cassiphone and I just continued the same conversation from the night before. I pretty much felt that no matter how fast I spoke this last weekend, I would still not be able to have all the conversations that I wanted to. After breakfast we lounged about and then I checked out of my room, left my bags and found
benpayne checking in. He seemed amenable to wandering out and about with me so we took in the Australian Impressionists exhibition at the NGV - where I found out what some, old, kiddie porn looks like. *shudder*. Then we nearly got kicked out of a restaurant on Southbank for only wanting to order coffee. They served us coffee after the manager had a 10 min deliberation about it and took away our complimentary bread. Then we had to pay immediately and leave. Fun times.We headed back to the hotel and hung out and then
rachelholkner arrived with her cute bub and we watched the battle of the cute bubs for a while - each trying to out-cute the other. Then rachelholkner and random_alex, one of the cute bubs and I headed out into the cold in search of crafty goodness. We went to Button Mania! OMG!!! How can you *not* get excited about such a store? I have no button needs. No planned future need for buttons. I selected out a fantastic array of buttons and got them all for the amazing price of $1.80. Now that's a lot of fun for a buck eighty. Then I was taken to Cleggs which oddly was the closest haberdashery store for me in Perth. As in, it was easier to sort all my haberdashery needs there than find the last lonely Spotlight in Perth. I bought some needles and whatnot and a skein of handdyed yarn from NZ. It was 480 m long and the next day it took a very long time to ball up into the largest ball I've seen. It was also prettier as a skein that the scarf it is making but I think it will be long and brighten up a rainy day.We headed back because a certain small sized person *totally* was done with the shopping. Just as well too cause it was getting cool and windy and dark and I needed to not be spending more money on yarn when books were a-calling.
I headed back to the hotel to find The
catsparx had arrived and checked in and pointedly NOT touched my hand towel in the bathroom. I was a little anxious about sharing with Rob and Cat but it was totally cool and incredibly fun (or totally fun and incredibly cool). Our suite was huge. The bathroom was enormous. I kinda had a sorta separate living space. And I had a sofa bed (I thought I was literally on the couch). Rob and Cat settled me in and then dragged us all off to dinner.Dinner was fun. It was big. I got to meet Rjurik and Miranda. And lots of other people who I had to remeet later - it was a big table. Lotsa stories.
We headed back for the opening cocktails. I'm sure we met people - those kind of events are a bit unnerving for me and a bit of a blur.
THE most important highlight here was me getting to experience what its like to accept chivalry from a white Knight.
chrisbarnes knows what he did but he was the first of many to "take one for the team". I faced my nemesis and behaved as I promised I would, in the end. I also got to meet some other names whose work I'd only read and heard the tall tales. We ended up in a room party. Things happened. If you were there and remember, I salute my hat to you, oh fellow survivor. It was late. It got later. We fell into bed at 2am but I'm pretty sure I didn't get to sleep till about 4.
