There’s so many clubs and events and things that I want to check out – and – sometimes the right sort of prompt can take you out.

I’ve written before about the Secret 102 radio show (blog here), which I enjoy and the concept of a meet up of some of the listeners and presenters seemed a perfect opportunity – taking place at Club Subversion.

A couple of nerves do hit on the way down, the feeling of meeting a lot of new people at once – but I’m excited to be meeting people who I’ve chatted with on twitter, publicly or in DM and of course I’m very excited at the possibility of seeing Miss Courtney again as She is someone I get on with and hold in high regard.

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I mean, I don’t  just consent to anyone smacking me in the balls

But, I manage to shake myself together, expecting things will all come alright in the end.

Arriving at the hotel, particularly with the price of it – it’s a lot nicer than expected. You can tell we’re not really in London. The room is spacious and the bed is huge.

Deciding to eat early, Valleycat and I go down to the restaurant. I feel awfully underdressed in my pants and t-shirt : it’s fairly nice restaurant and a lot of the other guests are older and/or posh… well… this will end well, haha.

At £24.50 for the buffet, the restaurant is sure to be one for Finsubs, not being into Financial Domination (I’m skint, haha) we savvy something more modest from the menu.

After food, we meet Candie Kitten and Mad Dom Dave in the bar, nice to put names to faces as we’ve been chatting a lot over the past week – there’s a lot of similarities with our relationships, it’s often interesting to meet people who work differently to you and also those who are quite similar.  People are amazing.
I think this more easing in to meeting people is less overwhelming.

After getting ready, I collect the tickets Valleycat had won (Dip, Dip, Dip…) from Becky and am briefly introduced to others like Lady Sara Borgia, Ava Von Medisin, Slave D and J Oakley. We’re sent up to see Miss Courtney.

I knock on the door, I don’t think She had been told I was on my way up and there was an excited surprise – we’ve not seen each other in a while and so are invited in for some furniture re-arranging, drinks and investigating the strange banging noise.

The banging noise was the neighbours complaining about the noise. Pfft. “noise” – it’s not like I was on the receiving end of an anal fisting or anything, now that would have been noise.

I think I start to lose track of who comes and goes but gradually over time there were people like Cinnamon, DSO and of course Becky, Adam and Simon – plus, the legend that is Annabel Grey, of Annabel-Go fame.

I don’t talk too much about people herein, will try to get a group shot added at a later date – but, it was genuinely lovely to meet everyone, some it’d be nice to chat to more : but I’m hopeful of further opportunities.

Obviously plenty of praise for Valleycat’s taxidermy hat she made.

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she’s a lot more suave than me

There’d been some sad news earlier that day that the venue would be closing as part of a redevelopment, but a new venue had been found, so this will probably be the only time we see this venue, which is a shame.

We pile into taxis and in the queue in we spot some friends from another circle, so it’s good to also be able to have a catch up with them. There wasn’t the awkwardness of seeing friends at an event you don’t expect to see, because, well, from conversations there was no surprises.

Although there is a room 2, for dancing, initially I’m unsure about the social and playroom all being in one room – but – it is a spacious play area on the dancefloor with lots and lots of play equipment meaning players seldom had long to wait even at the busiest.

Of course, after a drink and adjusting to the surroundings, we take advantage of the playspace. It’s been quite a while since we were able to play properly. I mean, we do at home but there’s always the worry of noise in our pokey flat – and proper equipment helps – but it had been Edinburgh TG last November (and although fun, that night was marred a bit by idiots constantly getting in the way of our play scene) and although there are exceptions, although we both switch I do tend to be Dominant towards her, particularly in public.

One thing I do notice is, well, usually when playing somewhere different for the first time I feel very self concious like people are watching, judging my technique or whatever – but there’s none of that. Not sure if a mix of my own confidence growing or feeling less stared at, even if I am aware some do watch us.
I think we manage around 40 minutes play. How we often like to play together is slow and built up, no pressure on time – floating between toys initially in a logical order in my mind, but then haphazard depending on my mood.
It was nice.

We even manage an extra 20 minutes later in the night on the cross, so she left with sore back and bum.

It’s also really interesting watching people play from afar.  There were a couple I was loving watching where there was no rhythm, no finesse and you know, it was great, because they were just having fun with it and it was great to watch.  Not that the person two benches over with the swirling and grace was not having fun, but it’s lovely to see something where all levels can just slot together.

I didn’t get chance to do any form of play on the right of the slash, but, it would have been nice but I’m not disappointed. But, I know I’ll get other chances and it was a great night. I certainly enjoyed it and would gladly attend at the new venue if plans allow. It’s sometimes difficult to prioritise what to do.

We actually stopped til around 4.30am which is very late for us, haha. But, we have to go back to the hotel to finish the night…

The next morning, we meet up with Miss Courtney and her group as we didn’t really get chance to talk properly the night before and it was nice for a catch up, discussing plans, as we’re meeting a couple of times soon and generally having a natter and catch up.

Upon returning to London, we took advantage of an art installation at Kings Cross and got some daft pictures and video of Valleycat on a swing in a bird cage. Of course, pushing her on her spanked bottom added to the fun…

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The closest she gets to swinging