Manchester, so much to answer for...

So, I'm up in Manchester for the Great British Bear Bash. Things don't kick off properly until this evening, but I decided to come up the day before so I was rushing headlong into it after a long train journey. This seems to have been a good plan, I checked into my room (and got a free upgrade from economy to standard - I have a window! - only slight problem is lack of power points, I can only find one and my wee netbook doesn't have enough bus power to run a mouse, my USB HDD and charge the iPhone at the same time!), took a nap and had some dinner (carvery at the hotel - it was not bad, and very cheap) before heading out to View on Canal Street (which is just around the corner from my hotel - its a really good location) for the Early Bird registration.

Those that know me will totally not believe this statement, but I'm actually quite shy, especially around sexy guys so it was quite fortunate that the guys from Manbears that were managing the registrations were so friendly. After I'd picked up my registration pack (the theme is School Reunion - so all the registration stuff was in a pencil case) and a drink one of the guys ran me through the events (also gave me some tips for the foam party - I'm still not sure if I'm going to actually get wet or just keep to the dry bits). He asked if I was with anyone and when I replied no, but that I saw some faces I recognised but didn't actually know he then proceeded to introduce me to someone I thought I knew from Gaydar (who in fact I didn't, but I have definitely seen them around before somewhere). Anyway - I got chatting with these guys and they were cool (and fairly geeky too - iPhones and Star Wars were hot topics of conversation). The bar got quite busy - more people around on than I'd expected - mainly the early bird bears, but also the twinks and fag hags that I assume are the bar's more regular clientele. Amusing highlights was the guy with tattooed sleeves that were actually fake (I wanted to take a hankie to his arm and wipe it off!), the scary drag queen that turned out to be an actual woman (or they had the best fake tits I've ever seen) and the way all the twinks separated themselves off from the bears by congregating on the downstairs dance floor. All in all a good start to the weekend.