Dysprosium - Day 4

The first thing to do after breakfast was to check out, which went very smoothly and we were able to leave our luggage in the store room by reception. Then we were free to go to the last day of panels.
And - squeeee! I sold one of my embroideries! I picked up the other one, and the lady at the art show said that there had been some interest in the Green Man, which didn't sell, and if I put it in another Con's Art Show, she thought it would sell. Big cheesy grin for the rest of the day!

So then we went down to Bleriot for the Fencing for Writers: Swashbucklers and Bravoes talk. The people doing this had flyers, which we'd seen around the Con - and they train very close to where the Young Man works! He said he'd go along and have a try, but I haven't heard back from him yet to find out what it was like. The two ladies were demonstrating mainly 16thC sword and buckler, or two swords, or sword and dagger fighting, and making the point that this was like modern gangs, and the people swaggering around armed to the teeth were not training in the salons like the nobility, but learning a few moves from their friends and hoping for the best.
We were sitting just behind Russell Smith, and chatting to him about sword fighting and re-enactment. He does Tudor re-enactment, and said he's done quite a bit in the armoury in his group.
The nice thing about Bleriot is that there is a large mirror on one wall, so when the time came for the audience to handle the weaponry, we could pose and see how we looked.
The talk over-ran, unsurprisingly.

And was followed, in the same room, by a panel about Ten Years of Doctor Who, including the possibility of having a woman Doctor in the future. Herr Doktor was on this panel, and early on he said that he had correctly predicted the return of Doctor Who, on the grounds that the children who had grown up with the programme were now in important positions in the BBC and able to commission programmes themselves. And, yes, he did predict a female Doctor in the not too distant future.

And finally, the Closing Ceremony, in which the committee handed over the hat with the duck on it to the brave souls who had come forward to organise Mancunicon next year. The chap from the new committee wore the hat for about three seconds, and then said: "You'll never see me wear that again!"
Thanks were also given to the Guests of Honour - Seanan MacGuire said; "I haven't slept! Everything is lizards!" - and to the tech crew, and everyone who had helped the Con to run smoothly.
A cup was awarded to a long-serving fan volunteer, something which has been going on since the 1960s - the cup is named after a chap who came late to fandom, and threw himself into the organising of Cons and the whole fan community, so that when he died, people got together to make an award in his memory (and I'm really sorry I have completely forgotten his name).
The hotel was thanked, and a collection was made as we went out for the staff, who worked really hard over the weekend.

And that was it. We stumbled out into the spring sunshine, straight onto the airport shuttle bus that took us to the underground station, and home.

It was the most brilliant fun.