Gimme Gimme Puppy Domination!

The Leeds main meet was surprisingly smaller than the mini, although that may have had something to do with the mini being over Easter weekend. It's regularity on the third Saturday of the month also helps but I was surprised by just how local the main meet was. I've said for a while that the Northernfurs meet rotation has been effectively dead for sometime, for a range of reasons, but we will still run the Leeds ones at the end of April and October.

The other thing that's dying is the two day meet - indeed Leeds is the only one that does this now. I guess the prevalence of the monthly meets means there is less demand for a two-day affair and as fewer people now travel outside of their own locales, getting a hotel and making a weekend of it is no longer attractive.

The meet on Saturday was nicely relaxed. I had hoped to suit but the weather threatened rain so I did not bring it, typically for the sun to come out and the ground to dry, making it perfect conditions for suiting. It did allow me to speak to a whole range of people with whom I rarely speak, as well as meet Tim and Alexx, two Brazilian furs who are staying in the area. I even got to try their nutty condensed milk balls. There were sweets at the meet but the usual furry shots and DVD was missing this time, largely due to a change in the bar's management, but it was a nice relaxed affair and a perfect couple of hours. We even drank the bar out of BrewDog, which was great.

Afterwards, we went to a new buffet place above Red Hot called Origin 7. Specialising in Chinese, Indian, Italian and Japanese, there was less choice than at Red Hot but the quality of the food was far superior. For £13.95 you couldn't really be robbed and we had a pleasurable meal amongst friends before we met back up with Patter (who had gone to Nando's) and went home with him in tow. I avoided the usual post-meet Pudsey wetherspoons due to feeling a little bloated from the buffet and knowing the conversation would not be inclusive of my interests. I was proven right.

Indeed despite the quality of the weekend, it was another isolating experience, with many pillorying my interests of politics and sport in detriment to their own more geek-orientated enjoyments. Recently there seems to be a presumption that I automatically know about particular series and other things just because I'm a fur and people start talking at me rather than to me about such things. I hope this stops.

Sunday was an even more relaxed day as the weather finely held - the first time in nine years - so we went to Roundhay Park, where we spent a pleasurable few hours in the Fox, drinking beer. We also had a nice tea and teacake session in the cafe next to Tropical World before heading back into town for some cheese, meat and drinks at Friends of Ham and wetherspoons. It was a really nice day, one where we got to see how they get the vans from the outside into Trinity Kitchen, and we all headed home around 8pm contented.