It's okay, I've done it before.

Hello, as you can see, I've made it back safe and sound and then promptly got sick. I blame Justin Bieber and Draco's cock, but I don't think anyone is going to believe that...

It only takes a couple of drunk and desperate fangirls to come up with what sounds like a good idea, but it takes a whole load of sober and talented fen to pull it off. I would like to say a huge thank you to all of the people who attended Crucio 2010 either in person or in spirit who helped to make it the success it was!

So, without further ado, thank you to:

accioscar, alovelycupoftea, annephoenix, arineat, aurora_sky, being_here, citrus_lime, chthonya, cleo_jay, croatoan6000, daiseechain, delorispea, delphipsmith, dora_the_nymph, dorotea, dripping_cherry, dysonrules, elequent_toast, enchanted_jae, girlofavalon, groolover, hereticalvision, joan_waterhouse, jtsbbsps_dk, katelinmr, kabal42, kennahijja, lady_of_clunn, lazy_neutrino, littleenglolita, lkaet, leochi, lolafalola, lokifan, lotuslizzy, luciusmistress, melusinahp, moonlitdark, morettaallstar, okydoky, phoenixacid, phoenix_on_ice, r_grayjoy, reira_21, robs55, scabbyfish, scarletladyy, seraphimerising, sesheta_66, snarky_scorp, softly_sweetly, sonofdarkness, sra_danvers, thilia, treacle_tartlet, utteramusement, ville_sweet_666, vix_spes, wickedblonde, wwmrsweasleydo and anyone else I've probably forgotten in this cold-medicated state. Please tell me if I've left you off and I shall amend this list and iron my ears, post haste.

I'd also like to say a special thanks to dorotea for my lovely VK (with a leetle hint of VK/HP) drabble! And a huge thank you to delorispea whom I'm going to kill if she doesn't write more of the AS/S WITH YOUNG TOM fic which I got!!!

And wo-ho, thanks to the tattoo-designing-tastic thilia, I got this!!! *dances around coughing*



Speaking of gifts, I've been blessed with two absolutely wonderful hd_smoochfest pressies: How fantastic was it to find out that the lovely joan_waterhouse wrote my giftfic Friendly Fire??? And how wonderful was it that she told me in person before the reveals so I could hug her and fangirl her? Another huge thank-you goes to the brilliant artist citrus_lime for Got Ya!, in which she managed to draw in loads of my kinks without even knowing she was doing it! Thank you!

I wrote three drabbles for the meet-up, none of them H/D - shock horror. I even wrote one in two different languages (poorly) and then enlisted help for proofing and the the translation into the third. Anyway, here they are: Madam Hooch for the lovely joan_waterhouse, the Twins for the talented moonlitdark, and Marcus for the bonita sra_danvers. There's no warnings, as they're mostly gen, although they all got a little introspective rather than silly, and that's so not like me.

( Drabbles )

One last interesting point to the whole weekend was my flight back to London. The cockpit and cabin crew were made up of one woman and five blokes. You'll never guess what the woman was doing...*nods* yup, flying the plane! Right on!

EDT: THANK YOU so much for the lovely flowers - croatoan6000, cleo_jay, softly_sweetly, and wwmrsweasleydo!!!!

Of course, I can't finish this post without thanking the one person, without whom fandom, meet-ups, fests, and everything else in the world would be completely meaningless.

I love you tonnes, Dan cassie_black12!

We hope to see everyone (and more) for Engorgio 2011 in Cardiff. When we can sort it out:D

Right, HAPPY 30th BIRTHDAY to the most wonderful blond fictional character a girl could ever hope to fancy. I got you a present - I hope you like it - he's just sorting out his hair and will be round to your place shortly. No, no need to thank me, just make sure you're facing the camera.

Now, to everyone who was press-ganged volunteered into helping out with the hp_uk_meetup:

It is four weeks away! Which means this is a heads-up to all you writers and drabblers/donators/etc. Please, please, please let us know if you can't make the 15 June deadline for stuff (we've negotiated other dates with a few people).

If you can't remember what you signed up to do, comment here and I'll PM you with a reminder :)

If anyone else is interested in donating fic/art/anything, please do let us know! We'd love to have as many of you there in spirit as possible.

If you're donating something that you want to send directly to Edinburgh, please PM and I'll give you an address to use. In terms of fic/art, that can be emailed to myself or cassie_black12 - just PM for addys if you don't have them.

We have received some AMAZING stuff already and we're really looking forward to sharing it all with you. Oh, and I'm reliably informed someone is bringing fudge. Oh yes.

Once again, happy birthday, Draco!

I am a terrible friend. softly_sweetly came down for a visit expecting fun and drunken debauchery and all she got was my kids asking her how to play their new DS games every five minutes and me falling asleep at half-nine on Saturday night! I'm so sorry, Sweets - I promise to make it up to you at the hp_uk_meetup. I did, at least, introduce her to the awesomeness that is slashing Star Trek characters, so her weekend wasn't a total waste.

Speaking of the hp_uk_meetup, the amazing what-are-we-going-to-call-ourselves poll ends tonight at 9PM local time, so get over and vote, even if you're not attending!

In other news, using osmosis and no small amount of bullying, we managed to get cassie_black12 to sign up for hp_rarities. YOU SHOULD TOO! Prompts close today!

And keeping with a ficcy theme, my ridiculously AU In the Beginning is being translated into Chinese! How effing cool is that?!

Finally, commiserations to Andy Murray, who played well, but never looked like he was in his stride. (I'm sure he's saving it for Wimbledon.)