Well what you missed:-
A bloody huge queue to get in with the advanced tickets
Me getting SHOVED to one side by some ill mannered TW*T from Hemel Hempstead Wargames Club (was not impressed, seriously wanted to introduce my toe to his testicles)
Getting wonderful and extremely helpful service from Julie of NameIt nameplates.
The horror of seeing a Spanish painter just ahead of me have his figure slip out of the travelling case and land worse possible way on the table, damaged beyond usable entry. (I felt gutted for the lad!)
Meeting in no particular order, ten ball, AndyG, SkelletS (I'm just under 6 feet and those three made me feel a shrimp),Atacam & Zoe his wife, Sproket, Freakinacage, megazod_man (who promptly disappeared never to be seen by me again) Avicenna & Tooshy who gave me her usual greeting, Roman from MassiveVoodo, who surprised the Sh*t out of me by knowing who I was, the Hasslefree crew ALL OF THEM!, Demented Games (Watch out for their TWISTED kick starter after this year {they have F*** Yes minis coming out}) the McVey's, the British Independant crew and finally someone who said "Hiya you old Tart", hugged me then said "Pop round to the stall and we'll catch up"....problem is I have no idea who the hell he was!
Traders that were really fun to talk to and trade with, Freebooter, Hasslefree, Heresy, Sphere, Otherworld, Meirce, Vinge, British Independants, WestWind, Kromlech (which was fun pointing out a "plague daemon" to AndyG seeing him pick it up and move in a single step past me three others, two cabinets and a cashpoint with this fanatical " 'I'm having this look," in his eyes)
I usually grumble about the personal hygiene of gamers, but this year I encountered no smelly bastards, a couple of seemingly transparent people, but A lot of polite and well mannered Spanish and Italians.
As for the competition, well I got nowhere, ten ball got a finalist, but the standard was INTENSE. I got to speak briefly to a judge and he was saying that they'd never had to work so hard to whittle the selections down. What I could see, massive crowd of course, was really good work and no-one should feel ashamed of any of those entries! I haven't checked my pictures yet.
All in all a great day, my back's still achy and my feet feel tired and my wallet cried a lot, BUT I brought some cash home and DIDN'T have to raid an ATM machine either.
