A warm welcome to you to my (admittedly rather late) summary series of Confuzzled 2023! I'll be posting over this long weekend about my experiences at Britain's largest furry convention, held between the 26th and 30th of May. My visit to this con was, similar to this series, quite overdue, but after a kind offer of a room by  Huskyteer and sure in the knowledge that furry friends from the UK and overseas would be attending, I decided to finally go for it.

Waking up at about half 8, Husky and I headed down for breakfast. I initially hadn't bought breakfast with the room, but after seeing that the nearest decent palce for breakfast would be a 5-minute walk away - and honestly, who wants that before they've had their morning tea? - I settled to buy the breakfast option. I can tell you that as I sat down to a plate of a full English breakfast, a small plate of pastries, a large glass of juice and a cup of tea, I felt very pleased for having done so. ^__^

With Sponsor-level access to the Den not open for another couple of hours, we headed back to the room to pack bags for the day, and then mosey along to the Hilton. Husky headed to a Furry Writers' Meet and Greet and coffee morning - which by all accounts sounded lovely! - while I waited for about 20 minutes in line to get into the Den. I must have spent a good couple of hours in the Den, firstly meeting up with artists who I had previously met at Just Fur The Weekend when it was still running, and then fluttering around the stalls meeting new artists and admiring their works. It was a delight to meet up with IndiWolf, BooshieBoo, Tea, LeoTheFox, and to get acquainted with Bloo, Oliviree, Ashanti, HaThomasArt, Amethyst, and numerous other wonderful and talented people whose names are regrettably not springing to mind right now.

I then took a break in the early afternoon to meet up with a couple of old friends from KentFurs, before meeting up with Husky for a cocktail in the hotel's lakeside bar. I recall that I had a Dylan Blue Lagoon from the CFz-themed menu, over which we enjoyed the unseasonably warm late May sunshine and caught up for a bit. I then spent some time wandering around the convention space, notably the charity auction room and the lobby, where over the weekend I would find great value in getting a cider, sitting in a chair facing one of the main avenues of furry traffic, and waving at the suiters (most waved back, few stopped to chat for a bit, and many imparted hugs).

A couple more hours of flitting around the Den, and it was time for dinner! As I recall, Husky and I made for Pizza Express with Televassi and another friend (though I may be misremembering - herein lies a lesson for making posts like this very soon after the event in question... :P). We then headed back to the Hilton for a couple of drinks and great conversation at the main bar, along with such fine folk as JM, Bast, and Vatix. I also got chatting to a snep who works as a mechanic on the RAF's Eurofighter Typhoons, which was a most interesting and enjoyable conversation for me, as I'm sure you can imagine! ^__^

As the hour approached 9pm, Husky and I made for the last Glastonfurry performance of the night, made by one of the Guests of Honour, Tonya Song. I had the pleasure of meeting Tonya earlier this year at Anthro New England, at which she was also a Guest of Honor, and it was wonderful to see her perform on this side of the Pond. Though used to performing for North American audiences, I felt she did a splendid job of using her songs less as a means of providing inward reflection, but more a means of education about the situation facing native peoples in the United States, with some songs engaging in satire, others in painful sorrow, and others in justifiable indignation. If you haven't heard her music, I can highly recommend a listen.

With the conclusion of the performance, Husky and I returned to the bar to reflect on the performance and to catch up some more. We were soon after joined by Tonya, and we spent a good couple of hours engaged in fascinating discussions. With the hour past midnight, we bade her a good night, and after finishing our drinks - and a stop at the latrine on my part - Husky and I returned to the Crowne Plaza.

Now, dear reader, some of you will likely know me well enough, to know that I really wouldn't tell you about my visits to the toilet unless there was a very good reason. As it happens, I have one. To keep my badges clean, I have developed a habit of taking them off and hanging them on the door hangar, after which I put them back on to wash my hands and vacate the loo. Unfortunately, by the time we made it back to the Crowne Plaza, I realised that I'd neglected to fulfil the second part of that habit. Turning a 10-minute stroll into a 3-minutes sprint, I made it to the same stall to discover that my badges and lanyard were gone. One step away from slapping myself for putting them there in the first place, I headed for convention security to file them as missing - if someone had picked them up, they probably hadn't made it to security to drop them off yet. Having done all I could for the moment, I grumbled my way back to the hotel (clearly, having nobody but myself to blame), and shortly thereafter retired to bed, in the hope that the morning would bring good news.

Hope you enjoy!