Happyhappyhappy

Today was a good day.

Although it didn't start as well as it could have. Mum's feeling a little bit better but she really wasn't feeling well enough to go to the talk. We had asked Roz if she'd like to go if Mum couldn't and she said yes - but she did her back in and can barely move.

So Mum drove me to the station and I took the train into the city and met Flora at the Opera House. And we did find someone to take the extra ticket - asked at the ticket office and the woman said there were some people hoping for tickets, so we got a partial refund and someone else got to see the talk, all good!

When Sir Terry came onstage there was huge applause. We heard a reading from his yet-to-be-released book, Snuff. Sounds like Vimes is about to encounter cricket. *is amused* Then the talk started. I thought he and Garth Nix took a little while to find a rhythm but once you get Sir Terry talking, it's clear he could go for hours. At one point, he said that he would talk to anyone about religion, to the point that Jehovah's Witness would be looking at the clock and saying, 'Oh, is that the time?' The audience cracked up. I'm still trying to remember all that they talked about but he talked about his early days of writing, growing up 'on the Chalk', the reputation of the fantasy genre, the sword he made himself, why he calls himself a humanist, not an atheist (I liked his answer - he doesn't trust any belief system that doesn't leave room for doubt), suicides he's seen or heard about over the years and how frustrating it is to be unable to have real discussion about physician-assisted dying, instead of knee-jerk reactions.

The talk ran overtime by about 15-20 minutes and by then Nix was saying, 'Er, we'd really better go before the shepherd's crooks come out to drag us off.' The finale was the two of them tossing plastic teeth to the crowd. (In case this sounds utterly insane, it's a Hogfather reference.) Flora and I were way too far back to get any (but we still had a good view.) And after Sir Terry had finally been coaxed offstage, he came out again to throw a last few teeth.

We went out and discovered that the staging point for the signing was right there so I headed in and Flora went downstairs to wait for me. I ended up bringing two books, due to indecision. There was my old, battered copy of Witches Abroad and a shiny new hardcover of The Folklore of Discworld.

SIr Terry came up the stair when pretty much everyone was lined up and the general impression I got (besides that he is so small! Also, I think he might have arthritis. *winces*) was again, that he'd be happy to talk for hours but his minders were also aware of this and did their best to keep things moving swiftly. I was quite close to the front so I didn't have long to wait. Good because I didn't have to stand for long or keep Flora waiting but I probably missed out on some funny comments.

I decided on Witches Abroad and rather than the title page, had it opened to the dedication:

Dedicated to all those people - and why not? - who, after the publication of Wyrd Sisters, deluged the author with their version of the words of 'The Hedgehog Song'.

Deary, deary me ...

He asked if there was any particular reason for that page rather than the title page and I said that they were the first words that I'd ever read about the Discworld and I'd known I'd have to read more. And that Witches Abroad remained my favourite Discworld book. He smiled and seemed pleased by that. He signed my book with an astonishingly incomprehensible signature (verified with colourful Ankh-Morpork style stamps.) There were also extra piles of teeth so I took two and gave one to Flora (who was delighted by it.)

We headed out and had a lovely dinner at a Chinese restaurant on the Quay, with a view of the crowds and the Bridge. Fabulous. I had shredded duck with hand cut noodles, so good. And it was great talking with Flora, who's so much fun and understands the fannish mindset quite well. We headed for the station by eight o'clock, so she could get her train to the Blue Mountains. I made it back to our nearest station by about nine-fifteen? One big problem. No taxis. None. That was new.

So I called Mum and asked her to call a taxi for me (since I didn't have a number) and fortunately the taxi arrived just minutes after she called me back to say one was on the way. I'm not  a nervous person but hanging around a mostly deserted street at night? Nervous-making. (Mum had an adventure trying to book the taxi. The services are using voice-recognition for booking and the computer was not recognising mum's cold-shredded voice at all. After a while a customer service person came on, fortunately!)

Mum was still awake and eager to hear all about it and she was delighted by the tooth.*g*

I've said before, I'm generally not interested in meeting celebrities because I'm interested in what they do, not who they are. And having seen so many authors show their true colours online ... but PTerry is delightful. He's someone I would dearly love to have a conversation with because you'd never know where you'd end up but it would always be fascinating.