Sunday, August 4th, 1996 a motley bunch descended on Richmond Park for the second (annual?) demon.local/#gb picnic. I didn't count those present, but I'd guess there were in all about fifty attended, although a few people were noticable by their involuntary absence.
The weather was absolutely glorious. Last year, the air was a little heavy and muggy. No such problem this year. The sky was clear, the sun bright with a very welcome light breeze.
Whilst some of us came prepared with our own name badges (what's the HTML tag for "smug grin"?), Anna wandered around handing them out. Needless to say many people present knew each other already. But in a lot of cases people who were actually on very familiar terms through online exchanges of one form or another didn't know each other by sight, so badges were a very useful means of identification. It's a very odd feeling to discover that the stranger you've been sitting next to and haven't said a word to is someone you've spent hours chatting to on IRC. It's even more alarming to be hailed at a distance by an apparent stranger who has the benefit of having had you identified to them by someone else.
Only one downer: the picnicn being behind Pembroke Lodge the car park was full to overflowing, and parking was a painful exercise in patience. In my case, coming from Chessington, just 8 miles away, it took me as long to get a parking space as it did to get to the car park in the first place. I suppose everything has its price.
Thanks to Anna (Scissors) Warman for organising the whole affair, and to everyone who turned up and had a laugh.
And now, I'd recommend going back.
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