As if it hadn't been enough at the weekend, Monday being the first Monday of the month, was Xena Meetup Day. Debs and lara had specially moved the venue to a pub down the road from the Hilton in hopes that we could entice some overseas fans to join our monthly gathering.

The advertising over the weekend paid off as in dribs and drabs various contingents arrived. Unfortunately the Stateside guys arrived 20 minutes before closing, a couple of the Czech guys turned up a little before that but the Scotish and Austrian guys were with us for most of the evening. But the big surprise was the quiet woman who at the end of the evening revealed herself to be none other than Lucia, the Brazilian artist who created the Little Xena and Gabrielle comic strip on the Ausxip website, loved the world over by even the butchest, bravest and cynical of Xena fans.

A little bit different to the usual meet; we had even more sweets and cakes than normal, a bit of a quiz (my team won), a raffle and the music videos that Creation wouldn't show you - MINE.

Although we had a lovely big screen to show them on there wasn't a sound system to go with it. So we made do with the speakers on Debs laptop and listened very carefully. I got some good comments and dished out some website cards. One of the Czech girls handed it back to me and said, 'I know who you are, I'm a huge fan of your videos.' Slowly but surely my plan for world domination is working.

I won absolutely nothing in the raffle, I probably had most of the stuff anyway. I just wish Katie could have got the plaque she wanted, but she got to take home what was left of the Flying Saucers so she was happy. (Flying Saucers: wafer thingies with sherbert inside)

The evening rounded out sitting outside the pub with some of the Americans and some chips they'd got from somewhere. We chatted about our favourite moments of the weekend. This was followed by tearful goodbyes to those I won't see until the next convention and hugs to those I'll see at the meetup next month.

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