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Puppy Drones
Jun. 11th, 2015 10:12 amOver the weekend, we spent some time in Cambridge meeting up with the local furs and staying with Tanuki and Molly. We were down there to take part in the Strawberry Fair parade, which strolls its way through the city centre before ending at Midsummer Common, where the fair has traditionally been for years. It was there when I went to university in the city between 2001 and 2004, and largely retains the same mix of hippie stalls, live music and food and drink concessions. The main differences now relate to the size of the event and that the fair is also surrounded by a huge metal perimeter, assuredly for security reasons. Still, dressed in Fursuit and in the parade, we didn't have to worry about that although there were plenty of other things to worry about.
Saturday was an exceptionally hot day, graced thankfully by a rather stiff cool breeze which made fursuiting more tolerable. I've never been one for early starts and having to congregate before 11am was somewhat difficult, but I was ready in suit by 10:30am and the bemused taxi driver was delighted to drop us off at the starting point. Waiting there were a few other fursuiters along with some marching drummers with rainbow drums and some stilt people. It was quite a miscellany of people, an odd and rather small collection, but this didn't devalue the potency of the parade which meandered its noisy way through the city. The fursuiters, including me, were asked to carry banners advertising the parade which were tall and thin, supported by dowling. We consented and brought up the rear of the parade although their weight and general cumbersome nature made it difficult to walk with them. The strong wind frequently gripped the fabric, meaning holding it with two hands was the only option, while the top of the wooden frame frequently got caught in overhanging trees. Keeping such a heavy thing aloft in Fursuit for an hour was also quite difficult and restricted the performing aspect of suiting. Despite all this, it was still great fun, particularly suiting in my university city for the first time and passing sights I had come to know so well during my time there. I felt a little guilty with the noise around the market area as I'm sure some students were doing exams in adjacent buildings - as I would have been 11 years ago - but we weren't there long. Due to the heat, the parade was perhaps a little long for us suiters but we did get a nice picture in the fair itself, which ended up on page nine of the Cambridge Evening News, another local newspaper to tick off when it comes to Lupe appearances.
We had Molly with us throughout the walk and she was very good, although she did nearly trip me up on two occasions. As the parade progressed, more and more furs joined us and we soon had quite a number, who we all got talking to in the Fair. Here Molly was getting a little overexcited though so Tanuki and Elfasi, who had also joined us by this point with Katy and Chorizo, split from the group and had a little walk around the fair. As we were staying at Nuki's, we followed too, although being in suit meant that I got an awful lot of attention and people wanting to take selfies with me. In the end, we got detached from everyone so I loitered around the main stage, dancing to a local band murdering classic rock songs and trying to steal beer from the bar. I also received s daisy chain from one punter as we waited for the pack to return. I was dying by this stage, the heat being somewhat overwhelming and with no place to even take the head off, I ended up staying in suit for nearly three hours straight. It was difficult, particularly during the 20-minute walk back to Tanuki's which I largely had to do in suit such was the throngs of people. On the way home, Molly at least had a refreshing dip in the Cam (before struggling to get out) while we talked to a homeless person who had two dogs including an incredibly well behaved little puppy. Like me! The walk back to Tanuki's was torture, I'm not going to lie, and I had to decant my head about three streets from home. Fortunately by this stage there was no one about and even though we bumped into a couple of people on the final stretch, I wasn't bothered by this point.
Elfasi had split but Harlequeen had come back with us, with Tanuki, Queen and Wolfie all chatting while I had a shower and a recovery. Thirty minutes later I was raring to go, with drink very firmly on the agenda. When we had arrived on Friday night, Tanuki had taken us to a few local bars in the area and we had decided to continue this on Saturday as there was still a range of local ales we had yet to try. We had called off in two bars on Friday night, the first being the Blue Moon, which in 2003 had been a dingy rock and metal bar with good live acts but has since been reinvented as an exceptionally expensive craft beer bar. We feared that this was the standard in Cambridge - I paid £19 for a round for just three people - but it turned out it was just this place that was expensive. We also grabbed some mustard flavoured pork scratchings before heading over to the final pub of the night, The Alexandra Arms, that served traditional real ales, some pretty nice and some downright terrible. The drinking highlights came on Saturday though at The Cambridge Blue and The Devonport Arms, both friendly local pubs where it was incredibly easy to talk to local people. Having Molly always helps of course - dogs are good conversation starters - but I was struck with just how friendly the staff and random punters were in these bars. In fact, I found the atmosphere and people even more friendly than they are in Yorkshire, which is quite a contradiction for the South. Both The Cambridge Blue and The Dev were also great pubs to go drinking. The former was a real ale place specializing in an extensive range of craft beer, including some Flying Dogs we hadn't had before. Unfortunately for us, these were 10-11% in strength and so we found ourselves getting noticeably drunk as the afternoon wore on. This wasn't aided by the fact that we had intended to eat in the pub and we had to wait for Felderpony, a twitter friend who I hadn't yet met in real life. He wore an adorable pony shirt and once he arrived, the five of us (Tanuki, Wolfie, Harlequeen, Felderpony and myself) ordered food, with myself having a rather delicious sausage, mash and onion gravy combo with proper mashed potato that was clearly fresh rather than taken out of the packet. It was here where we met one of the locals who was sat supping a pint of real ale on his own - I ended up talking to him for a good twenty minutes or so, largely about the real ale festivals in Leeds. After our trip to the Blue, we picked Molly back up, who we had left in the house as she was tired from her over-excitement at the Strawberry Fair and headed over to The Dev, a pub specializing in beers from the local Milton brewery. This was very much a real ale bar with a contemporary twist, with friendly knowledgeable staff with beards, with whom I struck up a vaguely coherent conversation. The ales were pretty nice, but as is typical with "real ale", some were far better than others and a couple were borderline undrinkable. It was a shame that we had to sit inside on such a sunny day too but the beer garden was small and this was more comfortable for Molly who spent most of the time either laid out on the floor getting in everyone's way or climbing on the table trying to steal people's beer.
It was about seven o'clock by the time we left the pub, calling at a wine merchants along the way to get some more alcohol before heading back to Tanuki's to continue the party. Saturday was Molly's first birthday and so Tanuki invited some local furs around to celebrate. There were a few we knew, such as Elfasi, Harlequeen and Sorvall, but also quite a few we didn't and I was struck by the intellectual nature of the conversation, which I find is often quite rare around furs. I am somewhat rusty on philosophy and psychology, having studied this back in university over ten years ago, but I do enjoy the challenging conversation we always have around Tanuki's, although unfortunately my knowledge of Wagner is way below any scope of having a discourse in. When I was at university in Cambridge, I did enjoy the scholastic nature of people in the city - and consequently felt more at home there than I have anywhere else - and this has seemingly transposed itself upon the furry community there. It is a different scene to anywhere else in the UK, at least in my experience, and this is why I would like to visit the city far more regularly than I currently do - and with a journey time from Leeds a mere two and a half hours straight down the A1, it's certainly viable. We also watched Peter Serafinowiz clips while we also gave Molly her first birthday cake, which also happened to be Tanuki's first home baked effort. It was a little stodgy in all honesty but the paw print motif was delightful and Molly definitely enjoyed it. There was also a fair bit of drinking amongst the more human population, with Shiraz in a bag on tap. I had had enough earlier in the day though, largely sticking to water as my stomach was starting to hurt, while Wolfie just autopiloted to bed early on due to the day's festivities. My apparent sobriety didn't stop me from trying one of Molly's duck based dog treats, which looked like jerky but tasted like synthetic plastic and was gritty to boot. Either way, it was a great evening with fantastic people and as everyone filed out between 11pm and 1am, we were left with very many great memories of a wonderful day.
Feeling exhausted, we all went to bed pretty soon after everyone had left, getting up reasonably early (for us) on Sunday ahead of the long drive back home. We wanted an early start to get back for the annual Leeds Food and Drink Festival, which was shutting up shop at 6pm. This gave us enough time to have a leisurely breakfast with Tanuki and Molly - we went out shopping for this and ended up having a fantastic continental style breakfast of chocolate croissants and baguette - while having a few cups of tea and a leisurely chat before we walked back to the car and set off for home. However, we soon encountered a problem with the car, as it was leaking coolant, so we had to call back around at Tanuki's to get some more water. Fortunately he was still on his street, guiding Molly towards the park, and so could nip quickly back to fill up the car. We later discovered that it was by some minor miracle that we managed to get back home as we have since discovered that the head gasket has failed, rendering the car currently off the road (so much so that Wolfie had to hire a car on Wednesday to drive to Newcastle for work as no one else was willing to go for him). Still, we did get back in time and did make it to the Festival, which I'll detail next time.
Saturday was an exceptionally hot day, graced thankfully by a rather stiff cool breeze which made fursuiting more tolerable. I've never been one for early starts and having to congregate before 11am was somewhat difficult, but I was ready in suit by 10:30am and the bemused taxi driver was delighted to drop us off at the starting point. Waiting there were a few other fursuiters along with some marching drummers with rainbow drums and some stilt people. It was quite a miscellany of people, an odd and rather small collection, but this didn't devalue the potency of the parade which meandered its noisy way through the city. The fursuiters, including me, were asked to carry banners advertising the parade which were tall and thin, supported by dowling. We consented and brought up the rear of the parade although their weight and general cumbersome nature made it difficult to walk with them. The strong wind frequently gripped the fabric, meaning holding it with two hands was the only option, while the top of the wooden frame frequently got caught in overhanging trees. Keeping such a heavy thing aloft in Fursuit for an hour was also quite difficult and restricted the performing aspect of suiting. Despite all this, it was still great fun, particularly suiting in my university city for the first time and passing sights I had come to know so well during my time there. I felt a little guilty with the noise around the market area as I'm sure some students were doing exams in adjacent buildings - as I would have been 11 years ago - but we weren't there long. Due to the heat, the parade was perhaps a little long for us suiters but we did get a nice picture in the fair itself, which ended up on page nine of the Cambridge Evening News, another local newspaper to tick off when it comes to Lupe appearances.
We had Molly with us throughout the walk and she was very good, although she did nearly trip me up on two occasions. As the parade progressed, more and more furs joined us and we soon had quite a number, who we all got talking to in the Fair. Here Molly was getting a little overexcited though so Tanuki and Elfasi, who had also joined us by this point with Katy and Chorizo, split from the group and had a little walk around the fair. As we were staying at Nuki's, we followed too, although being in suit meant that I got an awful lot of attention and people wanting to take selfies with me. In the end, we got detached from everyone so I loitered around the main stage, dancing to a local band murdering classic rock songs and trying to steal beer from the bar. I also received s daisy chain from one punter as we waited for the pack to return. I was dying by this stage, the heat being somewhat overwhelming and with no place to even take the head off, I ended up staying in suit for nearly three hours straight. It was difficult, particularly during the 20-minute walk back to Tanuki's which I largely had to do in suit such was the throngs of people. On the way home, Molly at least had a refreshing dip in the Cam (before struggling to get out) while we talked to a homeless person who had two dogs including an incredibly well behaved little puppy. Like me! The walk back to Tanuki's was torture, I'm not going to lie, and I had to decant my head about three streets from home. Fortunately by this stage there was no one about and even though we bumped into a couple of people on the final stretch, I wasn't bothered by this point.
Elfasi had split but Harlequeen had come back with us, with Tanuki, Queen and Wolfie all chatting while I had a shower and a recovery. Thirty minutes later I was raring to go, with drink very firmly on the agenda. When we had arrived on Friday night, Tanuki had taken us to a few local bars in the area and we had decided to continue this on Saturday as there was still a range of local ales we had yet to try. We had called off in two bars on Friday night, the first being the Blue Moon, which in 2003 had been a dingy rock and metal bar with good live acts but has since been reinvented as an exceptionally expensive craft beer bar. We feared that this was the standard in Cambridge - I paid £19 for a round for just three people - but it turned out it was just this place that was expensive. We also grabbed some mustard flavoured pork scratchings before heading over to the final pub of the night, The Alexandra Arms, that served traditional real ales, some pretty nice and some downright terrible. The drinking highlights came on Saturday though at The Cambridge Blue and The Devonport Arms, both friendly local pubs where it was incredibly easy to talk to local people. Having Molly always helps of course - dogs are good conversation starters - but I was struck with just how friendly the staff and random punters were in these bars. In fact, I found the atmosphere and people even more friendly than they are in Yorkshire, which is quite a contradiction for the South. Both The Cambridge Blue and The Dev were also great pubs to go drinking. The former was a real ale place specializing in an extensive range of craft beer, including some Flying Dogs we hadn't had before. Unfortunately for us, these were 10-11% in strength and so we found ourselves getting noticeably drunk as the afternoon wore on. This wasn't aided by the fact that we had intended to eat in the pub and we had to wait for Felderpony, a twitter friend who I hadn't yet met in real life. He wore an adorable pony shirt and once he arrived, the five of us (Tanuki, Wolfie, Harlequeen, Felderpony and myself) ordered food, with myself having a rather delicious sausage, mash and onion gravy combo with proper mashed potato that was clearly fresh rather than taken out of the packet. It was here where we met one of the locals who was sat supping a pint of real ale on his own - I ended up talking to him for a good twenty minutes or so, largely about the real ale festivals in Leeds. After our trip to the Blue, we picked Molly back up, who we had left in the house as she was tired from her over-excitement at the Strawberry Fair and headed over to The Dev, a pub specializing in beers from the local Milton brewery. This was very much a real ale bar with a contemporary twist, with friendly knowledgeable staff with beards, with whom I struck up a vaguely coherent conversation. The ales were pretty nice, but as is typical with "real ale", some were far better than others and a couple were borderline undrinkable. It was a shame that we had to sit inside on such a sunny day too but the beer garden was small and this was more comfortable for Molly who spent most of the time either laid out on the floor getting in everyone's way or climbing on the table trying to steal people's beer.
It was about seven o'clock by the time we left the pub, calling at a wine merchants along the way to get some more alcohol before heading back to Tanuki's to continue the party. Saturday was Molly's first birthday and so Tanuki invited some local furs around to celebrate. There were a few we knew, such as Elfasi, Harlequeen and Sorvall, but also quite a few we didn't and I was struck by the intellectual nature of the conversation, which I find is often quite rare around furs. I am somewhat rusty on philosophy and psychology, having studied this back in university over ten years ago, but I do enjoy the challenging conversation we always have around Tanuki's, although unfortunately my knowledge of Wagner is way below any scope of having a discourse in. When I was at university in Cambridge, I did enjoy the scholastic nature of people in the city - and consequently felt more at home there than I have anywhere else - and this has seemingly transposed itself upon the furry community there. It is a different scene to anywhere else in the UK, at least in my experience, and this is why I would like to visit the city far more regularly than I currently do - and with a journey time from Leeds a mere two and a half hours straight down the A1, it's certainly viable. We also watched Peter Serafinowiz clips while we also gave Molly her first birthday cake, which also happened to be Tanuki's first home baked effort. It was a little stodgy in all honesty but the paw print motif was delightful and Molly definitely enjoyed it. There was also a fair bit of drinking amongst the more human population, with Shiraz in a bag on tap. I had had enough earlier in the day though, largely sticking to water as my stomach was starting to hurt, while Wolfie just autopiloted to bed early on due to the day's festivities. My apparent sobriety didn't stop me from trying one of Molly's duck based dog treats, which looked like jerky but tasted like synthetic plastic and was gritty to boot. Either way, it was a great evening with fantastic people and as everyone filed out between 11pm and 1am, we were left with very many great memories of a wonderful day.
Feeling exhausted, we all went to bed pretty soon after everyone had left, getting up reasonably early (for us) on Sunday ahead of the long drive back home. We wanted an early start to get back for the annual Leeds Food and Drink Festival, which was shutting up shop at 6pm. This gave us enough time to have a leisurely breakfast with Tanuki and Molly - we went out shopping for this and ended up having a fantastic continental style breakfast of chocolate croissants and baguette - while having a few cups of tea and a leisurely chat before we walked back to the car and set off for home. However, we soon encountered a problem with the car, as it was leaking coolant, so we had to call back around at Tanuki's to get some more water. Fortunately he was still on his street, guiding Molly towards the park, and so could nip quickly back to fill up the car. We later discovered that it was by some minor miracle that we managed to get back home as we have since discovered that the head gasket has failed, rendering the car currently off the road (so much so that Wolfie had to hire a car on Wednesday to drive to Newcastle for work as no one else was willing to go for him). Still, we did get back in time and did make it to the Festival, which I'll detail next time.
