Farewell Mike

eard the news this morning that Miketroll died yesterday.  He’s been battling pancreatic cancer for many months, and lasted much much longer than anyone expected (back in June he’d been given a prognosis of only a couple of months to live), so it’s not exactly a shock that he’s gone, but it’s still a sad loss.  He’s been around since the early days of Bookcrossing, and used to be a regular on the forums.
I’d met him quite a few times too, including staying with him and his wife in Cardiff when Otakuu and I were on our World Tour.  We spent a lovely day in Cardiff (which, looking back through my blog, it seems I never actually wrote about), where he proudly showed us round the newly revamped Cardiff docklands area (and the sonic screwdriver on display in the information centre – a lot of Dr Who and Torchwood was filmed in the area), and took us to a performance in the Millennium Theatre that evening.  Then the next day, joined by Lytteltonwitch, we visited Bath, Stonehenge and Avebury (I did write about that part of the trip, in this entry).  So many fun memories from that flying visit.
And then of course a year later, he and his wife and son came to Christchurch when it was our turn to host the World Bookcrossing Convention, so we were able to return the favour and show off a little of our city (though I wasn’t able to spend as much time with the Trolls as I would have liked, being tied up with the convention organising).
I don’t actually remember if Mike was at the Washington DC or Dublin conventions.  Like so many of those long-time bookcrossers, he was just always around, always part of the conversation, whether on-line or in person, so much a virtual presence that you assume they must have been always physically present as well.  It’s so strange to think that someone with such a presence is gone now.
Farewell Mike, you’ll be missed by your friends all over the world.