Friday, September 3, 2010

Melbourne, conferences and other animals

Yes, we're here safe. Did you know our friends in Melbourne stayed in an obscurely named street... and Melbourne has two. Well, neither did we. The GPS did. We've had quite a tour, and ended up in a back alley with a high wall and barbed wire in a light industrial area... in the wrong suburb. Viva la map-book! Anyway Mel and Eric were very kind to us when got here, tired and city-shocked, to their far from light-industial home with the most important thing of any good house, lots of books and coffee. Oh and wooden floors I really envy. They are beautiful.

So far the con has been entertaining. We've met a fair numbber of people who said 'oh, we read your blog!' Hi guys. Sharryn, get a gmail addy, so Granny can visit and make grannistic comments.:-) There are also a number of tender young minds bruised by the fact that the con did not explicitly forbid me to talk about holocephalidae and their reproductive strategies in the Alien Zoo panel. Huh. They should be grateful. I spared them the slipper limpet, Crepidula fornicata.

We have pine nuts, a drill, vice grips and a larger abalone tenderiser and some more wool and a large olive oil and are now trying how to fit this into our weight allowance flying back. Interesting times!

The foraging arround here seems very protected by local landowners who want money before you harvest the roadkill in these hot metal trays. This 'restaurant' idea will never catch on, I tell you.

Anyway, we're alive and in one piece, and missing our dogs, cats and Island already.

11 comments:

  1. Say Hi to the Kate for me, and tell her I miss her already.
    And, of course, I WISH I were there.

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  2. Hey, maybe Barbs can send you a smell-o-gram? I'll bet the dogs wouldn't mind... :-)

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  3. Whoops, that's right, she's with you. Hum... do homesitters do smell-o-grams?

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  4. If you really end up with too much stuff you could always go to the post office and send a parcel...

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  5. Of course there's Cimex lectularius which uses traumatic insemination to breed.

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  6. Hope you guys are having a wonderful time! Being in the big city always creates a longing for the country.

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  7. I hope my friend Carolina Gomez Lagerlöf has managed to find you. I gave her strict orders to by one of your books and to get it signed.
    The fact that you live on the other side of the world compared to Sweden does make it had to meet you.
    Went to AussieCon3 and had a blast but could not make it this time.

    Eva Norman
    The Lurker from the North

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  8. Eva - yes she found us and I signed it :-)

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  9. Sarah we missed you so much, but are holding thumbs for a visit to the island, hint, hint..

    We sent two parcels back, but I did not work out that they would not beat us home, as we only posted them at 9am, and then flew at 1, so I put all the important new items into the post, and brought home all the dirty clothes!

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  10. it was good to meet up with you both.

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  11. hey, it worked! In that case, you need to know that I got to embaress my kids with recollections of the dragons and mermaids conversation. It's a good thing to embaress ones children *evil grins*

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