DWJ day in brief
Meep! I blatantly have no time to write up the DWJ day, and indeed my weekend in Bristol generally, because I have a friend coming to stay in half an hour, and when he leaves on Thursday, I'm straight off to Rome. So I'll try for a brief account, and aim to fill in more details from my notes at some later time.
The day started off with a group discussion on Howl's Moving Castle, led by a joint member of the Classics and English departments, who also turned out to be an LJer, and friend of a friend! All sorts of very interesting themes came up, especially about things turning out to be other than they seem, and quite a few emerged later in some of the things Diana herself said, too.
Then all four of the day's featured authors appeared for the first time, taking part in a panel discussion on writing and receptions of their work. I was very excited when Diana Wynne Jones was suddenly there in the room with us! And she said lots of interesting and insightful things, too.
Next was lunch, and finally the best bit of the day for me - another group session for people particularly interested in DWJ, in which she answered lots of our questions, and read a whole chapter from the next Chrestomanci book, The Pinhoe Egg!! I had told her earlier on in the day how excited I was about that book, while getting my copy of Howl's Moving Castle signed, but she'd merely commented at the time that she was afraid I'd have to wait until the autumn. So I had to fight hard to suppress a big SQUEEEEE!!! when it turned out we were actually going to hear an extract from it.
Me getting my book signed:
After the DWJ day, I hooked up with Amy WINOLJ, and spent the rest of the weekend with her and her nearly-two-year-old, Holly. We had an excellent time, shared between playing with little Holly and snatching time for 'grown-up' chat while Holly was either a) distracted or b) being baby-sat by Any's sister, Milly. On the Saturday, we attended a street barbecue, watched Doctor Who (which Holly found scary, but still carried on watching anyway), went out for a nice Chinese meal, and then shared a few drinks in the Hatchet pub with Amy's friends Alex and strangesam before heading home.
Sunday saw bath-time for Holly, which she enjoyed apart from the bit where she had to have her hair washed, and then shopping in Sainsbury's to get pizza components. We taught Holly how to make her very own baby pizza, which she covered with mozzarella, sweet-corn and olives (which she calls 'Os'), and then Milly and her partner, Rob, came round to help us eat pizza and contribute salads and kebabs. After lunch we played a devious trick on Holly - a 'trip to the park' turned out to be a sneaky way to get her to fall asleep in her push-chair, so that we could go home again, and chat in the cool while she snoozed! And by then it was time for me to head off home on the train.
I am going to have to go and meet my friend at the station now, But I would like to add that a tiny baby squirrel is outside my window right now, scavenging for nuts and berries in my garden! Aww, teh cute!
The day started off with a group discussion on Howl's Moving Castle, led by a joint member of the Classics and English departments, who also turned out to be an LJer, and friend of a friend! All sorts of very interesting themes came up, especially about things turning out to be other than they seem, and quite a few emerged later in some of the things Diana herself said, too.
Then all four of the day's featured authors appeared for the first time, taking part in a panel discussion on writing and receptions of their work. I was very excited when Diana Wynne Jones was suddenly there in the room with us! And she said lots of interesting and insightful things, too.
Next was lunch, and finally the best bit of the day for me - another group session for people particularly interested in DWJ, in which she answered lots of our questions, and read a whole chapter from the next Chrestomanci book, The Pinhoe Egg!! I had told her earlier on in the day how excited I was about that book, while getting my copy of Howl's Moving Castle signed, but she'd merely commented at the time that she was afraid I'd have to wait until the autumn. So I had to fight hard to suppress a big SQUEEEEE!!! when it turned out we were actually going to hear an extract from it.
Me getting my book signed:
After the DWJ day, I hooked up with Amy WINOLJ, and spent the rest of the weekend with her and her nearly-two-year-old, Holly. We had an excellent time, shared between playing with little Holly and snatching time for 'grown-up' chat while Holly was either a) distracted or b) being baby-sat by Any's sister, Milly. On the Saturday, we attended a street barbecue, watched Doctor Who (which Holly found scary, but still carried on watching anyway), went out for a nice Chinese meal, and then shared a few drinks in the Hatchet pub with Amy's friends Alex and strangesam before heading home.
Sunday saw bath-time for Holly, which she enjoyed apart from the bit where she had to have her hair washed, and then shopping in Sainsbury's to get pizza components. We taught Holly how to make her very own baby pizza, which she covered with mozzarella, sweet-corn and olives (which she calls 'Os'), and then Milly and her partner, Rob, came round to help us eat pizza and contribute salads and kebabs. After lunch we played a devious trick on Holly - a 'trip to the park' turned out to be a sneaky way to get her to fall asleep in her push-chair, so that we could go home again, and chat in the cool while she snoozed! And by then it was time for me to head off home on the train.
I am going to have to go and meet my friend at the station now, But I would like to add that a tiny baby squirrel is outside my window right now, scavenging for nuts and berries in my garden! Aww, teh cute!