And so the Saturday evening social happened. It was a sequence of events.

I say that because I’m genuinely not sure what else to say about it. I ate too much food; I drank too much cloudy lemonade. Olly was chatty, Amy was sparkling and Robyn looked amazing. That’s what happened; I don’t have much else to say.

I went home via Kentish Town Station, having quite forgotten the farrago of the previous night, on which I clattered down the 100+ stairs in lieu of a working escalator. A helpful young man noticed me struggling with my bag and managed to convince me to let him carry it down the stairs for me – which he did. Thank you for your help, young man carrying bag full of sex things.

*

In contrast to Saturday, Sunday was a much calmer, more relaxing and relatively chill day. A pleasant surprise was the attendance of my dear friend Christine, whose name badge I had spotted at the Friday meet and greet but wasn’t expecting to see. It made me feel better to see her there, and I found her presence soothing.

Amy‘s session was nice and relaxed. As we should all know by now, I’ve never been particularly interested in adding affiliate links, but there were enough tips in her talk to help, and she was wonderfully composed while delivering it. Michael‘s first session – “Yet More SEO,” as I wrote in my notebook – was quiet but informative, and gave me an ego-boost by putting my site through GTMetrix. I don’t plan to use TikTok (I fail to see what I could do with it), but Sherryl seemed knowledgeable enough about it.

I didn’t take any notes during Michael’s second session. I don’t quite know why this is, but I’m really not keen on Mastodon. Probably mostly because I fear the unfamiliar. In any case, I now know enough about it to take the plunge. By contrast, I’m really not ready to have a Patreon, but GOTN‘s talk about it was so enthusiastic that I genuinely got some ideas about what I’d do with one if I did.

Goodbyes were said; the raffle was drawn. At this point it’s just become a matter of waiting to win the raffle, as opposed to wondering if I will. For my inevitable prize this year, I chose a book of erotica, and then sat with Olly trying to identify if I knew any of the authors.

And then we all went back to the pub.

*

And so that was it, basically. I ate some more, drank some more and then struggled my way down Kentish Town for the last time. Fair enough, it wasn’t the ribald ending filled with debauchery one would expect. We also didn’t get to play “I Have Never”, which I still want to do at some point…

…but it was Eroticon.

It looked like Eroticon. It felt like Eroticon. At some points, it very much felt like nothing had changed; as if 2020 hadn’t happened and we were returning to what was promised. At others, it felt so different that I began to doubt my own memory – surely there was more to ‘con than this? Was there something missing, or did I just have nostalgia for something that may not have existed?

But it was what it said it was. Frankly, I don’t even know what else I could have been expecting.

Explicitly, unashamedly Eroticon.

Good to have it back.