surprises, and not suprises, and Rowan Atkinson

On the spur of the moment I've decided to jump in the car tomorrow and tag along to Bristolcon for the afternoon with stephanieburgis and patricksamphire

Other than trips to A&E, spontaneous excursions have been all to rare in the last decade, so I'm really looking forward to this!  The great justinar is one of the GoH and will be interviewed by Stephanie (woo-hoo!), and I see that jmck is also a GoH.  Yay!  We'll only be there for a few hours due to family obligations, but  hope to bump into some people I know. 

In other happy news, a friend just alerted me via e-mail that Lauren Beukes' UK deal has finally been sorted out after massive excitement.  I usually follow Lauren on twitter but have been having some login issues lately, so I don't know what's being said online.  I hope SF people are happy.  This kind of electricity is all too rarely found around novelists but I'm not at all surprised that it is happening around Lauren.  She is quite the magical person, and part of this magic comes out of the fact that she works extremely hard -- she knows how to follow through on the risks she takes.  I can't wait to see what she does with this concept.  I know it will be sensational.

I am now off to see Johnny English, Reborn.  Take pity on me.  I have to do something fun (for them) with the kids today to pay for being out all day tomorrow and leaving everybody stranded with no car.  I love Mr. Bean but this movie looks pretty bad.