Then we returned to the back room where we chatted a bit while waiting for dinner, especially with Adele Kirby (no relation) the amazing warrior, who showed us her novel, A Sinless Sword.

The band Lavington Bound set up discreetly, and we remembered that it would be good if we could have a little chat with them.
If we hadn't been eating at this time, I would almost have tried to go and strike up a conversation while they were sitting in the cool outside, on the condition that it wouldn't disturb them, of course... Well, I say that but I was actually a bit in my daily "knackered and English-saturated" period, so well ^^

I just loved the concert that followed, all the more since the quality of sound was very good (according to the regular people they had a better set up than at the last Hogswatch, reading about which had made me a bit afraid).
We of course heard all directly Discworld-themed songs, and "Ankh-Mopork" to the music of "Amsterdam" by J. Brel, but also other songs from their first album, and, how can I say, I was really on cloud nine.
I took videos but it turns out that they all have awful sound, they are absolutely unusable, it's a shame.

Then, going back down, we stopped at the Dolphin where some craftsmen had set their stalls, including Worbleook who was in charge of the Pat Harkin (number one Discworld fan) Appreciation Society items. I bought a badge to add to my hat ^^

Then we went on down High Street, scanning each window to look for Feegles, and we felt a bit less lonely as costumed loonies..

I'm back from my first Discworld Event attending, the Spring Fling in Wincanton, city of the Cunning Artificer's Emporium, officially twinned with a virtual town and where some new streets have Ankh-Morpork streets names.

When I joined the Discworld Emporium's forum to look further in this Discworld Event, the regular people attending had welcomed me as if I were already a full member of their big family, though they didn't knew anything about me.

After this wide weekend, I can confirm and I, too, can assure that all these jolly fans are really very welcoming and helpful, and that the mood in Wincanton is very very friendly and enthusiast.

It hasn't be easy for me to understand others and make myself understood in english (especially with the noisy background in the inns), but it has gone very well, as everyone predicted it to me.

I had a very good time, and I came back with a head full of memories, and the feeling of having recharged my batteries (in every meaning of the word) and plenty of stuff to share...

All I want is to go back!

Till then, here is my review:

After a day of travel and adventures (see my complete review on my blog), we arrived in Wincanton with the same bus as Worbleook, the only other French person attending to the Discworld Event and a long-time regular. It was only on his lead that we dared push the door of the Cunning Artficer's shop when we arrived in the evening, as it was normally already closed. And we already knew it, but it is indeed the paradise for Pratchettian geeks...

Since he said to us that if we wanted to buy something in particular it was better to take the opportunity and not wait until it ran of being sold out, we made our first purchases. We even got Boffo's "Bijou Special Whoopee Cushions" as welcoming gifts!

We also parted with the items we were donating for the Sunday charity auction: two French Discworld books with our new French illustrator Marc Simonetti covers (Le Faucheur/The Reaper Man and Procrastination/Thief of Time), and two wondrous drawings by Anilori...

We even had our hands kissed by Bernard Pearson, the Cunning Artificer himself, who came out the back of the shop and took offence at Anilori's talent, which apparently was a threat to his artists ^^

And finally, we took a glimpse to the Bear and the Dolphin, and we met up with Sarah, the very kind landlady of Maccawber House (which appears to be named after a Dickens character in Great Expectations, though mispelled), the Bed & Beakfast where we set up for these few days, just a few minutes' walk from the Emporium.

The next morning, after a good English breakfast (fried eggs, bacon, mushrooms, tomatoes - without the beans it suits me very well, in fact), as the shop wasn't open yet and the Bear was empty, we went for a stroll wandering through the alleys of Wincanton, passing by all the flag that had been proudly put up, as in the whole United Kingdom on this Royal Wedding Day.

Then we watched it on the tv at the Bear with other Pratchettian people, by the way, with a lot of comments and mockery remarks about incredible hats, the best way to watch a royal wedding ^^

After that it was time for us to go back to the B&B and get ready for the other royal wedding, the Wincanton one, actually the civil partnership ceremony of Dave "Snake" Hayden and Chris "Illusion".

On the way we just had a stop at the Emporium, where we were given a jolly good piece of pie that served as lunch ^^

 

After doing our last fittings and last-minute adjustments, we had go back again to blend in with the picturesque little crowd gathered at the Dolphin.
It was so great to see all these costumes, each one cleverer and more gorgeous than the others.

And it was in this lovely gathering that we listened to the two-voice speech of Dave and Chris, followed by the very official congratulations by Bernard.

In the following blur, we met an awesome Twoflowers with his iconograph that contained a real camera, we tasted straweberry cider, my pendant made by Amandine Labarre was a success, and back at the Bear I succeed to borrow (from Mr Boggis, nothing less) an international adaptor to recharge my phone battery, and also a mini laptop from Renta with the first episode of Dr Who's Series 6 on it, because I wanted to see it before the second one aired on the next day.
We met a man (one of the Daves, but which one? many peoples of the Event were called either Dave, or Chris, or similar) who had made on his computer a piece of software that reproduced the Ankh-Morpork map and made it possible to know how wide was such and such a street or city gate...

 

Then there was the wedding banquet (with bouquets of absolutely admirable origami flowers), which allowed us to discover the big back room, where we hadn't dare to go since we had been here, and where, actually, everything happens. There we chatted with plenty of people, including a lovely Lady Ramkin among others.

But we had had a long day, we had accumulated tiredness and we wanted to be on form the next day, so we had preferred not to stay more long and to go to sleep...

It seems that we only missed salacious jokes and silly karaoke bets ^^ (nevermind!)

Satursday was really the first day of the Discworld Event.

Still early, we decided to first go down the Wincanton post office, buy some more postcards (besides the very Discworldish ones we bought at the Emporium), and some other shopping. On our way, we noticed an early Feegle settled in his window ^^

 

But we diddn't have our "Spotting the feegles" forms yet - we got them later at the Emporium, where the window had been nicely rearranged for the occasion, and from there we began our Feeglespotting by first going upstreet.

Then, going back down, we stopped at the Dolphin where some craftsmen had set their stalls, including Worbleook who was in charge of the Pat Harkin (number one Discworld fan) Appreciation Society items. I bought a badge to add to my hat ^^

Then we went on down High Street, scanning each window to look for Feegles, and we felt a bit less lonely as costumed loonies..

 

 

 

("aargh crivens", "Where's my cow?", and the two we missed)

We had just missed one (two, in fact) when we came back at the Dolphin to see the traditionnal Punch & Judy show, with the Fools Guild Arms on the theater ^^

 

I was just sitting down on the ground, having failed to find a chair, when I had a little surprise...
"Are you Leia Tortoise?
- Yes...
- I'm Clodia Metelli."
Yay! My beta-reader for my little bilingual fanfics, from the time I was hanging around on the board set up by Adarah! I had reminded her of the event, indeed, but I thought she wouldn't be able to come, so it was a really good surprise.

She stayed with us for the rest of the programme, that is to say a presentation of the "Ankh-Morpork" board gam, which is to be released soon, by its creator, Martin Wallace.
In the end, we went and simply ask him to sign our Dedicacium since we hadn't prepared any questions for an interview.

Then, Anilori and Clodia got a cup of tea while I was trying to learn how to get to the new streets named after Ankh-Morpork ones, and everyone was so kind that I quickly got a map and instructions, and it turned out that it could be easily attending walking, contrary to what I thought.

So we left in search of the signs, and we easily found the Treacle Mine Road one, next to which we posed ^^ Then we looked for the other ones but we finally came back empty-handed ; I learned later that the Treacle Mine Road sign is the only one that can be seen at the moment, since the area is still being built.

Back at the Bear, we attended the bonnet Parade, then Clodia left to catch her bus. We listened to the etiquette lecture by Bernard and the gorgeous *Davina*, and then we went and watched the Doctor Who episode of the day live on tv, like the royal wedding the day before - though with a bigger audience and a religious silence.

 

Then we returned to the back room where we chatted a bit while waiting for dinner, especially with Adele Kirby (no relation) the amazing warrior, who showed us her novel, A Sinless Sword.

The band Lavington Bound set up discreetly, and we remembered that it would be good if we could have a little chat with them.
If we hadn't been eating at this time, I would almost have tried to go and strike up a conversation while they were sitting in the cool outside, on the condition that it wouldn't disturb them, of course... Well, I say that but I was actually a bit in my daily "knackered and English-saturated" period, so well ^^

I just loved the concert that followed, all the more since the quality of sound was very good (according to the regular people they had a better set up than at the last Hogswatch, reading about which had made me a bit afraid).
We of course heard all directly Discworld-themed songs, and "Ankh-Mopork" to the music of "Amsterdam" by J. Brel, but also other songs from their first album, and, how can I say, I was really on cloud nine.
I took videos but it turns out that they all have awful sound, they are absolutely unusable, it's a shame.

Well, nevermind, I bring back memories just in my head, and it's already a lot ^^

So at the end we have introduced ourselves and ask for a little interview after their break, which they agreed very gladly, and I have to say that it has been for me a Great Moment, with our little improvised interview (no handheld recorder, questions worked out bat out of hell...)

Well, we had to move at a time because we hardly heard each ones with Cohen playing kazoo, and Tor had left just after the concert and we have finished without Edward who was packing away their stuff from the stage, but it was better than nothing et it was yet very very much for us.

I'm really a huge fan of this band, and I'm so glad of this evening.
I would like to do it again ^^

The next day being our last day in Wincanton, our planning was obviously very busy, and just like we though,t we didn't have the time to do everything we wanted to do ^^

Already, at breakfast, we were trying to get the missing mail adresses for our postcards, and to write up some questions to ask in case we we could get little interviews with the Emporium team, and possibly Pat Harkin and Jason Anthony (the Monthly's editor)...
And we were already thinking we'd never have enough time to do all that, and buy stamps for our postcards, and see the beginning of the auction, and welcome Estelle and Vince, our Cardiff expat friends, and go visit Stonehenge, and spend some time with them, not to forget lunch and having to be ready in time to get our luggage at Maccawber House so we didn't miss our bus back to London.

As we had guessed, we didn't have the time to do all that, mostly concerning the interviews ^^ We should have planned that early, on the days before, while we had more time, but we still wanted to do our best anyway.

Our first step was to go see at the Emporium if we could gather the whole team and have a little interview before the charity auction. While Isobel went in search of Bernard, Reb helped us with our postcards, offering to post those who were ready on the next day and to supply all the stamps, even for those we still had to finish writing, so we could post them from London. Icing on the cake, it was Royal Mail "Magical realms" stamps she supplied, with Rincewind and Nanny Ogg's faces. Very kind!

 

After that, it seemed that the other members of the Emporium team were already at the Bear to attend the auction and it was the only place where we'd find them all. We realised that we wouldn't get an interview with them, but we headed to the Bear in the hope of getting some signatures in the Dedicacium ; we managed to catch up with Pat Harkin and ask him some questions before he began the auction

So we sat behind Bernard and Isobel while giving them the Dedicacium which they kindly signed (Bernard even signed the Anilori's envelope, in which Reb had left copies of her drawings, before we had time to explain to him that it was the Dedicacium we wished him to sign ^^).

The auction began with our French items, as we had asked, since we didn't want to miss this moment while we were at Stonehenge.
Speaking of which, Estelle and Vince arrived at this moment, and so they got a glimpse at the sweet craziness of the gathering when they saw the few costumes - and very few they saw, most of the public being in "civilian" clothes - the kind of items that were auctioned, and how much some of them raised (like the protoype of the Ankh-Morpork board game, which went for over 100£).

Not to forget the chorus of quacks ponctuating the whole thing: Worbleook gave us a little yellow duck to squeeze, which, as far as we understood, is a running gag from former Discworld Events. We didn't know much about but it was funny and we followed with great pleasure ^^

We stayed a while, hoping to try and buy a Feegle from the Spotting thing, since we were told they were going to be auctioned, I and wanted to try and buy one of the eggs with faces and the little pumpkins that were in the Emporium window before, but we didn't see them on the table or in the hands of the nice assistants, and finally I still wonder if all that had been auctionned... (I know now that they were stuck in their windows, shops being closed)
In the meantime, I nevertheless bought the Granny Weatherwax doll with her "I aten't dead" post-it ^^

So I gave Ian and Reb the Dedicacium, and we left for Stonehenge with Estelle and Vince. On the way back, we made a stop at the twinning sign...

And as we didn't have ate yet, The Bear didn't supply food any more (it was 3.00, hum), so we went to the Nog Inn. And not only was it far more expensive than at the Bear, but the service took much longer! Since our fish and chips still weren't coming and time was passing, I decided to leave and figure out how to get my Granny Weatherwax while Anilori took away our lunch in doggy bags.

JI went back very quickly to the Bear where the cake contest was in full swing, and when I explained what I was looking for, I was advised to see at the shop, so I headed straight to it without even thinking of saying goodbye (I hadn't quite realised that it was my last time at the Bear, actually). At the shop, Ian told me he hadn't get the auction items back yet, but he took my postal adress to send it to me later.

Meantime, Anilori and Estelle went quickly to the Bear and received the special goodbye of Bernard Pearson, his usual "piss off" that he set on saying in french but it seems the result was kind of tactless. Anilori did get the meaning and intention, but it put a look of chock on the Estelle's face, which everybody noticed and regretted to the point of transmitting collective apologies later. Anilori and I were already used to the spectacular speeches of Bernard and the rough French of those who gave it a try, so we were rather touched by Bernard's effort to express his happiness at our coming ^^

I didn't even have to wait a minute before they came to get me at the shop ; then Estelle and Vince drove us at Maccawber House and then to the bus station. We ate our doggy bags while they walked back to the shop, and we even had the time to see them back with their "Going postal" book, with a wonderful inked stamp inside (I'm jealous!).

Then they left to see the Cheddar Gorge before going back to Cardiff, and we took our bus to London.

I was reading our Stonehenge guide book when we passed again alongside the stones...

Back in London, Anilori made a gorgeous watercolor paint based on a sketch beginned in Stonehenge, we briefly wandered in London, and finally we came back home... regretfully!