Sorry, for those who'd forgotten or didn't know, it's the Gabycon weekend. Nine of us assembled at a restaurant in Dorchester on friday and ate and talked and talked and ate, and ate some more. I think I gained two pounds looking at the menu.

We can really call it Gabycon international, with friends arriving from as far away as the US, Germany, Wales, Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Portsmouth. It was good to reacquaint ourselves with old friends and meet some new ones. On the Saturday, we cycled/drove to Weymouth a collection of bikes including a recumbent trike. We visited a couple of car parks and looked at the Chesil Beach from another one. We also looked around Sandsfoot Castle, part of Henry viii's 'device' to protect southern England from the Spanish - oh and ate and drank some more at the lovely tea bar there.

Undaunted by my bad jokes and the sunny weather, we continued to yet another car park on the Chesil before finally going for lunch at Chiswell on Portland, with views over the Chesil Bank, retiring to a small enclosed garden to digest yet more food and do some readings. From there we visited Portland Castle, one in the care of English Heritage and which isn't a ruin. Amazingly, we didn't eat anything there.

Back to Dorchester, to rest and recuperate before eating again - oh and to discover why my broadband is having problems and which despite two computer experts, we couldn't fix but did identify the problem so hopefully by this time next year, I may have sorted it.

Dinner was a bit more haphazard, the noble nine descending unnanounced on a rural pub for dinner, who did manage to fit us in alongside another party of eight. We'd just sat down when a coach party of inebriates celebrating a stag party of some sort overran the pub taking the noise levels to deafening. We were all happier when they left. Then, we actually ate again - well it was at least three hours since last time, and yours truly was presented with the biggest lasagne I'd ever seen. It took some effort to force it down, but never running away from a challenge - I ingested the lot washed down with a coffee.

Those of us who did cycle, eventually completed about 25 or so miles in the sunshine and are now sporting cyclist's sun tans - red marks on thighs and arms where the clothing stops.

We did some more readings after dinner, Mads did some from the latest Gaby book and I offered two new bits, a short story and the final chapter of Whatever Next. Having sent all of them to sleep, we woke them up again promising that only Mads would read something tomorrow, when we meet at the Fleet Air Arm museum at Yeovilton from which it will be time to disperse, after goodbyes until next time - but not until we've probably eaten again.