6 March 2024

Day 1 – Road trip to Hull

It was arranged that Conrad would be at mine for about 12:30pm on Thursday, and true to his word he was on time. After a brief in person hello, we packed my stuff and headed for Newcastle to pick up Mibri. We arrived at the Metro centre around 3pm it was so busy that mibri literally had to jump in quickly and we got on the road again to collect maestro which was another 40 minutes away. We were finally heading South in the direction of Hull and our appointment with the ferry for Rotterdam.

We collected Maestro about an hour later, and then headed straight for the port of Hull to catch our overnight ferry. We arrived at the port around 7pm and we were virtually the last people to bored. We grabbed what we needed and headed straight to our cabin, which was a very spacious 5 berth one ( which means 1 x double, 1 x single and 2 x single pull down beds ).

After a brief rest we decided that we would explore our floating b&b. 1st place was the so called sun deck. Unfortunately the sun had gone and it was renamed to the wind deck. We took some pictures and headed inside. Next stop was the bar and a nice pint of Guinness whilst we were taxiing out if the port.

Next we went looking to see what food options were available and found a nice but basic café where you could get a pizza or sandwich etc. I opted for a nice pepperoni pizza. After we had finished eating we heading off to explore some more. The ferry had 2 cinema’s, Irish bar with stage and dance floor.

We settled at the Irish bar for another drink and watched a bit of the live band playing covers of various popular songs.

I will openly admit that I am not a lover of the sea and when leaving port the boat was starting to rock a little more that I was comfortable with and decided that I was going to retire for the night and try to get to sleep before it got any worse.

Day 2 – Rotterdam to Someren

We awoke around 7am and headed out for breakfast which consisted of light pastry style snacks. We were told to go to the car deck for around 8am for disembarking. We went through customs and then were on the road to Someren and X.

The roads in the Netherlands are so much better then here in the UK, although I was glad Conrad was driving as they are also the reverse of England. The sat nav said it was about 2hrs to drive so we settled down for the trip.

The 1st person I meet was SAD/Padua. Who was trying to finish his compo tune. As I was booked into a hotel in Asten with the rest of the PADUA crew, I had to leave my suitcase with me in the main hall. I went for a walk and saw DK sitting with some other people So i grabbed a beer and approached them. Turns out it was Airwolf of F4CG and we got chatting. DK let me have a go on his portable C64 which is a really amazing piece of engineering on his part I just wish he could find a way to make it open source or sell them ready made.

: Airwolf / F4CG

: Deekay

: Toggle / Padua

: Anonym / Padua

: Sad / Padua

I went back into the main hall to do some more coding on some small projects and wait for the rest of the PADUA family to arrive.

The 1st to arrive was DANO who came and gave me a big bear hug. He took the seat next to me and we had a little chat about life. Toggle, Aggressor and Anonym then arrived with Weasel and the others and we all hugged and said our hellos, grabbed some beers and settled down the general party chat and looking at the current state of various projects.

I was sitting chatting when a guy approached me and started speaking to me in German, I explained as best i could that I do not speak German and he changed to really good english and asked if he could sit down, I said yes and we started chatting about stuff over a beer. Turns out this was the Legendary SNACKY of G*P.

Todays meal was chinese, we headed out of the main hall about 6ish and into the kitchen / food area where it was being served. It was a buffee style where you helped yourself to whatever you wanted and as much as you wanted. Have to say it was very very tasty, I cannot remember what the food was like at X’98 to compare but this was a good hearty meal. We (PADUA) sat, ate, had some beers and pondered what the demo competition would be like given that CENSOR, BONZAI and The PERFORMERS were all in attendence

Later on, around 10pm we remembered that I had not checked into the hotel yet. We called the hotel and explained that I should be there for around 3am to which the night staff said “that’s fine, see you later”. We arrived at the hotel earlier, around 2pm and when I explained about the phone call, a voice yelled out ” ah, your early. You said 3am.” In a joking tone. I booked in, got my key and heading to my room to get some sleep. The room was very nice, double bed, walk in shower, bath. But all i wanted to do was SLEEP, which I did very quickly.

Day 3 – Saturday (The Main Day)

I awoke the next day about 10am, showered and heading down for breakfast. It was a proper continental breakfast with lots of meats, cheese, bread etc. Really different from the usual British breakfast and a welcome change. We ate and chatted about how we were, how good it was to finally meet in person. Afterwards we got changed and headed back to the X party hall to get settled in for the amazing day ahead.

I managed to speak to some of my scene hero’s, Trap, Walt, Bacchus and Bob all of them were really friendly and very approachable, I tried to get some info from them about their upcoming demos and they were all very tight lipped about what the had in store for us.

At the party place, it was all go. The preservers were very busy archiving the many c64 floppies that people had brought, looking for the lost gems. All day we chatted, mingled and drank for lunch we had Italian food buffet style so you could grab what you wanted and then sit and enjoy it. Very tasty.

: Bacchus

: The Sarge

Afterwards it was back to general party stuff, drinking, chatting, more drinking. I spotted Bacchus of Fairlight walking around making videos with his go-pro camera, to my surprise when I shouted to him, he know my real name (Which surprised and made me feel good). We chatted for a while mainly about Fairlight TV and then he was gone in the party crowd making more videos.

Meeting Rob Hubbard

The main guest speaker was the legendary Rob Hubbard. He was onstage for about 1 hour and then afterwards he did a perosnal meet and greet for people wanting an autograph and picture.

The burger van was onsite in the afternoon and was doing good business selling fries, burgers and hotdogs. I am very lucky because in my home town of Carlisle we have a dutch takeaway (the guy is actualy from Venlo) So I can get dutch style fries and burgers anytime i feel like one. I grabbed some fries and then stood chatting with Bacchus and also bought him some after his card failed to work.

It was now time for the competitions, so we headed back inside to grab some beers and take out seats.

After all the competitions had finished everyone went outside for some fresh air and to wind down after the amazing things we had just witnessed, visually and audibly. Various groups stood and chatted about what they had seen, I managed to have a interesting chat with BOB and he was telling me about how the code for some of the Wonderland had been auto generated and then manually tweaked. He then saw my Eddie Jedi knight tattoo and went crazy and said sorry for not including it in the star wars demo.

Day 4 – Sunday

After a nice sleep and a hot shower, I headed down for breakfast with the PADUA crew. Turns out that Rob Hubbard was also staying in the same Hotel, we said hello and chatted briefly about his thoughts on X23 and his plans going forward. We also invited him to sit with us but he respectfully declined.

After breakfast, I headed back to my room and packed ready the trip home.

Back at the party venue, the organizers were busy cleaning up and getting the venue ready for the next event. Outside some of the Censor crew were getting ready to leave along with the PADUA guys.

We said out good byes and set off the the home computer museum. As we had some hours to spare before catching the ferry home, we decided to get a bite to eat and then visit the museum.