Central England PRC – guest post by southdowner, photos by CathyR*
It was lovely to meet Firedancer and CathyR at Waterstones in Birmingham last week. CathyR had the furthest to come and as is often the case she arrived before either of us Brummies. It’s always hectic in Birmingham city centre in the shopping weekends before Christmas, and I found unaccustomed queues which is my excuse for arriving last; once there we settled down with cakes and Pegasus
Waterstones with (L to R) southdowner, Firedancer, CathyR**
and chatted about the important things in life – bellringing, cakes and Pegasus! Firedancer is a keen member of the local library and so we plan to arrange a larger PRC on the UK release with some local fantasy reading groups involved; I’m looking forward to that, but I’m glad we also had our intimate PRC now – it was such fun.
CathyR and I are both committed ringers (a term I use advisedly) but I might have persuaded Firedancer to come ringing with me to see what she’s missing. I’ll let you know how we get on :)
After meeting and greeting we braved the cold and headed out for the German market. Larger than some Christmas markets in Germany, we had a great time “window” shopping.
Firedancer and I discovered a mutual love of guinea pigs and our enthusiasm rather disconcerted CathyR – the evidence,
with CathyR hiding behind the camera :D
There are food stalls, ornaments, jewellery, and then there are hat stalls – we just had to try on a range of McKinley themed hats – dragon (bonus points to anyone who spots the dragon hat :) ), bee, cake…
as well as just plain daft – the fingers make that point …
And then of course we saw THIS and couldn’t resist taking its picture
- the only Pegasus we found in the market (and we looked really very thoroughly); on our way back past the stall it had gone, not that we were solely focussed on pegasi you understand, but we did all check individually!
And then on leaving the market we found this -
and for reasons of taste (well, it is EXTREMELY pink!!!) we then had to take a photo *g*
The temperature had really started to drop by now, so we repaired to Selfridges cafe and made inroads on more food and drink while having a really enjoyable discussion on our favourite Robin books and suggestions for reading for CathyR who still has a few unread. Firedancer and I discovered that we had both found our first McKinley book at the same independent bookshop in Birmingham (now sadly defunct) in pre internet days.
Next to our seats in the cafe were displays of various handbags and luggage, and some were spectacularly eye catching…
(CathyR) We also wondered whether it could ever be right to want want want the shiny purple handbag with a fluffy monkey attached, which was for sale near our table…
And the answer to that is yes! Yes! YES!!!! The bag was large enough for several books, the colour fantastic, but the monkey made it great ;) though I admit that I was alone in my monkey madness.
The day went far too soon, and as it began to get dark outside we said goodbye and headed for home. Thank you Robin not only for Pegasus but also for the opportunity to spend time with such lovely people.
* * *
*except for one photo take by an extremely friendly man at the next table in Waterstones cafe whom we importuned :P
** don’t we all like red!!!
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