I left home at stupid o’clock (not really, it only felt like it. I beat the peak hour traffic) to drive west in order to drive east. That is such a strange thing but the way Melbourne is organised that is what one has to do, the fact that I was picking up my driving partner in crime in the west is only partly relevant. We had a really good trip, Deb is good company and the 12 hour drive felt a lot shorter. I’d made the mistake of organising a dinner with my book blogger friends that evening, I was an hour and a half late! That’s a mistake I’ll never make again, next time I’ll get the timing right. Possibly not helped by picking up another loquacious friend in Canberra, it’s only a slight detour.
Enough of the driving and onto the Con! What an awesome time I had. My Facebook is jumping with my new friends and will be more so when all the photos are uploaded so I can start sharing them. I was kept incredibly busy, I had to change costumes so many times I was worried I’d get the wrong one.
Saturday was the most challenging as I was in the XXXX Factor as both an assassin and a thief (thank goodness I was able to keep the one costume as my two lines came one after another), but that was after being in the warm up act as a dwarf (I threw my ‘chainmail’ over my assassin’s costume and picked up my axe, it was such a big change). Later in the day I had to change for the Galah Dinner, I went as Sybil with a most delightful dress made by someone else and a crinoline (hoop skirt) underneath. I only wore that for an hour or so, it’s impossible to dance in it as the dress was made for someone taller and I had to pick it up in both hands in order to walk without treading on it, I somehow managed to eat my meal with spilling a drop and ran off to change into something more suitable for the entertainment before dancing till I dropped.
The Opening Ceremony had everyone in tears. The Committee had the unenviable task of providing a time and place for people to grieve and they did a beautiful job. During Nullus Anxietas III in Sydney the Committee presented Terry Pratchett with a hat which he rarely took off, Rob Wilkins, his PA and righthand man, brought it back to Australia to present to Australian Discworld and it will now be presented to each Australian Discworld Convention in turn. It sat on stage on a number of occasions and everyone wept when it came out the first time.
Stuff I did
Elephants, I made elephants. So many panels and activities led to things happening later. One activity was making Origami Elephants. We were trying to make 1000 of them but only managed 100 in the first session, and another 100 or so later on. The lady running this session had people making them while they were waiting in signing queues. I was keeping this queue in line with my squeaky sausage inna bun toy and trying to sell them my Dibbler stuff at the same time…I can’t think why they laughed so much. I can’t find a photo of my Dibbler tray to post for your edification. Just for the record, people were buying my Dibbler sausages inna bun and my named meat pies, all money went to the auction fund which raised $8,888 for the Orangutan Foundation and the Indigenous Literary Fund. Someone even gave me money to go away!
Anyway, that’s enough for today. I’ll put up some photos on Friday and by Monday I’ll have pinched some photos of me from other people to show you. Some people took 100s of photos and will need time to upload them.