Back from Sydney

I'm back from Sydney with a souvenir that I didn't want - the flu! But other than that piece of baggage the trip was great.

7 days seems like a lot of time in a city when you start planning a trip but then I took out 3 days over the weekend for the Romance Writers Conference, another day to travel across the city for a meeting with Aurora TV, a day to recover from the conference, a day to travel out to the burbs to meet the new nephews and a day to have another meeting, a visit to the doctor for my partner and the Chris Wilson gig at The Vanguard, and suddenly its time to come home again. Sorry for anyone that I did not manage to catch up with. Being busy on the weekend meant that I really couldn't catch up with friends who were working. Next time.

The conference was fantastic and it was lovely to meet so many enthusiastic writers. The Jennifer Cruisie workshop was awe inspiring and left me with a lot of food for thought. Other workshops were just as informative - in fact I wrote pages and pages in my notebook.

I forgot to take my recharger and rechargeable batteries so I ran out of battery power just before the masquerade so I didn't take any photos that night. It was extremely colourful, full of sequins and feathers and I had a hard time recognising faces the next day. In fact, I didn't end up taking many photos at the conference at all - just lots of notes.

It was really odd hanging around Annandale, our old stomping ground. It has changed so much since we lived there. Our old abode, which was above and beyond the butcher shop is now a restaurant and two units. There is now a gourmet pizza bar, the North Annandale hotel is totally spruced up (and how much is it to hang around pubs now without the haze of smoke!)

While it was nice to be away and hang out with writers and meet new members of the family, its also good to return home. Dorkus the cat certainly thinks so. He didn't treat the cattery as a detention centre this time, going on a hunger strike. This time he ate as he was supposed to. But he's happy to be home and following me around everywhere. That is when I'm vertical. Because this flu is not allowing many opportunities for that.