(no subject)
Sekrit message for trumpeterofdoom: It *was* All I Have To Give! You know too much!
Dear people: I have been very lax with my posting. I get this way when I've done a lot of socialising (for me) - I have this tendency to retreat into my own space for a while. OR I'm just lazy. You know.
So, just in case you have forgotten, this is what I remember of the awesomeness that was Camp Sparkle:
I met trumpeterofdoom on the train at Sheffield on Friday 29th, and we travelled the rest of the way down together for great lulz. pensnest had worked out that we were probably going to be the first ones to get to the cottage, so we had been given the room allocations and the responsibility of making door signs. So I brought pens and paper and glow in the dark stars, and had lots of fun drawing pictures of boybanders on the train. We also watched some hilarious Backstreet videos on JM's phone, so I could fully appreciate the emphatic hand gestures.
We disembarked at Southampton just before 4pm (I think?), stopped at the station cafe so JM could have a bucket of tea, and then headed out to find the bus stop. You'd think that would be easy. I had looked on the internet beforehand, and there were bus stop diagrams outside the train station. So we dragged our suitcases around and found a Toys R Us, but no buses. And it started raining. We headed back towards the station to look for more clues, and spotted some sparkly people who turned out to be ephemera, saffronra, turloughishere, urbanoceanix and randomling, so there was much rejoicing and hugging. Then we waited in a taxi rank for a while in case it was an undercover bus stop (it wasn't). Then saffronra disappeared suddenly, and reappeared to shepherd us over to the entire other side of the train station, where the buses were hiding. Eventually the bus we needed turned up, and with much studying of hastily scribbled bus route info from the internet and peering out of the window and some help from friendly local bus-users, we managed to get off at Lyndhurst. Yay!
By the time we got to the house, nopseud and turps33 were already there, so there was hugging and then I went out to get milk because pensnest was bringing the milk and she wasn't there yet and we all needed tea and coffee. When I got back, pensnest had arrived with her crew from the airports - ninjetti75, msktrnanny, adelate, rikes, iconis, saba1789, bubbleforest and fadedsouls, so there was another round of hugging and dumping of suitcases and investigating of bedrooms and rearranging furniture and setting up the projector and tea. The building this year was less pretty than last year's cottage, but it was much more practical, and had no RED STAIRS OF DOOM or tiny doors in the walls for murderous evil puppets to come out of in the night, so there was less reason to fear for our lives.
There was some wondering about the mysterious kira_j - had she got lost? had we scared her off? was she just a figment of our collective imaginations? - but nopseud went to the shop and came back with a kira_j, and she turned out to be a very real tiny sparkly person (with a wicked sense of humour and a proper appreciation of the lynncest). With everybody present and correct, we watched some footage - MSG, I think, and that mad BSB thing where they go around the world and get mugged by Brazil - and msktrnanny read out last years five words story to hilarious effect (with props!) and those responsible were SO proud.
I was sleeping in the 'slumber party room' with trumpeterofdoom, bubbleforest, fadedsouls, saba1789, iconis, adelate & rikes, and I remember being mostly asleep on Friday night when other people were coming to bed and hearing talk of an Aaron and the Three Bears story, and I don't know who was supposed to write that but SOMEBODY REALLY NEEDS TO WRITE THAT.
I think we averaged about five hours sleep a night or less, because there were always people talking and laughing everywhere and joining in was much preferable to sleeping.
On Saturday* saba1789, rikes, trumpeterofdoom and I went for a wander around the village and saba1789 bonded with a one-eyed pony. More footage was watched, I ate a Froot Loop which was a very peculiar blue colour (and survived), and we had proper greasy fish and chips for dinner.
-- I have to take a moment here to recognise our snack compiling achievements, as a group. We had a huge spread of junk food from just about everywhere. We had a veritable snack-mountain. We had a snackocalypse. Jamie Oliver would have *died*. There were various configurations of sugar and food colouring that pass as cereal over the pond, and enough pixy stix to keep iconis at a permanent sugar-crazed level all week, and POP ROCKS (longtime pop rocks fan), and twinkies (not food! I don't know what they are but they're not food!), and peanut butter cups which were an excellent conversation starter (for the conversation that goes, "let's talk about how trumpeterofdoom tried to kill AJ"), and Pringles and Doritos and a reservoir of diet coke, and Oreos and all these things we consumed in the name of research, oh yes. Also there was Swedish chocolate and Finnish chocolate and Cadbury's Mini Eggs, and the non-Americans among us were shocked and appalled to learn of the chocolate-poverty over there (they only get little bars!) and there was a moment of silence for those less fortunate.
On Sunday I think we had some discussions - the AUs one lasted about three sentences, but the betas one (which became a general writing discussion) lasted much longer, possibly thanks to turloughishere chairing and making sure we didn't speak over each other too much, and I was extremely grateful since I think I was the one who suggested we talk about this. We learnt that we needed our stories to be more spherical and shiny and white and everyone did lots of round shapes with their hands when they were talking like we were the Backstreet Boys or something. Now I need to make sure I don't leave it too long before I actually start making use of this discussion and sending some of my stories out for people to look through.
There was also I believe a goat felching panel, although sadly I missed most of that one. Guess which word in the preceding sentence is the most sarcastic.
We watched some more videos and appreciated the BSB emoting. Kneel, Nick! Arms of pain, Brian! Some of us played ninjetti75's AWESOME game of sparkly cluedo, and it was hilarious, although we never got to finish that game because it was taking ages. I still maintain I would've won. I mean, I was Justin. I had the most little shiny points anyway and surely that was the most important thing. I'm sure Justin would agree. During the game I was also introduced to the concept of NinjaBitch Howie, and I was like, what? and then later we watched the Call video with actual NinjaBitch Howie in it which is the best pop video concept ever and I wish I had been there when it was suggested. I imagine a storyboard reveal, like in The Making of Bye Bye Bye. And then Howie's gonna tear his mask off and it's The Girl! She was wearing a Howie mask!
There was Death!Cake! provided, of course, by pensnest, and it was possibly even more deathly and delicious than last year's, if that is indeed possible. Speaking of pensnest and cooking, she has to be commended for her ability to conjure up Dinner from any assortment of disparate leftovers. Without her we would have probably survived on Twinkies and Pixy Stix all week and ended up in a big pile of sugar coma. Well, without Pen we wouldn't have been there at all. There is that. ♥
There was also the now-traditional Box of Sparkly Tat, and I now have some very classy NSYNC stationery. Although still no-one has taken the shiny baby-Justin pillowcase.
At dinner msktrnanny talked about BSB concert(s?), and it sounded like fun, so I asked whether they had any tour DVDs and was told there was one, which was put on. My mistake. People did try to warn me. Howie and the roses, they said, but Howie and roses? It's *Howie*. How bad could it possibly be?
Oh, my eyes. I don't quite know how I survived. There were nipples. It was awful. It took me all week to fully recover.
On Sunday night I joined nopseud, ephemera, turps33, a slightly bemused adelate in watching Dancing on Ice on the TV in the corner of the slumber party room, in which Fake!Nick was obviously awesome (robbed!) and SuzannewasgoodtooIsuppose. adelate put some Backstreet on during the break, and I think I broke ephemera by trying to explain why I don't like BSB's music as much as NSYNC's (it involved the word 'rock'). It made sense in my head! For some values of sense.
Sadly, saffronra had to leave on Sunday (hugging and waving!), and nopseud drove her to the station but made it back in time to see the DoI skateoff and nearly die of an indignation-induced heart attack. Luckily, Greg Rusedski did get voted off, and we could all bask in the justice.
On Monday pensnest left to drive bubbleforest and fadedsouls to the airport (Monday morning hugs!), and there was more sadness. Couldn't we all have stayed for ever? I think ephemera and kira_j also left on Monday (hugs!). I don't know if it was Monday. I do know it was TOO SOON. pensnest collected her Beast on the way back and he turned out to be very tolerant of the random popslash-and-sugar-based craziness around him; obviously well-trained. To welcome him, msktrnanny held a reading of the Lava Lamp story to collective gasps and screams of horror.
Can I just interrupt myself here to point out that I first heard about this at the last Camp Sparkle, and had managed to successfully avoid reading it for A WHOLE YEAR? I needn't have bothered, really. Two days, a year, it will get you in the end. I'm still not entirely convinced the author didn't know exactly what they were doing (the whole piss-stick sentence - nobody could write that and mean it, *surely*) and isn't sitting somewhere cackling and watching a number-of-souls-destroyed counter click ever onwards.
On Tuesday morning trumpeterofdoom left, because she had to do ridiculous amounts of reading and other uni work. I did suggest we hold a reading of Titus Andronicus at the cottage, but she seemed to think that probably wouldn't help at all. Some people, really. I know. So we were even more bereft, and who could we turn to if we had an info emergency and someone forgot the names of AJ's dogs again? nopseud was also leaving on Tuesday morning, having spent most of the weekend administering manicures and facials from on high like a beauty therapy goddess. And most of us went into Winchester on Tuesday. I say most of us; I wasn't actually going to go, having an anti-social moment, but when I got up nopseud was still there, and offered to drive me into Winchester so I could catch up with the others and she could say goodbye. In the car on the way we listened to the new Backstreet album (is it still new?) and tried to work out who was singing. Brian? Nick? Howie? Brian? -- Hey, AJ! -- Brian? Howie? Nick?
In Winchester, we found everybody else in the cathedral, and then nopseud said goodbye (line up! hugs!) and then we stalked her like Justin until she ran away. Most of us went to a pub for some lunch, and were serenaded with Backstreet songs, and then some Justin, which was really hilariously bizarre until I realised that there was a jukebox that members of our party were utilising, and then it was just fun. Chairdancing fun! After lunch we did some more exploring, and resident SPN nut adelate went around squeaking every time she saw something that said Winchester. In Winchester, which is a touristy town and thus has Winchester written on just about everything. So she spent most of the trip randomly squeaking. Winchester City Council! Winchester Kebab Shop! Take a tour to find the Lost Heroes of Winchester! rikes lost a Joey badge (she brought a boxful of NSYNC badges & many of us were properly adorned) up a fancy tower, and despite sending out search parties, he joined the ranks of the Lost Heroes of Winchester (Winchester, adelate!). Tuesday was also the day the brain radios really got going. Songs stuck in heads included Cry Me A River, The Call (gotta go!), and, randomly, Stop The Pigeon (stop the pigeon, stop the pigeon, stop the pigeon, HOW?). By this time pensnest's Beast had learned Important Pop Facts, possibly through osmosis, such as the fact that Nick and Kevin were Backstreet Boys.
On Wednesday people went to see a big pile of rocks, and this time I really did stay behind. So did randomling, ninjetti75, turps33 and urbanoceanix. We sat around and watched some footage and ate some toast and talked a bit and generally acted like sleep-deprived but happy zombies. ninjetti75, randomling and turps33 played a sparkly RPG game that went on for FIFTY YEARS, but they seemed to enjoy it, and I am reliably informed Joey saved the world with ribspreaders, which is how it should be. They were still playing when the others came back, all excited. Oh, yeah, they'd seen Stonehenge, but more importantly they had found a shop called POUNDLAND. Yes, I don't know. But adelate brought me back a Justin Timberlake stickerbook from POUNDLAND so I am willing to believe the hype.
There weren't any more grand trips after that. We stayed in on Thursday and watched more footage, and discovered the rightness that is Bye Bye Bye on 2x speed. Really, it's better. Now I want an mp3. It sounds too slow at normal speed! We also watched Atlantis and awwed at JC's happy face singing TIPY in the aquarium. I imagine JC's house is entirely made up of reflective surfaces so he can get that cool reverb goin' and then grin to himself about it.
We also played another game of Sparkly Clue, in which I was naturally Justin again, and spent some time balancing on the furniture (in cool CMAR poses, no doubt), and almost cleared up within about three rounds, but defeat was cruelly snatched from the jaws of victory by randomling/Joey inflicting a Sci-Fi AU on us all. Also I got a bit distracted by the Trace card coming out. We all have weaknesses, people! Anyway, Beast/Kevin soundly beat us all with a ruthless but classy move: torturing Brian to death by force-feeding him high-heeled shoes. I don't know why this game is not in shops.
On Thursday night we went on a little expedition to the pub in Lyndhurst. Or, we *thought* we were going to the pub in Lyndhurst. For a moment it looked like we had been tricked into coming out to visit the fancy car garages of which Lyndhurst apparently has two on the main road. For a moment there it was obvious which were car appreciating people and which were car ignoring people - half the group standing around ooohing over the Maseratis (?) and the other half hanging back muttering "we were told pub! This is cars! Where is pub?"
Eventually the car people were sated (guess which group I was in) and we doubled back and found a pub, and were eventually ushered into an otherwise unoccupied restaurant room, where we had our Last Meal (if you don't count breakfast, and let's face it, who does), and it was awesomely fun and we talked some more and drank some more and some of us ate some more and it was great, but being back at the cottage was better, so we went back there. And watched some more footage, obviously, and laughed some more and shrieked some more.
I had to get up early on Friday morning to catch the bus to get my train, but I was determined to stay up as long as humanly possible on the Thursday night and not miss anything. We got the Five Words story finished, and then caused mental harm to msktrnanny by having a Serious Discussion (at around 3am) about the exact wording of the footnotes, and whether 'fucking' in that case was not being used as an adverb or not as a something else I don't remember (because a. 3am and b. I don't know the words for grammar), and also the importance of properly citing your references. Crack story is one thing, but the footnotes must be RIGHT.
We also realised we had never got round to doing the karaoke, including pensnest's top class unofficial (no, really?) Justin karaoke DVD, with its fine tracks such as Workit and Senortia and, best of all, that NSYNC classic Bye Bye. While we were being a bit too loud with the talking and laughing and arguing about footnotes and probably keeping pensnest awake before another one of her mammoth drives, it was nearly a LOT worse. That karaoke was looking really tempting.
Eventually, bed, and eventually everybody's various alarms going off from about seven in the morning. I had a last strawberry poptart, and then I had to go (hugs for breakfast!). I don't know what happened after that, because I was mostly being asleep on the train.
And then it was Monday again, and I was back at work, and far, far away from all the sparkly people. I'd been looking forward to Camp Sparkle for *so* long, and it really lived up to all expectations, it was took me a while to readjust to normal life again. Miss you all! :(
*All dates possibly entirely randomly assigned; I have no memory for timelines.
Dear people: I have been very lax with my posting. I get this way when I've done a lot of socialising (for me) - I have this tendency to retreat into my own space for a while. OR I'm just lazy. You know.
So, just in case you have forgotten, this is what I remember of the awesomeness that was Camp Sparkle:
I met trumpeterofdoom on the train at Sheffield on Friday 29th, and we travelled the rest of the way down together for great lulz. pensnest had worked out that we were probably going to be the first ones to get to the cottage, so we had been given the room allocations and the responsibility of making door signs. So I brought pens and paper and glow in the dark stars, and had lots of fun drawing pictures of boybanders on the train. We also watched some hilarious Backstreet videos on JM's phone, so I could fully appreciate the emphatic hand gestures.
We disembarked at Southampton just before 4pm (I think?), stopped at the station cafe so JM could have a bucket of tea, and then headed out to find the bus stop. You'd think that would be easy. I had looked on the internet beforehand, and there were bus stop diagrams outside the train station. So we dragged our suitcases around and found a Toys R Us, but no buses. And it started raining. We headed back towards the station to look for more clues, and spotted some sparkly people who turned out to be ephemera, saffronra, turloughishere, urbanoceanix and randomling, so there was much rejoicing and hugging. Then we waited in a taxi rank for a while in case it was an undercover bus stop (it wasn't). Then saffronra disappeared suddenly, and reappeared to shepherd us over to the entire other side of the train station, where the buses were hiding. Eventually the bus we needed turned up, and with much studying of hastily scribbled bus route info from the internet and peering out of the window and some help from friendly local bus-users, we managed to get off at Lyndhurst. Yay!
By the time we got to the house, nopseud and turps33 were already there, so there was hugging and then I went out to get milk because pensnest was bringing the milk and she wasn't there yet and we all needed tea and coffee. When I got back, pensnest had arrived with her crew from the airports - ninjetti75, msktrnanny, adelate, rikes, iconis, saba1789, bubbleforest and fadedsouls, so there was another round of hugging and dumping of suitcases and investigating of bedrooms and rearranging furniture and setting up the projector and tea. The building this year was less pretty than last year's cottage, but it was much more practical, and had no RED STAIRS OF DOOM or tiny doors in the walls for murderous evil puppets to come out of in the night, so there was less reason to fear for our lives.
There was some wondering about the mysterious kira_j - had she got lost? had we scared her off? was she just a figment of our collective imaginations? - but nopseud went to the shop and came back with a kira_j, and she turned out to be a very real tiny sparkly person (with a wicked sense of humour and a proper appreciation of the lynncest). With everybody present and correct, we watched some footage - MSG, I think, and that mad BSB thing where they go around the world and get mugged by Brazil - and msktrnanny read out last years five words story to hilarious effect (with props!) and those responsible were SO proud.
I was sleeping in the 'slumber party room' with trumpeterofdoom, bubbleforest, fadedsouls, saba1789, iconis, adelate & rikes, and I remember being mostly asleep on Friday night when other people were coming to bed and hearing talk of an Aaron and the Three Bears story, and I don't know who was supposed to write that but SOMEBODY REALLY NEEDS TO WRITE THAT.
I think we averaged about five hours sleep a night or less, because there were always people talking and laughing everywhere and joining in was much preferable to sleeping.
On Saturday* saba1789, rikes, trumpeterofdoom and I went for a wander around the village and saba1789 bonded with a one-eyed pony. More footage was watched, I ate a Froot Loop which was a very peculiar blue colour (and survived), and we had proper greasy fish and chips for dinner.
-- I have to take a moment here to recognise our snack compiling achievements, as a group. We had a huge spread of junk food from just about everywhere. We had a veritable snack-mountain. We had a snackocalypse. Jamie Oliver would have *died*. There were various configurations of sugar and food colouring that pass as cereal over the pond, and enough pixy stix to keep iconis at a permanent sugar-crazed level all week, and POP ROCKS (longtime pop rocks fan), and twinkies (not food! I don't know what they are but they're not food!), and peanut butter cups which were an excellent conversation starter (for the conversation that goes, "let's talk about how trumpeterofdoom tried to kill AJ"), and Pringles and Doritos and a reservoir of diet coke, and Oreos and all these things we consumed in the name of research, oh yes. Also there was Swedish chocolate and Finnish chocolate and Cadbury's Mini Eggs, and the non-Americans among us were shocked and appalled to learn of the chocolate-poverty over there (they only get little bars!) and there was a moment of silence for those less fortunate.
On Sunday I think we had some discussions - the AUs one lasted about three sentences, but the betas one (which became a general writing discussion) lasted much longer, possibly thanks to turloughishere chairing and making sure we didn't speak over each other too much, and I was extremely grateful since I think I was the one who suggested we talk about this. We learnt that we needed our stories to be more spherical and shiny and white and everyone did lots of round shapes with their hands when they were talking like we were the Backstreet Boys or something. Now I need to make sure I don't leave it too long before I actually start making use of this discussion and sending some of my stories out for people to look through.
There was also I believe a goat felching panel, although sadly I missed most of that one. Guess which word in the preceding sentence is the most sarcastic.
We watched some more videos and appreciated the BSB emoting. Kneel, Nick! Arms of pain, Brian! Some of us played ninjetti75's AWESOME game of sparkly cluedo, and it was hilarious, although we never got to finish that game because it was taking ages. I still maintain I would've won. I mean, I was Justin. I had the most little shiny points anyway and surely that was the most important thing. I'm sure Justin would agree. During the game I was also introduced to the concept of NinjaBitch Howie, and I was like, what? and then later we watched the Call video with actual NinjaBitch Howie in it which is the best pop video concept ever and I wish I had been there when it was suggested. I imagine a storyboard reveal, like in The Making of Bye Bye Bye. And then Howie's gonna tear his mask off and it's The Girl! She was wearing a Howie mask!
There was Death!Cake! provided, of course, by pensnest, and it was possibly even more deathly and delicious than last year's, if that is indeed possible. Speaking of pensnest and cooking, she has to be commended for her ability to conjure up Dinner from any assortment of disparate leftovers. Without her we would have probably survived on Twinkies and Pixy Stix all week and ended up in a big pile of sugar coma. Well, without Pen we wouldn't have been there at all. There is that. ♥
There was also the now-traditional Box of Sparkly Tat, and I now have some very classy NSYNC stationery. Although still no-one has taken the shiny baby-Justin pillowcase.
At dinner msktrnanny talked about BSB concert(s?), and it sounded like fun, so I asked whether they had any tour DVDs and was told there was one, which was put on. My mistake. People did try to warn me. Howie and the roses, they said, but Howie and roses? It's *Howie*. How bad could it possibly be?
Oh, my eyes. I don't quite know how I survived. There were nipples. It was awful. It took me all week to fully recover.
On Sunday night I joined nopseud, ephemera, turps33, a slightly bemused adelate in watching Dancing on Ice on the TV in the corner of the slumber party room, in which Fake!Nick was obviously awesome (robbed!) and SuzannewasgoodtooIsuppose. adelate put some Backstreet on during the break, and I think I broke ephemera by trying to explain why I don't like BSB's music as much as NSYNC's (it involved the word 'rock'). It made sense in my head! For some values of sense.
Sadly, saffronra had to leave on Sunday (hugging and waving!), and nopseud drove her to the station but made it back in time to see the DoI skateoff and nearly die of an indignation-induced heart attack. Luckily, Greg Rusedski did get voted off, and we could all bask in the justice.
On Monday pensnest left to drive bubbleforest and fadedsouls to the airport (Monday morning hugs!), and there was more sadness. Couldn't we all have stayed for ever? I think ephemera and kira_j also left on Monday (hugs!). I don't know if it was Monday. I do know it was TOO SOON. pensnest collected her Beast on the way back and he turned out to be very tolerant of the random popslash-and-sugar-based craziness around him; obviously well-trained. To welcome him, msktrnanny held a reading of the Lava Lamp story to collective gasps and screams of horror.
Can I just interrupt myself here to point out that I first heard about this at the last Camp Sparkle, and had managed to successfully avoid reading it for A WHOLE YEAR? I needn't have bothered, really. Two days, a year, it will get you in the end. I'm still not entirely convinced the author didn't know exactly what they were doing (the whole piss-stick sentence - nobody could write that and mean it, *surely*) and isn't sitting somewhere cackling and watching a number-of-souls-destroyed counter click ever onwards.
On Tuesday morning trumpeterofdoom left, because she had to do ridiculous amounts of reading and other uni work. I did suggest we hold a reading of Titus Andronicus at the cottage, but she seemed to think that probably wouldn't help at all. Some people, really. I know. So we were even more bereft, and who could we turn to if we had an info emergency and someone forgot the names of AJ's dogs again? nopseud was also leaving on Tuesday morning, having spent most of the weekend administering manicures and facials from on high like a beauty therapy goddess. And most of us went into Winchester on Tuesday. I say most of us; I wasn't actually going to go, having an anti-social moment, but when I got up nopseud was still there, and offered to drive me into Winchester so I could catch up with the others and she could say goodbye. In the car on the way we listened to the new Backstreet album (is it still new?) and tried to work out who was singing. Brian? Nick? Howie? Brian? -- Hey, AJ! -- Brian? Howie? Nick?
In Winchester, we found everybody else in the cathedral, and then nopseud said goodbye (line up! hugs!) and then we stalked her like Justin until she ran away. Most of us went to a pub for some lunch, and were serenaded with Backstreet songs, and then some Justin, which was really hilariously bizarre until I realised that there was a jukebox that members of our party were utilising, and then it was just fun. Chairdancing fun! After lunch we did some more exploring, and resident SPN nut adelate went around squeaking every time she saw something that said Winchester. In Winchester, which is a touristy town and thus has Winchester written on just about everything. So she spent most of the trip randomly squeaking. Winchester City Council! Winchester Kebab Shop! Take a tour to find the Lost Heroes of Winchester! rikes lost a Joey badge (she brought a boxful of NSYNC badges & many of us were properly adorned) up a fancy tower, and despite sending out search parties, he joined the ranks of the Lost Heroes of Winchester (Winchester, adelate!). Tuesday was also the day the brain radios really got going. Songs stuck in heads included Cry Me A River, The Call (gotta go!), and, randomly, Stop The Pigeon (stop the pigeon, stop the pigeon, stop the pigeon, HOW?). By this time pensnest's Beast had learned Important Pop Facts, possibly through osmosis, such as the fact that Nick and Kevin were Backstreet Boys.
On Wednesday people went to see a big pile of rocks, and this time I really did stay behind. So did randomling, ninjetti75, turps33 and urbanoceanix. We sat around and watched some footage and ate some toast and talked a bit and generally acted like sleep-deprived but happy zombies. ninjetti75, randomling and turps33 played a sparkly RPG game that went on for FIFTY YEARS, but they seemed to enjoy it, and I am reliably informed Joey saved the world with ribspreaders, which is how it should be. They were still playing when the others came back, all excited. Oh, yeah, they'd seen Stonehenge, but more importantly they had found a shop called POUNDLAND. Yes, I don't know. But adelate brought me back a Justin Timberlake stickerbook from POUNDLAND so I am willing to believe the hype.
There weren't any more grand trips after that. We stayed in on Thursday and watched more footage, and discovered the rightness that is Bye Bye Bye on 2x speed. Really, it's better. Now I want an mp3. It sounds too slow at normal speed! We also watched Atlantis and awwed at JC's happy face singing TIPY in the aquarium. I imagine JC's house is entirely made up of reflective surfaces so he can get that cool reverb goin' and then grin to himself about it.
We also played another game of Sparkly Clue, in which I was naturally Justin again, and spent some time balancing on the furniture (in cool CMAR poses, no doubt), and almost cleared up within about three rounds, but defeat was cruelly snatched from the jaws of victory by randomling/Joey inflicting a Sci-Fi AU on us all. Also I got a bit distracted by the Trace card coming out. We all have weaknesses, people! Anyway, Beast/Kevin soundly beat us all with a ruthless but classy move: torturing Brian to death by force-feeding him high-heeled shoes. I don't know why this game is not in shops.
On Thursday night we went on a little expedition to the pub in Lyndhurst. Or, we *thought* we were going to the pub in Lyndhurst. For a moment it looked like we had been tricked into coming out to visit the fancy car garages of which Lyndhurst apparently has two on the main road. For a moment there it was obvious which were car appreciating people and which were car ignoring people - half the group standing around ooohing over the Maseratis (?) and the other half hanging back muttering "we were told pub! This is cars! Where is pub?"
Eventually the car people were sated (guess which group I was in) and we doubled back and found a pub, and were eventually ushered into an otherwise unoccupied restaurant room, where we had our Last Meal (if you don't count breakfast, and let's face it, who does), and it was awesomely fun and we talked some more and drank some more and some of us ate some more and it was great, but being back at the cottage was better, so we went back there. And watched some more footage, obviously, and laughed some more and shrieked some more.
I had to get up early on Friday morning to catch the bus to get my train, but I was determined to stay up as long as humanly possible on the Thursday night and not miss anything. We got the Five Words story finished, and then caused mental harm to msktrnanny by having a Serious Discussion (at around 3am) about the exact wording of the footnotes, and whether 'fucking' in that case was not being used as an adverb or not as a something else I don't remember (because a. 3am and b. I don't know the words for grammar), and also the importance of properly citing your references. Crack story is one thing, but the footnotes must be RIGHT.
We also realised we had never got round to doing the karaoke, including pensnest's top class unofficial (no, really?) Justin karaoke DVD, with its fine tracks such as Workit and Senortia and, best of all, that NSYNC classic Bye Bye. While we were being a bit too loud with the talking and laughing and arguing about footnotes and probably keeping pensnest awake before another one of her mammoth drives, it was nearly a LOT worse. That karaoke was looking really tempting.
Eventually, bed, and eventually everybody's various alarms going off from about seven in the morning. I had a last strawberry poptart, and then I had to go (hugs for breakfast!). I don't know what happened after that, because I was mostly being asleep on the train.
And then it was Monday again, and I was back at work, and far, far away from all the sparkly people. I'd been looking forward to Camp Sparkle for *so* long, and it really lived up to all expectations, it was took me a while to readjust to normal life again. Miss you all! :(
*All dates possibly entirely randomly assigned; I have no memory for timelines.