Three more sleeps!

Not long now until I leave for Brisbane, and I’m nowhere near ready to go. The plan was to get everything done this weekend, but as the best laid plans so often do, it all gang a bit awry. First interruption to the plan was totally self-inflicted: the computer shop rang to say they’ve fixed the computer (Again! This is the second time they’ve replaced the motherboard since we got it. This time they replaced the power unit too, which hopefully will stop the motherboard frying every couple of months…), so we went into town on Saturday morning to pick it up. That was actually a good thing, because I got a few jobs done in town, like putting some more credit on my phone so it won’t run out while I’m in Australia, posting some parcels, and buying some bits and pieces I need to take away with me. But then we got home, and set the computer up, and of course had to try out a few games just to make sure it was working… you can see where this is going, can’t you? Yep, spent the rest of the day playing computer games instead of doing essential things like sorting out (and registering, and labelling) the books I’m taking with me. I did get a few books registered in the evening, but still had a huge pile to do, so decided I definitely had to spend all of Sunday getting them finished.

I made a good start on the books on Sunday morning, got them all registered, and then sat down to the long task of labelling, stamping, repairing, and generally getting them ready to go out into the big wide world. And then the phone rang. It was awhina, calling to say that she’d just heard non-fiction was in hospital and was on her way to visit him, and would I like to come along too. Well, I wasn’t going to say no when a fellow bookcrosser was in distress, was I? So I grabbed a couple of books I thought he might like (The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins and Better than Life by Doug Naylor and Rob Grant – other people take flowers when they visit someone in hospital, I take books! 🙂 ), was picked up a few minutes later by awhina, and we dashed off to the hospital to spread some cheer (or something). Anyway, I think he appreciated the visit, but it did mean most of the afternoon was gone, and I was still only half way through labelling my books, with my brother and family due to turn up on the doorstep any minute.

And sure enough, I was only home a few minutes, and just about to sit back down to the labelling, when the front door flies open and nephew#1 comes running in, with a glad cry of “Aunty FutureCat, we’ve come to visit you and I’ve got new shoes!” And then of course, the demands of admiring shoes, playing with lego and k-nex, trying out the demo MrPloppy found of the new Lego Star Wars computer game (we have got to get that game – it is so seriously cool!!! We adults were having as much fun playing with it as the kids were (if not more)), terrorising the cats (not intentionally, but they go into major panic mode whenever the kids turn up, and dash under the bed to hide. Unfortunately, nephew#2 has discovered this, so immediately runs through into the bedroom and crouches down peering under the bed shouting “Look! Cat! Cat hide! Look!”, which really improves Ming and Saffy’s state of nerves), and generally causing chaos took precedence over book labelling. However, my brother took pity on me and volunteered to help with some labelling later in the evening. We got a bit of a production line going (with nephew#1 “helping” by stamping the books with my bookcrossing stamp – luckily he quickly understood the concept that you could only stamp in places where there weren’t any words, but getting the stamp the right way up was another matter…), and managed to get through quite a lot of the books in the end, so I should be able to finish off the last few tonight. They’re (family, not books!) heading back home to Auckland today, so things should be a bit more peaceful…

Some bad news on the Brisbane front: TopKat might not be able to come. She saw the dentist last week because one of her wisdom teeth was playing up, and it turns out it’s badly infected and needs to come out. Unfortunatly her normal dentist couldn’t do it, because it was too complicated, so she’s seeing a specialist today. Even if he’s able to get it out straight away, there’s not much chance she’ll be feeling well enough by Thursday to want to be travelling 🙁 She sounded really disappointed when she rang me, because she was really looking forward to the trip, and she was still saying she might come, she’d see how she felt on Wednesday (the tickets were super-cheap non-refundable, non-transferrable, so there’s no advantage in making a decision any earlier than that), but I really doubt she’ll be feeling up to it. But I’m still going, and I’ll still have a fantastic time, I’m sure – it’s just a pity I can’t share it with Mum. (And a pity I won’t be able to sneak in a few extra books under her baggage allowance!)

A few cool catches recently:

• Far From Heaven, which we saw being picked up in the Ashburton McDonalds, was journalled and is going to be re-released in Timaru;
• Another of my NZBC convention releases, Liberty Belle, has been caught and re-released (and the finder joined!);
• Best of all, The Looking Glass Murder, a book I released over two years ago (in my very first mass release, not long after I first joined Bookcrossing) was finally caught, and the finder is planning on re-releasing it in Australia – just goes to show you should never give up on a book!

Currently reading: A Tale of Time City by Diana Wynne Jones