oh dear. this is the best photo of the 3 i took on saturday at the blog awards. the other two had even more ceiling ;) i think i was going for a sneaky candid of john but just got a lensful of his (very nice!) shirt and a glimpse of dave beyond.

aonghus took approximately 3 photos also but got a much higher rate of success (actually getting some shots of *people*). i've put all 4 up on flickr anyway.

but irrespective of my poor photographic performance, it was a great night. it's definitely a bit of a thrill to go as a nominee - and get to sport a green star-shaped sticker on my name badge. that more than makes up for the not winning part (many congrats to gavin for his win for best photoblog!)

it was a pleasure to meet some familiar faces from last year - colm (congrats on the win infactah's! i must try and meet more of ye next year), sinead (also congratulations for your win!), phil, claire, john & deirdre, the rymus possee, the lovely fústars (i could hear aonghus giggling his way through kind i like earlier this evening) and the mcawilliams crew who kept us in good company for the evening.

another fun part of the night was getting slightly(?) tiddled and introducing ones self to practical strangers. it'a not often you get the chance to do that and not have the stranger flee madly in the opposite direction. so thank you una and lili and annie (and bjarni) for graciously accepting semi-drunken self-introductions! i'm only sorry i didn't accost more people now. next year i shall try harder. (i don't count redmum as a total random stranger accostation as i had warned her beforehand)

so congratulations to all the winners, commiserations to all the non-winners and a super big big big thank you to damien for another rockin evening!