My almost-perfect weekend–part one

I've just had two fabulous days – been a long time since I've finished a weekend so happy. The only thing that stopped it from being perfect was that hubby wasn't there.

So, firstly – Saturday. Left home at 6am and had a lovely drive up to Bankstown to attend the Freecon. Managed to get lost because I bumped the GPS and then accidently reprogrammed it. Managed to get there on time, which was great.

Sat with Joanne Anderton, and was joined by Laura Goodin, Alan Baxter, Gillian Polack and Richard Harland – a nice little writer's gathering.

The first panel was on sf film and tv in 2010. I would have liked more analysis, particularly as I hadn't seen most of the shows they mentioned. One woman talked specifically about film and after saying not to waste money on Skyline, proceded to give Bollywood sci fi film 'Robot' a negative review. Not that Laura and I cared. We looked at each other and said 'Bollywood? Sci fi? I'm SOOOOO getting that!'

The next panel was reviewing Aussiecon. Of course there was the typical 'why is is always in Melbourne' 'who's going to organise the next one' questions. Ah, I must laugh at the folks who want to enjoy cons without having anything to do with organising them. I must. Or I'd cry.

Next four of us writers read. Pamela Freeman read from her follow-up to her Castings trilogy and it was great. Don't wanna spoil it but I'm really intrigued. Alan read from Magesign and it was mega cool. I read from Secret Ones and think it got a good reception.

Then Richard read. He started by saying it was a quiet piece. When he did the sound effects for the first rocket, he stopped and said, 'okay, maybe a bit dramatic'. The piece came from Liberator, the follow-up to Worldshaker and it sounds fantastic!

Twas now lunch time, and so Joanne and I went over to Centro to grab a meal. It was fabulous to sit and have a chat to her – haven't done that before and Jo's going to be attending the retreat in January, so nice to get to know her better.

Joanne went home, I went back to Freecon. First there was the Ghost of Honour presentation, and then we heard some fascinating stuff about the late Kevin Dillon and the discovery of one of his apparently infamous garages of books. They ended up with Rotary, who have been selling them to raise money for their charity work. So far, they've raised $20,000 (their usual annual result) and that's just from the comics! There's an estimated 14,000 magazines and no one's worked out how many paperbacks but it fills a squash court.

There was another reader's panel – Jenny and Russell Blackford had arrived, and they read with Crisetta Macleod. This was followed by a fabulous panel with Gillian, Van Ikin and Bill Congreve on science fiction in Australia.

That was the end of the Freecon for Saturday. Jenny and Russell and I went and had coffee and a fabulous chat together before I went and booked into the hotel room, then headed up the mountains.

My cousin and her family are moving to Perth. I don't see her as much as I'd like, and wanted to take this chance before she goes even further away. Good wine, good Chinese, joking and laughing and then we watched The Simpson's Movie. Was a very nice evening.

Was in bed just after 10pm and very happy.

Will post about day two tomorrow.