Saturday morning dawned or rather nooned. I’d slept the whole morning away. I hate to do this on holidays but I needed the lack of daylight badly. The early afternoon was spent in some mild pain but by 4ish Devin and I were better and capering off to The Ladies Tea Party, an event put together for any women bloggers who wanted to show up. A good number did and a pleasant time was had jawing on blog-talk and cheesy nachos. But there were awards to go to and no time to waste so Dev and I hot-booted it back to the hotel, Dev got changed and I attempted to cover up some of the ravages of two nights drinking and a rainy walk on my face.

Descending the hotel’s case of stairs, all re-primped and re-primed, we met Medbh and Mr. Medbh again and another person. Dev thought it was JC Skinner who I’m sure is a nice bloke and all but I don’t really know him so I nodded greeting amiably and didn’t say much more to the guy. Shortly, it became clear though that, far (or not far, I dunno) from being JC Skinner, the person before us with the big smile was none other than Manuel! None other! Well, I weren’t half excited to meet Manuel and greeted him all over again and then continued to greet him all evening. Events had it such that, as with Gimme, I never really got a chance to talk properly to Manuel and that was a great pity. I did however score some badges off him. Next year – along with finally meeting the much missed Sneezy – this will be rectified and I will scare both him and Gimme into a corner so I can interrogate them to my satisfaction with cocktail sticks and Guinness-boarding if need be.

Anyways, where was I? Here: It was a filthy night so Dev and I took a taxi to the Alexander rather than let the rain flatten and smear our loveliness. Bizzarely, the taxi-driver started on about Toyland. (Toyland? Toyland?) and the ladyboys there. Ah, Thailand, righto. Dev and I sat in the back giggling like schoolgirls and smacking each other to shoosh.

And then we arrived at The Alexander Hotel on Merrion Square. Dev and I skipped lightly tra la la out of the taxi, now well primed for a good night out and off we larked for an evening’s excitement. We went downstairs to get our obligatory name badges and the first person we saw was His Gimmeness. Then His Curliness. It was great to walk in and already recognise some faces but it was almost as much fun to try guessing who was who among all the strangers. I saw some of the ladies I’d already met at the tea party which was good because peering at women’s breast areas to glean a small-font name for the face was not really how I’d hoped to introduce myself to people.

Then, woohoo! who’s this coming in with Eolai? Sniffly! Lemme tell you about Sniffly – he’s like a very winning bear, thoroughly loveable and as generous-spirited a fellow as there is. He wondered off at the end of the night and I never got to say cheerio properly but I hope we’ll meet again.

But back to the event at hand. We all said Coo about how big the function room was and then went to get a drink. Pretty soon the place was swarming. I met the sweet-as-sweet-pie Deb from the tea-less tea-party again – and discovered her to be a doll and full of fun. And then the lovely Jen from Little Bird Eats whose chocolate bread pudding with rum, folks, rum! I shall be making for next sunday lunch.

I’d just settled in my seat for a minute with my cooling pint – it was roasting – when Dev hauled me up and off to meet Mr. Twenty Major, later to become the night’s big winner. He seemed a lovely bloke and not once in our short yackeroo did he call me a lady-bit or a gent-bit or make mention of any coarse coital verb. I was deeply disappointed but enquiries revealed I couldn’t get my ten euro suggested donation at the door back just because Twenty isn’t really a foul-mouthed misanthrope. However, later on, I saw him call an adorable little puppy a bastard and then he punched a passing old lady in the face, just because. I felt a lot better for that.

The awards commenced commencing and the 400 of us filling the room clapped and cheered the winners. Best Blog Post was won by the splendid Fatmammycat. However, because she was off galivanting in Galway for work, she’d asked me to collect her prize for her should she win. So, with 800 eyes all eagerly trying to finally get a glimpse of what fatmammycat looked like, I bumbled my way up to the stage acutely aware of the disappointment I was about to give. I could hear the whispers on the way up “Is that her?”

“I’m not fatmammycat,” I mumbled Scottishly, (Huh? What’d she say? – I dunno she talks funny. I think she said she’s not fmc – Ah, shite.”) In other mumbles I conveyed fmc’s thanks to Damien and her readers and then skulked back to my seat. Whereupon a fellow told me to go get my photo taken.
“But I’m not…”

“It doesn’t matter, the category sponsor needs a photo.”

So I impostered a bit more and, do ya know, I started to like it, knowing full well that this would be the only chance I’d have to catch a whiff of bloggery-prizery. Proudly I clutched the award that wasn’t mine. Happily I rubbed up against the shiny people for the winner’s photo, hoping to catch some lustre. Twittily I gawked and stood around not knowing what to do, wondering if the winners got a free drink.

Fmc was a very popular win and all the night following people were coming up to me and telling me how much they love her blog. That bit was really nice and I relaxed happily into my Ambassador for FMCland role.

After the awards was an 80s disco but our lot skedaddled upstairs to the other bar for some chat. There I got to meet the unique and fabulously talented Sweary and her Mister, the delightful Manuel Estimulo who was piously and devoutly downing pints with his Missus, the sweet Annie Rhiannon and Bjarni, and many more genuinely lovely people too numerous to list here.

We all mingled as the fancy took us and later downstairs I met a young mohicanned man with a belly full of Guinness and an accent more impenetrable than Mother Theresa’s knickers. I smiled, unable to make myself understood either, so instead I felt one of his spikes, knocking it slightly skee-whiff in what I hoped was a gesture of good-will in Mohicannese. In this way we managed to communicate for a good 5 minutes, completely oblivious to what the other was saying, me knocking his spikes off centre and he saying some apparently good-humoured shit.

And that’s all I’ve got time to write just now. Car getting serviced and I need to pick it up pronto. Other stuff happened. Much other fun had and stuff, but I’ll leave it at that. Here endeth the Dublin Chronicles.

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