I’m not sure what the ‘Escape the City’ banner is meant to be advertising, but I’m sure it has nothing to do with the sudden influx of thousands of friendly furry folk. :D

Woke up rather early today to have breakfast at the Mizzen, treating myself to some pancakes with syrup and whipped cream. Finishing those, I headed off to the pre-con department heads meeting, which I found very useful and where I sensed that morale was generally quite high. There seemed to be a general sense of “Good grief, this is really happening again”, but in a positive way! I spent much of the morning hopping between department bases, checking in on staff and attaching notices to a large map to go by the skybridge. I then helped with some crowd control for the opening of the Dealers’ Den, after which I high-tailed downstairs to catch the end of the opening ceremony. After floating around the Den for a bit, catching up with fine artists like  Xenotropos ,  hbruton ,  SandySchreiber ,  TheLivingShadow , and  Spiderdragon , I headed to the Canine Meet and Greet panel hosted by S00t and Kindle, where I made the acquaintance of a certain Pluto (who I’m unsure is on FA). Either way, I had a great time, and then headed back to my room to relax for a few. For dinner, Matthias, Fulminar, and I headed to the Firkin Pub with a couple of gents from the Matthias’ Rodents panel. Despite their continued insistence of calling a Cottage Pie and Shepherd’s Pie (tsk tsk), even I have to admit their steak and ale pie was really good. After that, it was back to the room for the evening for an early. Amazing how much these cons take it out of you when you’re out of practice, isn’t it? ^__^

Hope you enjoy!