The Londonfurs Winter Party

On Saturday we headed down to London for the Londonfurs Winter Party. We had booked this back in October, with the primary motivation being seeing Gothicat as part of her 40th birthday celebrations. It was also Wolfie’s first time attending one for something like a decade while it was my third party in a row, having done the Winter Party last year and the Summer Party back in July.

 

The train journey down to London was uneventful, although it was weird being in Leeds Station just 24 hours after I had been there doing some charity Fursuiting for a children’s cancer charity. I used the footballing dog mascot costume which was incredibly hard to see out of, effectively rendering me blind for much of the experience. The amount raised was a bit disappointing too, largely because it was in the middle of term time so there were no kids there, while everyone else was either a stressed train user or people trying to grab some lunch on their lunch break. Still it was a good experience nonetheless and I’m grateful that I have a job that enables me to do it. Anyway, I digress - the train to London went smoothly and we got there just after 12:30pm, with a full day of partying ahead of us.

 

The Winter Party is eleven hours long but we were reticent to spend all this time there. Furthermore, I was going to fly to Thailand after the event so had a load of heavy bags with me. We therefore resolved to go and check into our ropey Ibis Budget first before going to the party. With two hours to kill before this time, we headed down to Bermondsey to the Hawkes Cidery, where it had just been announced that they were participating in Brewdog’s visa stamp scheme. Being avid collectors, we thought it was worth a go, plus we got to see the legendary Bermondsey Beer Mile too, something we have been meaning to do for a long time. We had no time to do it all today, but we did check out Hawkes. I’m not a huge cider drinker but their stuff is delicious, with the dark fruits one being my favourite. We also got a very tasty pizza here and chatted a lot with their wonderful staff, who even let us peer into the cidery itself outside of tour time. Sadly though they did not have a stamp and their swipe card facility wasn’t working either, so we left unrewarded. However we very much enjoyed the cider experience, and the bar which was under the arches like many of them on the Beer Mile are. As we walked back along the road, we saw the taprooms of a number of recognizable names and we resolved to come to London to do the Mile early next year.

 

After our ciders, we walked to Bermondsey underground, where we saw their sexy labyrinth, before taking the train then DLR to Pontoon Dock. Once there, it was a very short walk to the Ibis Budget where we checked in and chilled for a while before heading back out again. The venue was the same as it was in the summer, The Tank and Paddle, so I knew there would be some good beers on draft. As we walked up there, we saw Gothicat pawing at the window in greeting and as soon as we arrived, we headed over to her crew and her rather wonderful buxom cake. This sampled had beer in hand, we sat about chatting to everyone. Indeed for the first three hours we didn’t really need to move as a stream of people swing by including Enteirah, who kindly gave me a Christmas card, Tungro, Bluejay, Yoshi, Seadragom and Tonks, who I got a bit angry with over our truly dreadful local Labour Parliamentary Candidate. Still, it was largely good conversation and with the opinion polls largely swinging our way overnight, My mood was pretty buoyant. It was great in particular to see Tungro and Bluejay again, while later in the evening we also got to see Darkanine too. He and his husband were staying in London for six days and had arrived that morning. They had spent some of their honeymoon with us about seven years ago and asked whether we wanted to meet. I let them know about the Party and said it would be great to see them there if they weren’t too jelagged. Surprisingly they weren’t, although they did feel somewhat overwhelmed by the noise and number of people, so they went to Brewdog Tower Hill which was just around the corner. This was a revelation to them, they had beget heard of Brewdog before, so I said I would go meet them once I had finished my fourth pint at the Party. This is what I did, with Wolfie and I going around there for 8pm. Alas we only had an hour in brewdog as they were closing at 9pm to get their electrics fixed, but at least we managed to find out friends and catch up. I even got to recommend some beers for them.

 

They really enjoyed Brewdog, so much so that once they closed, I convinced them to go back to the Party. Here I managed to introduce them to more people and as it was winding down, they were happier. Indeed, that as we stayed right to the end, splitting at 11pm to go back to Wembley while we headed to Gothicat’s small hotel room to share some birthday champagne. It was a nice way to end the day, even if the room was spinning a bit due to the alcohol consumption, so much so, we had to get a taxi back pretty soon after we had arrived as I was feeling quite queasy. Still, a fun day nonetheless although I could have done without the 8:30am start to catch a train up to Manchester to get my Thailand flight.