Birmingham Ciao Meet 2002

Not so long ago I was a virgin, not in the biblical sense I hasten to add, I am the father of three of the devils spawn.
I was a virgin at this “meet” thing, I had heard and saw pics of various dooyoo and ciao meets but had never been able to participate myself.

In May of this year I drove to Bristol with my wife, we left Greenock at about 11am and arrived at our destination at around 10 PM, it was a horrendous drive down, lots of traffic jams, wrong turnings and toilet stops (well my wife is like most females, they can’t travel the length of themselves without needing a pee).
Anyhoo, we were on our way to meet a couple of people who I had been chatting to for over a year, through the opinionated community of which, at the time, had many members of dooyoo and ciao contributing and chatting daily.
As we got closer to our destination we both began to get very nervous, I was nervous because I am basically a shy and quiet person (honest!) and my wife was nervous because she didn’t know the people we were meeting at all (she doesn’t do this web thing).

The thing is, we were meeting people that until then were disembodied words dancing across a monitor, they could have been axe murderers or Keith Chegwin for all we knew!
No, that’s a lie, I knew, just from chatting to them that they were genuine, I had their phone numbers and their address, I had saw pictures of them at other meets and been told by other people who had met them how lovely they were.
We were not disappointed.
Ammon and Debs and Di were just perfect, we eventually got to the pub about an hour before it closed which was a bit of a bummer because it meant we only had an hour to chat to Di, who was just lovely and all preggers too. We had more time with Debs and Ammon because we were actually staying with them for the weekend! Yeah, we were complete strangers yet we felt like we had known each other for years.
When we got to where we were staying we sat up half the night just talking, laughing and getting to know each other, it was so easy, like I say everyone felt just so comfortable with each other.
On the Saturday we went out for a meal, saw a movie, laughed a whole lot more and played silly games all night and all too soon Sunday arrived and we had to say our goodbye’s.
Our first taste of an online friendship and it was sublime.

August 24th, my birthday.
A meet had been arranged for Brighton on this day, but due to a lack of available accommodation the meet was all but cancelled.
Jo1l and Iain Wear suggested moving the meet to London for the same day and so myself, my wife and our friend helmet made the journey down to London overnight on the Friday, we were booked into a hotel for the Saturday night and arrangements had been made to meet in a pub at the Finsbury park tube station.

The pub we were meeting in was picked solely because it was the closest pub to the tube, that made it easy for Jo, Iain and us three to meet up and decide where to go from there.
Well, as they say, the best laid plans etc (I had to put the etc in there, I forget how that quote goes). “The Gas Lantern” was the name of the pub and as it turned out we could not have picked a better place to meet, the atmosphere in the pub was great for chatting (not too loud), the barmen were very friendly and accommodating and it wasn’t crowded (I hate crowds).
We were first to arrive (me, helmet and the daughter of darkness) and had just sat down to our first pint when Iain (soho black) arrived. I recognised him right away from photo’s I had seen on the web (pics of a previous meet in London) and we were soon supping our pints and chatting like old friends, a short time later Jo1l arrived, and again I recognised her immediately from the many pics of her at other meets, (Iain says she would go to the opening of an envelope he he.........only kidding Jo, you know I love you)
I was actually sweating like a person who sweats a lot but not as much as me, I was so nervous. I need not have worried though because after ten minutes we were all laughing and chatting and singing together as if we all had been going out on the piss for years.
Jo and Iain were absolutely perfect company too, so much so that on the 26th of this month we are having a repeat of the meet in Huddersfield (Jo’s patch).
Jo and Ali (my wife AKA The daughter of Darkness) were like old fishwives after ten minutes in each other company and Ali can’t wait until they meet again.

Back to the initial meeting in the Gas Lantern,
We were all nicely oiled and having a great time when Vince (the barman) called last orders at 11pm, we needn’t have worried though because when all the other punters had left he locked the doors and we continued our merry meet until 2am, both the barmen joined us and Ali sang to the Kareoke.

It was memorable night , made all the better because it was my birthday and Jo and Iain were so great, and also because through accident or design, the venue was just perfect too.

So thanks Ammon, Debs and Di for breaking me in and being perfect.
Thanks Jo and Iain for making my second meet just as perfect and memorable and here’s to many more!

If any of you are interested the URL for the pics of this meet can be found at [www.helmet.net/fpmeet]

Sorry to anyone trying to go to the web addy I posted, I done it wrong Duh! it's fixed now :-)
(I put a "." in instead of a "/")