Hen (and a few Roosters and Chicks) Night

We decided to hold this month’s meetup a week early, so that it could also be a hen night for awhina. Or more technically, a “hen and rooster and chicks” night, because we wanted her fiancé and the kids to come along too.

For months lytteltonwitch, MrPloppy and I have been teasing awhina about being her bridesmaids, and threatening to turn up at the wedding wearing our bridesmaids dresses, which evolved with each telling into something even more pink and frothy, until we reached the heights (depths?) of pink tutus and fairy wings.

So of course we just had to turn up at the hen night suitably dressed! We did think of going to a costume hire place and getting proper tutus, but ended up running out of time to organise it, so took a DIY approach, making our own tutus out of sheets of pink tissue paper, and lytteltonwitch had a productive visit to the $2 shop in her lunch hour, buying various embellishments.

We made sure we arrived early at the meetup venue so we could get ready before awhina and family showed up, and put on our tutus (over our ordinary clothes!) and added decorations: I put up my hair (with a lot of help from lytteltonwitch in the absence of a mirror) in two ponytails on the top of my head with sparkly ringlet ribbons; MrPloppy had fairy wings, a wand, and deely-boppers; and lytteltonwitch put more sparkly ringlet ribbons in her hair and attached a huge pink flower to her shirt. We were getting some very funny looks from the other patrons of the cafe (double-takes when they saw the witch and I, and then triple-takes when they saw MrPloppy!).

I think I’ll save the proper photos for a friends-only entry, but here’s one of Ballycumber wearing MrPloppy’s outfit:

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Of course, after all this planning, the guests of honour were late! And we couldn’t even order our meals, because we didn’t want to sit down and crush our carefully constructed tutus until they’d seen them. But eventually they did turn up, and were suitably impressed (or disturbed, possibly) by our efforts.

We had a couple of visitors at the meetup too – lusks, a friend of Sherlockfan‘s from Scotland, who had brought along a non-bookcrossing friend. I’m not sure what they made of our silliness, but it was great to meet them, and I think we’ve got a new bookcrossing convert!

And TheLetterB turned up too, so it ended up being quite a big meetup!

Of course, there were a few books changing hands: I released The Last Girls by Lee Smith, Darkness Be my Friend by John Marsden, River Thieves by Michael Crummey, and The Wise Woman by Philippa Gregory, and picked up The Problem with Murmur Lee by Connie May Fowler.

In other bookcrossing news, I’ve had quite a few catches over the last week or so since I last posted: Moon In The Water by Pamela Belle which I released at the Wellington convention, Gravity by Tess Gerritsen, also released in Wellington, but a few months earlier, A History of the United States: Volume Two: The Growth of the USA by RB Nye and JE Morpurgo (which is travelling incredibly well for such a boring looking book!), My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin, released in Queenstown and on its way to Te Anau, Daddy’s Little Girl by Mary Higgins Clark, released in a fish and chip shop, and two from the books we registered with pre-numbered labels in the YHA bookshelf: White Viper by Terence Strong and Get Your Tongue Out of My Mouth, I’m Kissing You Good-Bye by Cynthia Heimel. Looking at that list, Wellington is definitely a good place for catches!