Hobbit lunch

((The following entry isn't much of a rumour, it's more of a diary entry of my weekend. Totally Rings related though, so bear with me.))

On Sunday the 7th of June 2009 a small group of Tolkien fans met up at the home of Brian, Suzie and Harrison Reeve, to enjoy a nice lunch of homemade pizza and pumpkin soup.

I convinced my wife Aiko and my son Josh that it wasn't just a geek outing, and our good friend Mark Fry travelled with us there as well. We were later joined by a friend of Brian's named Wayne Underhill.

From left to right - Josh, Aiko, myself, Brian, Mark, Wayne, and Suzie.
Brian, Mark, and Wayne are carrying elvish blades. None glowed blue, so all was safe.

Wayne Underhill (his actual name, I should add!) had just been exploring some LOTR locations at the North Island's central plateau, where the Mount Doom scenes were filmed amongst the volcanoes, Mounts Ngaurahoe, Ruapehu, and Tongariro. We had some photos to compare, as Josh and I had just visited a few locations in the South Island. Wayne was (among other things) a Gondorian soldier in Minas Tirith, in the Return Of The King. I suspect his name helped him get in.

Mark Fry had until recently been working at the Wellington Dymocks bookshop, which closed its doors suddenly a few weeks ago. Apart from being in the Fellowship Of The Ring (an extra in the village of Bree's bar scene), Mark had been instrumental in supplying the Wellington region with an astounding collection of LOTR and Tolkien related books and merchandise. He's also a big Tintin fan.

Brian and Suzie are possibly the two nicest people I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. I would best describe them as a pair of true hobbits. Brian is meticulous in his note keeping, where Bilbo write the Red Book all through his life, Brian has collected scrapbooks from local papers and other sources on various subjects. His LOTR collection is now up to 22 (large!) volumes! His Hobbit scrapbooks are coming along nicely as well.

I should point out that my wife and I met through LOTR - I met her as one of my tourists back in 2005, and we got married earlier this year. In many ways she's as big a fan of LOTR as I am, although she hasn't changed her career for it yet - I used to work in IT in various guises for 18 years. Going to the rainforest location of Rivendell every day is SUCH a better job!


It was a lovely meeting, and although more than a few rumours were shared, I can't reveal any of them here as the source would be too obvious. And no, I won't divulge them in the next few weeks either, unless I hear them from other sources as well. Time to do some digging!