Well, first up was BiReCon - held yesterday, before BiCon started.

The first part was interesting - various organisations had such as Stonewall and the Department of Health had representatives to talk about what they did for bisexuals; I was speaking with Sophia James, the NUS LGBT Campaign’s bisexual caucus rep, about what the NUS does, which was pretty nervewracking (speaking to people! People I don’t know!) but not so bad in the end. The afternoon was a little less my “sort of thing”, with workshops from/for academics about how to continue research and use the stuff that’s already been done — as I am by no means an academic, I was feeling slightly left behind and this was not helped by the hot temperature in the room and I started getting chest pains.

We emerged at about six and after unloading the car, I sat with a few others, knitting and catching up, until at about 7, my body decided it hated me more than it was showing and I started getting breathless as well. To cut a long (and really, quite boring) story short, I spent the next three to four hours sat outside the venue gulping salbutamol like a junkie until it was decided that this was having no effect on my ability to breathe normally whatsoever and an ambulance was called. So, first night of BiCon, and I’m sitting there outside the University of Leicester with a portable ECG monitor and blood pressure gauge and goodness’ knows what else attached to me, next to a paramedic telling me to breathe and Matt reporting my vital stats back to a worried-looking Suzy sitting behind me.

What a way to start off a weekend! As Matt said; last year, I kicked off with a panic attack. This year, probably an asthma attack (although, by the time the paramedic was called, I was just panicking and hyperventilating). Next year - a machete attack? (I could have done with one of those this year, actually - people came over to me, asking if I was okay and watching me struggling to breathe with a fag in their hand last night.)

The drama ended at about 10pm, and I sat and talked with Dan, Claire and the two MattPs for a little while before we all retired to MattP’s and my kitchen to play Apples to Apples for a few hours which was quite hilarious fun.

Now, though, I’m feeling much better, so it’s time to do breakfast and find out what workshops are happening today.