Destination: Oxford..
Reason: Ringbearer - The Gathering.

At the beginning there were six of us. Six eager Tolkien fans, willing to give up their Saturday afternoon in order to meet up with other Tolkien geeks whom they knew merely as "CB" or "Grima_Wormtongue". A little strange, considering that I hadn't really been involved with the site for over 6 months. I felt like I was like the strange freaky kid at school that everybody used to avoid.
Thankfully, the rest of the RB'ers didn't make me feel like the freaky kid at all!! Well... not all the time, anyway! Many times I felt a little sorry that I couldn't join in their conversations about who's-who on the boards, which led me to think that I should be spending more time online... (that has to be a first... especially for a geek like me!)

After we all met up at the train station, we wandered to the Kings Arm's for lunch/beer, and before the skies opened, we managed to sit next to a table full of weird jingly jangly bangy people, who happened to be drinking beer from odd leather mugs. Although the others quietly filled me in about these strange people, I cant remember their collective name... other than weirdo's.

From the Kings Arms, we progressed to the Eagle and Child. Yet another pub. Of course, there was a Tolkien reference to be told: the Eagle and Child happened to be the pub that J.R.R Tolkien and C.S.Lewis drank at in years gone by. Good enough excuse for us.

More beer.

It turned out that the natural flow of conversation was punctuated by violent yawning and the occasional well-timed cough. After another few hours, it was again time to relocate. We needed food. Off to the closest Japanese establishment for a quick bite of octopus, salmon, raw beans, tofu and an endless supply of a strange gluggy brown sauce, or so we thought.

I'm not much of a salmon fan, but 'Spanky the Ringbearer Salmon' was cooked to perfection. So, too, was the rest of the odd ensemble. Not your average Saturday night take away, but bloody good all the same. Oh... and did anybody manage to find out where we can buy those beans from? We managed to clean up all of the food in record time, without loosing too much of it to the misfortunes of Chopstickery.

Speaking of sticks...

I wasn't sure where our obsession with them came from. If we had an unholy army of ninja monkeys, we just had to have an unholy army of ninja monkeys on sticks instead. Of course.

From there, it was back to the Kings Arms for a few more beers and yawns. By the time we were all winding up, it had become very 'uncool' to yawn, so we had begun eyeing off each other trying to point out other people's yawning misfortunes. It just so happened that every time I tried to hide my own yawns, Katie would be doing the same thing. After the third synchronised yawn, I begun to get a little worried. Stop reading my mind!!

The world’s strangest man provided the night’s accommodation. We gave him a wide berth, naming him Mr Shuffles. When it came time to check out, we all gladly sacrificed Katie (aka: Grima) to the strange shuffling mumbling madman.
Noble? No.
Funny? Oh hell yes.
To help us relax, we barricaded the door with footwear and luggage. This strange little man and his strange little B&B were the topic of many conversations and jokes while we were there. The bathroom was a death trap, the walls were way too thin and for some reason, we all couldn't wake up quick enough in the morning.

Still... My sleepwalking had little to do with the room, and more to do with latent insanity. For some stupid reason, I decided it would be a good idea to lean over Katie’s bed, peer out of the curtains while muttering to myself. That was before I woke up. Once I finally did wake up, I found myself standing in the middle of a strange dark room, surrounded by strange people in a city far, far away from home.

I swore.

Then I went back to sleep. Seemed like the only logical thing to do, really.

Realisation dawned on me suddenly in the morning, and it has been rocking my head all day. I sleepwalked! (Or is that sleptwalked?) I've never done that in my life, so why the hell did I chose that night to act like a freak? I blame my cousin, Grant. If for no other reason, simply because I can.... But we were talking about sleepwalking a few weeks ago. Suggestion really is a powerful thing. I'm going to have to watch what I talk about in the future... The fact that I've been talking about Mr Shuffles and Grima Wormtongue all weekend is a point of constant concern.

Pity that no amount of suggestion was going to help the Ringbearers recover from the downward spiral of conversation topics...
"Retouching your lippie?" - Sure you were.
"You know you want to put your tongue in there." - Pardon?
"I'll put my finger in there instead." - Oh er!

Save me!

Still, Borders was a nice place for a breakfast nibble, along with a few hours browsing the fantastic fantasy section. It was like a mini time warp, jumping from aisle to aisle, ooohing and aaaahing over various objects of desire.

No, not Grima Wormtongue. I'm talking about the Matrix CD.

As a summary, however, I have to say that everybody was ultra friendly and so much fun to be with. I'll gladly go to another Geek Tolkien Gathering whenever we chose to hold another one. The people were friendly, the location - fantastic. It's a pity that we cant do this more often, as I really did have a great weekend with 5 strangers from the Internet. .

Til next time, guys...
Jac

Knowing that I am one of the worlds biggest geeks, I spent tonight playing around with some graphics, wondering what I should do for my Ringbearer.Org sig image. These are a few ideas that I came up with, but I'm still not sold on any of them. Anybody got any clues??

Somebody hold me, I think I'm going to cry.

All today's sessions for TTT were sold out. Means I'm not going to be able to see it until we arrive in Banff, which is *thinks* next week at the earliest.

*sniff*

Its ok. I'm ok. I'll just be over here with the kleenex.

Finding Hobbiton.

I didn’t expect to find any authentic evidence of Middle Earth still remaining in New Zealand. So, when I stumbled upon www.hobbitontours.com I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to jump aboard the Hobbiton express and see a piece of filming history. As I stood at the Matamata Information Centre with bright orange ticket in hand, I couldn’t hold back the geeky smile.




I was fortunate enough to be in a small group of other tourists led by Russell Stevenson, part owner of the property that was once just an ordinary sheep farm. He reminded us that it is still a working property, complete with authentic gates which visitors are encouraged to help open…. And then close, after the bus had passed through! While the beautiful hills are still full of white woolly bodies, all those on board were keen to get a small glimpse of The Shire.

Our tour passed the ‘backstage’ areas of the property where a mini-city was constructed during filming. Animal wranglers, expert gardeners (should have just asked the Gamgee’s….), power generators, toilets, lighting, plumbing, kitchens and costume/makeup vans had to be organised within the property. Apparently, at the height of activity over 400 people were fed three hobbit-sized meals a day. In all, a logistics nightmare. After seeing the ‘backstage’ Russell then drove us into The Shire.
The sign said ‘Welcome to Hobbitton’ - it should have read ‘check your brains at the gate and prepare to see some really cool stuff.’

I walked along the path that leads to Bagshot Row,

According to Russell, we haven’t seen the end of the Shire in the films. (Shhh… you didn’t hear that from me. Big ‘Yay!’ for the Shire. Cant wait to see more though!)

And saw across the lake toward the Pub and the Mill. All of these structures were created from scaffolding pipes and polystyrene cladding. The Bridge, despite being made of pipes, plywood and polystyrene, had enough strength to withhold a 4-wheel drive!

From the top of the hill, we can look over the party field and see the Party Tree, which still has remnants of ribbons and decorations within its branches. It was from this very spot, where Sir Ian McKellen and Ian Holm sat smoking pipe weed and contemplating Bilbo’s Eleventy-First birthday bash.

And then, we found it. Bag End. THE Bag End. It’s right on the top of the hill, overlooking the Party Field, right where it should be. There’s still a little bit of evidence of the wonderful garden Samwise would have maintained, with a small cobblestone stairway still set into the beautiful green grass.

And, of course, the window that poor old Sam would have been pulled through…

You may have spotted the obvious lack of the big tree, which featured on the top of Bag End. This tree had actually been transported from a neighbouring property (all 28 tonnes of it), then stripped and manicured to look exactly they way it does on the film.

Many small hobbit holes dotted the greenery, with a score more having been taken down after filming. Still, there was enough holes here to house a small army of hobbits

Without retelling all of the tales and anecdotes, its hard to convey just how wonderful this tour was. Although The Shire has been left to regenerate into its natural state, the experience was really wonderful. The tour guide was more than willing to answer any questions and was always ready to recount some small snippet of information about the magical filming process. Asked if there were plans on recreating an actual Hobbit Hole, Russell explained that it would be so difficult to do justice to the magic that Peter Jackson created over 6 months of preparation before filming began. Due to its remote location, maintaining a hobbit-garden would be extremely difficult despite the hundreds of sheep that would simply LOVE to make a hobbit-sized meal of any pretty plants. Without hiring a fleet of gardeners, a recreation simply wouldn’t hold up to the high standards that was created for the film. Visitors would likely be disappointed with any attempts, so the set was kept as it was left by the film crew when they stopped filming back in February, 2000.

I tend to agree with him. The experience was more about learning how the film was constructed, rather than seeing the actual sets. We saw how the image was built, and how the small town of The Shire was created and to the lengths that Peter Jackson’s team went to make everything as authentic as possible. (The thatching on the Golden Dragon Pub is real thatching, made from reeds from the Hobbiton Lake!)

I’m really glad I took the opportunity to visit the set, as it gave a unique look into the almost fanatical way the films were brought to life. If I ever need another reason to praise the work of all those who worked on this film odyssey, this would be it. Long live Middle Earth!

May all your days be filled with Hobbit cheer.
Jac.