dianec42

On the post-Worldcon part of the trip, we hired a car and drove over 900 miles in 5 days, only to end up exactly where we'd started. Which really shouldn't be possible in a country that small. (When I say "we" drove, of course, I mean

stuartc.)

Monday we drove to Lancashire and stayed with

stuartc's brother Nigel and Nigel's wife Claire. Fish and chips were had by all. Insane house alteration plans were admired. There may have been beer, I really don't remember.

Stayed with

stuartc's dad and dad's wife. Wednesday we visited Auntie and many, many cousins. Compared gadgets with the next generation of cousins, barely won on the strength of our PSPs.

Drove to Harrogate to see John and Marie and their baby, Alice. Alice is one of the cuter babies on the planet; which coming from me is quite a statement. There was wine, Chinese take-away, and very nice whisky.

Thursday we drove to St Andrews where we were staying with

qidane. We got there rather late, but in time to joing

tobyawy and

kateaw for what remained of a lovely dinner. Again, much wine and very nice whisky indeed. Slept in the next morning. Mary gave us some nice presents for the cats. We later joined Toby and Kate and Beth and others for ice cream at the beach. After we had said our good-byes and were about to go, Toby said, "At least you're not flying British Airways...." and we said "Er, actually, what?" That was when we found out that various bits of BA had been on strike for several days and that we were most likely doomed. Eventually we got on our way; Beth seemed most put out that we had said good-byes and then not actually left.

Then we drove to Glenfarg to see Paddy and Jean and a selection of their many cats. Collected another present for our cats. Phoned Laurie and Tim and

mwhit1978, whom we were supposed to meet for dinner in Glasgow, only to discover that they were in Perth! So we had dinner with them in Perth, and thus we were able to miss most of the exciting traffic on the way to Glasgow. Got to the Glasgow airport hotel, which was rather full (as might be expected with BA not working right). Once again, the Holiday Inn screwed up our reservation for an executive double non-smoking -- at least they got the non-smoking bit right. Slept like the dead until morning, failed to get breakfast at the hotel because everyone in the entire hotel wanted to eat at the same time, returned the car and went to the airport...

Amazingly, British Airways put us on a plane to Heathrow only half an hour late; we shopped at Heathrow and then got on a plane for LA, also only half an hour late. Came home and collapsed, rest is history.

Greatly looking forward to a Worldcon with slightly LESS TRAVEL next year -- I love being in different places, it's just getting there that's a pain in the ass. (Unless of course I continue my streak of moving away from incoming Worldcons...)