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What About Pup, What About Pup?
Oct. 22nd, 2015 09:40 amSaturday was meet day and it turned out to be quite chaotic. I first discovered there was a problem while I was in the Little Leeds Beer House buying Taneli his birthday present. A somewhat panicked Wolfie phoned me asking me to go straight to Baa Bar as he was hearing the furs who were congregating there had been locked out due to the venue being double booked. Needing to know the situation, I raced over there to discover that this was indeed true and that we had no venue for the Leeds meet this month. With bugger all notice, I was understandably less than pleased, although I was diplomatic with the manager, who had travelled all the way from Preston early to deliver us the news in person. As admirable as this was, it didn't detract from the fact that we had no notice. The manager said he had tried to get in touch with us on Friday evening but he didn't have any contact details and stated he had had a massive argument with head office about the double booking but HQ had overruled him. In the end, he did have our number but didn't realise it was for us, and plans have now been put in place to ensure that such a scenario doesn't happen again.
So with no venue and 20 furs waiting outside, along with all those with Wolfie at the station, the meet was in jeopardy. Wolfie started phoning around bars, I racked my brains too, but everything we came up with drew a blank. Revolution couldn't accommodate us, neither could the Liquorist, it being Saturday and thus space being at a premium. Headrow House were fine but didn't want any suiting so this was out, as I could only imagine the howls of derision from the more fervent suiters. The seventh bar I tried was Shuffledog at the top end, partly because I knew they would be quite quiet and partly because we know the manager there. Fortunately they were very accommodating, which was just as well as I had two disabled people following me on my less than enjoyable bar crawl, so we settled on the basement of Shuffledog which we largely took over. There was a Jamaican kitchen event going on with some tasty looking food, while the furs seemed to enjoy the shuffleboards, board games and pinball machines. Some even got into craft beer during their stay as I tried to spin the positives of the change in venue (largely as I am aware how popular Baa Bar is). Indeed this was so much the case that some requested we move venue to here, and with the bar staff delighted with the extra custom and the furs in general, it's definitely a possibility.
As we were in a different part of town, the Fursuit walk was refreshingly different, going through a local park and up and over the flyover, where we waved to cars travelling on the motorway below. There was some interesting urban exercise equipment in the park while the rich Autumn colours made for some great photographs. Indeed, the whole day was a rather good shake-up of events - I had felt the Leeds meets had been getting quite stale and a new walk was a win-win considering it is Ladyboys of Bangkok in Millennium Square and their security last year didn't take too kindly to our presence as they thought it was detracting from their sales.
Time passed incredibly quickly, partly because I was in a bar I adore and partly because I was rushing about everywhere trying to organise things. In addition to the walk, which I lead as its a part of town I know better than Wolfie as its near to where I work, I had to pop out and finish my birthday shopping, picking up some candy floss and sweets for Soma along with birthday cards too. I also found a £1 croc hat in Poundland which I thought would be perfect for a certain snapper. I had intended to sneak away from the meet and write them in BrewDog but alas I no longer had time due to the complications of the day. All of this meant that it was 7:30pm before I knew it, although this was aided by the fact that I wanted to try all of the new beers I had yet to try, resulting in seven different varieties passing my lips. These were of varying strength from 2.8% up to 10% but suffice to say I'm like a kid in a candy store at places like this, suggesting that it wouldn't be the best meet venue for me on a regular basis. By 7:30pm we were quite drunk - aided by the fact I hadn't had time to eat beyond a Greggs cheese and onion roll - and as a consequence of all this, we were the last ones in the bar and some of our party were desperate for food.
The Pit was the first place we tried but despite having loads of empty tables, we were turned away, much to my rather undiplomatic consternation. We were thinking of Zaap but this being busy and Avon in particular being hungry, we went to the curry place just opposite. Wolfie and I needed money, so we headed out to the cash machine, a fateful walk which resulted in a colossal argument on the street between the pair of us. It was one of our typical and thankfully quite rare drunken spats, usually started by one of us saying the wrong thing. In this case it was me being less than tactful, resulting in a few raised words as bemused passers-by walked on. As I was drunk, I couldn't really recall what I had said as to me it wasn't overly heinous or significant, and that made things worse as it riled Wolfie. I wasn't deliberately being obstinate or "smug", I genuinely didn't know what the issue was, but with friends getting concerned, we headed back to the curry house, where the atmosphere between us was somewhat frosty. Thankfully we were at the end of the table so our bad mood went largely unnoticed while the curry itself was delicious, and didn't give me bloatedness or pain which was a huge bonus.
By the time we had finished, it was approaching 9:30pm and despite urging Wolfie to go home and him refusing, we all headed back to the station, a walk during which the pair of us patched things up. So much so that we said goodbye to Ent, Avon and croc and headed to BrewDog for a final drink of the night with Taneli and Sabre. This proved to be quite enjoyable and it was a positive that we had patched things up before we went to bed as by the time we got back on the bus, all was once again well between us.
So with no venue and 20 furs waiting outside, along with all those with Wolfie at the station, the meet was in jeopardy. Wolfie started phoning around bars, I racked my brains too, but everything we came up with drew a blank. Revolution couldn't accommodate us, neither could the Liquorist, it being Saturday and thus space being at a premium. Headrow House were fine but didn't want any suiting so this was out, as I could only imagine the howls of derision from the more fervent suiters. The seventh bar I tried was Shuffledog at the top end, partly because I knew they would be quite quiet and partly because we know the manager there. Fortunately they were very accommodating, which was just as well as I had two disabled people following me on my less than enjoyable bar crawl, so we settled on the basement of Shuffledog which we largely took over. There was a Jamaican kitchen event going on with some tasty looking food, while the furs seemed to enjoy the shuffleboards, board games and pinball machines. Some even got into craft beer during their stay as I tried to spin the positives of the change in venue (largely as I am aware how popular Baa Bar is). Indeed this was so much the case that some requested we move venue to here, and with the bar staff delighted with the extra custom and the furs in general, it's definitely a possibility.
As we were in a different part of town, the Fursuit walk was refreshingly different, going through a local park and up and over the flyover, where we waved to cars travelling on the motorway below. There was some interesting urban exercise equipment in the park while the rich Autumn colours made for some great photographs. Indeed, the whole day was a rather good shake-up of events - I had felt the Leeds meets had been getting quite stale and a new walk was a win-win considering it is Ladyboys of Bangkok in Millennium Square and their security last year didn't take too kindly to our presence as they thought it was detracting from their sales.
Time passed incredibly quickly, partly because I was in a bar I adore and partly because I was rushing about everywhere trying to organise things. In addition to the walk, which I lead as its a part of town I know better than Wolfie as its near to where I work, I had to pop out and finish my birthday shopping, picking up some candy floss and sweets for Soma along with birthday cards too. I also found a £1 croc hat in Poundland which I thought would be perfect for a certain snapper. I had intended to sneak away from the meet and write them in BrewDog but alas I no longer had time due to the complications of the day. All of this meant that it was 7:30pm before I knew it, although this was aided by the fact that I wanted to try all of the new beers I had yet to try, resulting in seven different varieties passing my lips. These were of varying strength from 2.8% up to 10% but suffice to say I'm like a kid in a candy store at places like this, suggesting that it wouldn't be the best meet venue for me on a regular basis. By 7:30pm we were quite drunk - aided by the fact I hadn't had time to eat beyond a Greggs cheese and onion roll - and as a consequence of all this, we were the last ones in the bar and some of our party were desperate for food.
The Pit was the first place we tried but despite having loads of empty tables, we were turned away, much to my rather undiplomatic consternation. We were thinking of Zaap but this being busy and Avon in particular being hungry, we went to the curry place just opposite. Wolfie and I needed money, so we headed out to the cash machine, a fateful walk which resulted in a colossal argument on the street between the pair of us. It was one of our typical and thankfully quite rare drunken spats, usually started by one of us saying the wrong thing. In this case it was me being less than tactful, resulting in a few raised words as bemused passers-by walked on. As I was drunk, I couldn't really recall what I had said as to me it wasn't overly heinous or significant, and that made things worse as it riled Wolfie. I wasn't deliberately being obstinate or "smug", I genuinely didn't know what the issue was, but with friends getting concerned, we headed back to the curry house, where the atmosphere between us was somewhat frosty. Thankfully we were at the end of the table so our bad mood went largely unnoticed while the curry itself was delicious, and didn't give me bloatedness or pain which was a huge bonus.
By the time we had finished, it was approaching 9:30pm and despite urging Wolfie to go home and him refusing, we all headed back to the station, a walk during which the pair of us patched things up. So much so that we said goodbye to Ent, Avon and croc and headed to BrewDog for a final drink of the night with Taneli and Sabre. This proved to be quite enjoyable and it was a positive that we had patched things up before we went to bed as by the time we got back on the bus, all was once again well between us.
