I Met Them On The Internet

I am back.
I am home.
My sojourn has ended.
I am happy for my bed, as one is when one has been gallivanting - but, oh, what a time I've had.

BlogHer was all that it usually is, multiplied by about a thousand.
Poppy and I were seasoned enough to know what to attend and what and when to walk away. We had a great time and are fabulous roommates.
Poppy gets me. Poppy puts up with me. Poppy has coined a description that I should put on my resume:
(Said haltingly, as she discovers how apt each detail is)
You know, talking to you is like...playing ping pong...with a monkey...who has ADHD...in a CONFETTI FACTORY...AND THE PING PONG BALL IS FILLED WITH HELIUM.

So, there you are.

On Sunday morning Poppy and I went out to Tuvalu.
I needed to "rinse out a few things" (as my mother would say) and Poppy had a little quiet time with her iPad.
In the afternoon I met Jen at the airport where she rented a Land Yacht to transport us all to BlogHampton.
Wendy and Angie arrived in the evening, K made us Chicken Mole and Sangria and several stunning flavors of homemade ice cream and we set off.

Jen had made arrangements for us at an inn where Poppy and I roomed together in a classically styled suite of rooms which included a shower the size of my kitchen (There are bottles of essential oils over here, said the Innkeeper. I swooned.) and a king-sized bed so densely and beautifully outfitted with down that I sank into it like a pebble in a tissue box.

Angie and Wendy's rooms were in the back of the house. Their bed was even larger (if that's possible) and their loo was the size of my living room and included a tub I could tread water in.
It was their living room that we spent late-night hours howling with laughter.

Jen had a cozy quiet room tucked under the eaves of the inn (two floors away for maximum quiet).

How does one spend their time at BlogHampton?
One meets her colleagues at 9:00, in the rose garden, for breakfast.
Breakfast begins with a very large tray of fresh fruit, cut and placed in individual bowls for constructing one's own fruit salad. The little white pitcher holds a syrup of sugar, champagne and mint. I cannot even begin to discuss Lobster Frittata or the blueberry pancakes. Suffice to say that great care and exceedingly high-quality ingredients were matched perfectly to provide breakfasts the likes of which I have never seen.

We ate, relaxed, shopped and beached. A lot of beach. Gorgeous beach.
So, there I was.
Sitting with four women I adore. Four women who make me laugh till I cry, who ask after me and mine with sincerity and love, watching the waves.
I cannot really express how wonderful it was - how much it meant to me.