John Barrowman : Book Signing in Cardiff
Home yesterday and finally feeling warmed up after freezing my arse off over the duration of my stay in Cardiff. But you know what? Hypothermia and a likely case of pneumonia setting in aside, it was totally worth it! Yes, even the queuing up outside Borders for 5hours part just too see John Barrowman for 5seconds XD
Friday
I literally bounced out of bed at 7am. Goodness, that hasn’t happened in a while, I can tell you that much! I hadn’t packed a thing, printed any of the documents I needed for the flight down nor my hostel accommodation, the battery in my phone was on its last legs and I was already flailing all over the place with squee at the very thought that today was the day I would be flying down to Cardiff see most of my girlies again in the city I heart so damn much to meet the man who made me freeze and forget to breathe the last time I so much as caught a glimpse of him!
Can we say smiley much? X)
Alas that I had to work 9-6pm, but I suspect that in the long run this was a good thing as even though working only left me with a couple of hours to rush home/pack/shower/get to the airport for my 8.30pm check-in, it kept me from bouncing off the walls too much as I began an hourly countdown till CARDIFF!SQUEE TEIM!!!
Thankfully, boss-lady let me away at 4pm, and I was able to get everything I needed done before I got my daddy to drop me off at the airport. Thankfully, also, Stacey’s ( galaxy_song) boss also let her away early so we met at the airport with plenty of time to check in and begin on the squee!!
We arrived in Cardiff and made it to the hostel for around 10/10.30pm, where we met our roomies Julie ( joulez217), Bexy ( _stolendreams_), Denise ( conjunkie) and Emma ( atraphoenix), and discovered they’d over-ordered on the take away pizza XD silly wabbits had totally forgotten to order under the name of “Torchwood” however so was most unimpressed! Lmao. Still cold pizza was very tasty and we set in for a night of uber pre-Barrowman squee!
We’ll not mention the random man that walked into our room whilst Emma went to the bathroom. We couldn’t make out a word he said as we just sat up and stared at him. I did say “Pardon?” but he shook his head, muttering some more and left. Least to say we made sure our door was securely bolted before we went to sleep!
Saturday
One pair of jeans, two t-shirts, a jumper, a leather jacket, gloves, a hat, one pair of socks and a pair of converse are not appropriate amounts of clothing to be wearing when queuing up outside a bookstore at 8.30/9am in the morning for a signing that isn’t until 1.30pm, when it’s below freezing and the only thing keeping you from having to amputate your own body parts from impending frostbite are the frequent runs to Starbucks and the squee over the fact you’re going to see John Barrowman. Well, that and writing random porn… and getting all the Torchwood Bears to meet one another… and just generally hanging about the awesomeness that is fellow fangirls (and boys!). Okay. So maybe there was a lot to keep us from freezing to death on the spot, but for the record- if I had them- I’d have frozen my bloody balls off if we’d to wait any longer!
My girlies and I had managed to secure our place about a half-dozen people from the front of the queue. We’d have been closer I suspect, but by the time we arrived we’d decided that hot drinks were immediately needed before the queuing could commence!
We met up with Shaz ( dancy_dreamer) on the way from the hostel to Borders, and I introduced her to her new mini-PC Andy Bear, named “Davydd” (aka. The lovechild of Andy/Ianto XD). Davydd was all dressed up in his daddy’s police uniform, no doubt keeping it all warm till we got Shaz a proper PC Andy Bear! So between us all we now had three Ianto Bears, two Jack Bears and a baby!Andy bear!
In the queue we also met up with Angharad ( talcat), Kay and Simon, Kate ( sasha_lilyrat) and Sophie ( luinecu). The latter two had come along with Tosh Bear and Cpt John Hart Bear! Which was all very exciting, so exciting in fact that we got all the bears to pose together as they queued up in wait of the Barrowman XD can you tell they were just as excited as we were?
I’ll skip the details of how we passed the time during our 5hr wait, (making no mention of the policemen we stopped to have their pictures with the bears. Ahem) and instead I shall take a moment to mention the utter shambles that was the way Borders handled the signing. Sure they had the queue under control, but by the time 1-1.30pm came around there were loads of people starting to group up around the front doors, waiting for their own glimpse and photo opportunities of the man himself. Cue John Barrowman arriving and there was a surge as people tried to get at him/into the store. The Borders staff were absolutely useless at crown control and if they’d have had any sense they’d either have closed off part of the shop to do the signing or at least moved John’s table to the other side of the doorway so that those of us who’d queued up to get our books signed didn’t get themselves shoved through the doorway and the security barrier!
And don’t even get me started on the actual signing itself! There were post-it notes handed out earlier on in the day for us to write out the name we wanted JB to sign the book to. Once you managed to shove past the people clogging up the doorway trying to oogle the man himself, you had your book snatched off you shoved onto the table in front of John who signed and pushed it over to his sister Carol, and you yourself were pushed aside before you could so much as stammer out a polite “Hello, you sexy-man-thing-you, I froze my arse off for five hours waiting for this, but you’re totally worth it.”
John did however mention that he really liked my name X) So I was a pile of gush even as I was hurriedly lead away from the table!
I feel a strongly worded letter is in the works for Borders. I get that there were over a thousand people waiting to get stuff signed, but that is no reason to man handle those who’d got up at the crack of dawn on a wintry Saturday morning and waited patiently for the signing to begin. We were even refused photographs, which miffed me off to no end, but I went trigger happy on the off chance I could get at least one picture of the man!
So yeah. Queuing for 5hours for 5seconds of John Barrowman. Worth it? ;)
Once we’d all been herded away from JB we made a mad dash up to the Starbuck’s on the top floor for some much needed defrosting and hot drinks. And lots of squee and fangirly stroking of our newly signed books XD the book itself is really rather awesome! The style of it is just so fresh and inviting and as John says he wishes right at the very beginning, you really do feel as if you’re sat right beside him, sharing a drink as he recalls his life from past to present and everything in between, he pauses through recollections to insert amusing anecdotes or sudden remembrances, and it’s just all so very friendly and inviting. It’s like meeting up with an old friend. He really is a fabulous man. Definitely recommended!!
The rest of the day was spent getting Shaz a proper PC Andy Bear! Meeting up with Kat (skittykat), ransacking McDonalds for random food and chat, phoning Georgie (indiefairy) to emo and squee, seeing Simon and Angharad and Shaz off at the train station, making a quick drop off of belongings at the hostel, and heading down to the bay where we proceeded to meet up once again with Sophie, Kate and Kay (whom we’d lost sometime during the signing) and invading the nearest Pizza Hut! It was a very fun day all in all and made even better by the fact I got to share it with some very close friends and some shiney new ones! :)
Sunday
Bay Day! We were up and out of the hostel for about 10am. Headed towards the Border’s Starbucks again as they have lots of space and really comfy seats! And met up again with Kat and Shaz. Kat brought along her mini-real!Jack bear, who was all donned up in his flying gear. Yan Bear approved ;)
Once we’d drank/eaten we then headed towards the station where we saw Denise and Emma off :(( poor things had to leave and we really didn’t want them to go at all!!
So, to cheer ourselves we immediately headed to the Bay, where of course all the Torchwood squee happens!
We had the Bears pose at the door to the information centre and some other random places, got to meet Dalek!Man again (to those of you unfamiliar with Dalek Man, he does boat tours around the bay, and the first ever meet we had down the bay way back in August 07, he played his dalek ringtones over the loudspeakers just for us! You should have heard us squee!) So, we stopped to chat and he remembered the bears, so of course we had to get pictures taken! XD He even let Yan Bear up onto his boat (though I won’t deny, I about had a heart attack when Yan suddenly toppled and I thought he was going to fall into the water!)
We did some more randomly fun things before ::cough:: Kat and I somehow decided to create a ‘Part Two’ to our Bear Porn from August last year. I have nothing to blame our behaviour on other than too much fresh air, squee and encouragement from those who really should have known better!! XD
[ See the Jack/Ianto/Andy threesome, complete with lovechild Davydd! | Alternatively, watch the original one! ]
Ahem. So anyway! I got to speak to my sexy!hor Jemz (jemzamania) for the first time over the phone as Shaz called her to chat!! You sound very polite and soft spoken- definitely not what I was expecting from you, lmao!! I also proceeded to phone Georgie for a chat and to tell her just how much we all missed her and wished she could have made it! We took over the Starbucks on the bay and proceeded to stay there for a long while, trying to once again warm up, and just generally hanging out. T’was good fun!
Shaz had to leave around 6pm-ish :(( and those of us left decided to head into the Weatherspoon’s near the station for some dinner.
( Bexy & Jack Bear, Shaz, Julie, Stacey & Ianto Bear)
( Kat & Mini Real!Jack Bear )
...Am I allowed to make this one of my personal highlights of the weekend? XD Because whilst we were there I got chatting to the guy behind the bar when placing our orders, and um… “pulled” as everyone is calling it XD His name is Kieren, he’s 22, Australian, very amusing and not even remotely what I’d call my ‘type’ but he’s so damn cute anyway!! heh. Since returning home, I’ve ‘made contact’ with him and yeah, Caspe is still all very gushy over the whole thing. Can you tell I don’t tend to get chatted up much? Lol.
Once we’d left Weatherspoon (thanks to a rather annoying fire alarm prompting us to move) we all headed back to the hostel. Had to say goodbye to Kat on the way :(( cue more emoing. And then there were four. Julie, Bexy, Stacey and I got back to the hostel with the knowledge that we’d all be leaving the next day hanging over us. Still, we managed to keep the squee alive as we packed out bags and tucked ourselves in for the night, chatting and giggling and just having a right slumber party until one by one we drifted off to sleep, all secretly praying that we could wake up and start the weekend all over again. Well, I was at least! ;)
Monday
OMG I DON’T WANT TO GO HOME!! There was much emoing as we headed to the depressing!Starbucks (aka the one we always end up when we’re leaving as it’s conveniently close to the station). We made the most of still being together but ultimately we knew we’d soon be parting ways. Julie was the first to go ::clings:: with Bexy leaving about an hour later, and no amount of bag!napping helped her miss her train, though Stacey and I tried!
And then there were two. I’m so glad I had Stacey to travel home with! We kept each other from moping too much as we hung about waiting for our bus to the airport to arrive. We got into Glasgow around 5.30pm and it took me another hour to get home to Hamilton. I was absolutely shattered. I think the most tiring thing about the weekend is the end, once the squee has deflated and you’ve nothing to immediately look forward to. Alas!
But thank you, all my girlies, for such a kick-arse weekend! And I cannot wait to do it all again with you guys :)
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