RNA Conference - the most fun you can have with your clothes

Well.  That was exciting, wasn't it?  Or at least it was for those of us who were there, the rest of you will just have to use your imaginations...  Never, in the field of socialisation, have so many surrendered their normally solitary lives for the greater good - when daily life is normally spent talking to the same few people (who already know that amusing story you tell about the milk bottle and the mouse) or to completely imaginary people (who rarely talk back, unless the medication needs updating), suddenly being released into a room full of new ears is heady stuff indeed!  There are now nearly no members of the esteemed RNA who do not know the story of the milk bottle and the mouse, due to the many, many bottles of what I was assured was nearly non-alcoholic wine.  Some of them may have heard it several times.  At volume.

Anyway.  I promised to give a photographic run down of our weekend and it started like this:

Newport railway station.  Actually it started some eight hours before when I arose like the dead from my bed and drove to York to catch the train that ended up in Newport.  But you really don't want to see pictures of that.  Honestly.  Imagine The Corpse of Dracula crossed with the Hair Bear Bunch, it was like that.  So.  Newport.  And then...

... this happened.  And it kept on happening.  I blame Kate Johnson.  Because it was all her fault.

Oh, there were other things too, wonderful talks, terrific food, fabulous frocks, and the rest of the Choc Lit girls.

Here we are, 'enjoying a joke' as they used to say about the debutantes in Country Life.  Actually I think we might have been contemplating the joys of wine-yet-to-come, but we were happy about it, whatever it was.
In the picture are:  Me (who needs no introduction, because half way through the 'this is Ja...' I'm usually bounding up to the introducee like a Labrador whose lead has come off and demanding to know what is their favourite kind of biscuit), the previously mentioned Kate Johnson, Christina Courtney,  Sue Moorcroft, 
Evonne Wareham, and Margaret James. 

Also present, but not pictured, was Chris Stovell.  She was definitely there, though.  I mean, I know you can have wine-induced hallucinations, but surely not that vividly.

And then there was more of this - 

Sometimes en masse, like this -

And then it all got a bit.... well...

And the next thing I knew, some kind people had bundled me up and rolled me down a hill, and when I managed to open my eyes, I saw

and then my house.

So, to all the lovely, lovely people at the RNA (some of whom are pictured here, including the delectable Talli Roland) - let's do it all again next year!  (Only, maybe a bit less wine?  Maybe just the ten bottles...?)