Meetups galore

Ok, I’ve just realised how long I’ve left it between entries. About time for an update.

We’ve had two meetups since I last posted – in fact, we’re in the middle of a bit of a meetup marathon (not quite as much of a meetup marathon as I’ll be having in April, though – this is more like a training session ;-)), because as well as our normal meetups, we’ve got a couple of extra meetups this month in honour of Fleebo and crasy. So last Tuesday was our regular second-Tuesday-of-the-month meetup, and then Sunday night we had a bonus meetup to welcome the travelling BCers. This Sunday we’re having breakfast, and then next weekend is our regular meetup weekend, so we’re having lunch… and then we’re almost back to second Tuesday again.

Tuesday’s meetup wasn’t all that well attended. Just me, lytteltonwitch, rarsberry, awhina, and meerkitten (who had fleas, apparently). Not many books, either – pretty much everything I’ve been reading lately has been going into my suitcase. I did bring Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire for lytteltonwitch, and picked up Book Book by Fiona Farrell from rars.

Sunday’s meetup was much better attended. As well as Fleebo and crasy, there was the entire awhina clan, me, lytteltonwitch, angela7715, and a new bookcrosser (whose name I didn’t catch, being at the wrong end of the table) and her friend. It was very crowded round the table until the awhinas went home. A really fun meetup though, and great to see Fleebo again. And loads of books floating around the table (which, for a change, I managed to resist the temptation of). The books attracted the attention of a table full of children’s librarians sitting nearby, and a few of them came over and talked to us as we were leaving. We gave them the rest of the books from the table, and one mentioned she’d found a few bookcrossing books before, but it wasn’t until I got home and saw the catch for the book I gave her that I realised it was NiceOrc.

After the meetup, I detoured over to the Court Theatre to finally leave Death of a Fool by Ngaio Marsh on the statue of the jester. It was worth the detour, too, because it got caught almost straight away!

A few other recent catches:

• Dragonplague by Terence Strong has moved from one backpackers to another
• Sicilian Defence by John Nicholas Iannuzzi caught not long after I released it
• and a catch from one of the many books I dropped around the university during enrolment week, Moonraker by F Tennyson Jesse

The other thing lytteltonwitch and I did on Sunday was go and visit TheLetterB, and Christchurch’s newest bookcrosser (will his screenname be TheLetterC, I wonder). Both were looking well, and TheLetterB loved my patchwork elephant, and the book discoverylover left with me to give her. TheLetterC wasn’t as impressed – he was more interested in eating his mittens 🙂 Because TheLetterB wasn’t able to go to the meetup (which we were on our way to when we visited), we gave her first pick of the books we were each taking along, and she gave me one (Dead Men Do Tell Tales by William R. Maples and Michael Browning) to take along so she could be there virtually.

Currently reading: Not a Hazardous Sport by Nigel Barley
Currently listening to: The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly (or at least, I’m trying to – unfortunately the reader has a very quiet, soothing voice, which is at exactly the same pitch as the sound of passing traffic while I’m walking, so I’m struggling to hear it even with the volume turned right up on my mp3 player).

22 sleeps to go!