Next time I am invited to attend a convention, remind me to take the appropriate medication!

I was invited to this years SwanCon, the annual science fiction convention held here in Perth, as a 'fan guest'.
Twenty-seven years ago I heard that an SF con was being held in Perth and decided to miss Benjamin Britain's "War Requiem" to attend it. I discovered the joys of fan fiction by spending the afternoon sitting next to a pimply youth and went home with somebody else entirely.
Intelligent conversation, quick repartee, puns, similar tastes in science and fiction and curiosity ... a couple of years later I had married the (no longer) pimply youth and we were doing the 'house and babies' thing.

So I attended the con. Stayed three nights in a hotel with beds like marshmallows on smooth ice. Turning over in the night was to live in the expectation that the bed would not be there when you settled again because it had moved in reaction to your turning! But at least the rooms were air-conditioned ...
Mmm, either it was the box of plush toys shaped like magnified cold, flu and other germs (that left me feeling the need to wash my hands every time I spotted one of these critters sitting on someone's shoulder *shudders*) or the fact that I was exposed to a whole range of bugs that I am not so used to, or I'm just not used to sleeping in air-conditioned coolness *wry grin*

I had planned to take the week after the convention to:
a) sleep off staying up until the later wee small hours - which I enjoyed in a masochistic kind of way;
b) indulge in some basic spinning tool making, involving power tools and artistic endeavours to decorate things with sheep (don't ask ... at least, not just yet);
c) indulge in some shopping trips to favourite wool and fabric stores - not that my stash needs further enhancement. Just that, well ... I wanted to see this years winter range that is arriving at the moment (and if I believed that, I have an Opera House to sell you *twinkle*)

Instead I have spent the last five days trying to breath without coughing (which hurts), through a nose that was so bunged up that I was wondering if a demolition team might be necessary to rediscover the airways, and a head and body that throbbed with the least movement except when appropriately dosed with pain-killers and consoling episodes of Star Trek, Babylon5, and other assorted fantasies.

*sigh*

I am looking forward to going back to work on Monday. At least the cold has abated to a basic sneeze now and then, and what the family calls 'my "sexy" voice'. Cheek and impudence! HAH!

Mind you, I am really tickled that I have found a source of consolation for extreme nerves ... sock knitting *laughs at self*
I was so nervous about meeting Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon, the real Guests of Honour, that I spent the whole weekend with a set of needles in my hands knitting for all I was worth ... even on the panels I was on *wryness*
At least the DD now has a pair of 'foot-hugs' because I finished the second sock while watching all those episodes of sf during the week, trying to breath without coughing.

Curiously, I did enjoy the con and am now considering the possibility of attending next year ...

PS - Funnily enough I have never regretted missing the 'War Requiem' *G*