Had a fantastic holiday in the UK with best mates Becca and Holly, and Oxford-native Ian, and am now back to work. As we are fangirls, there was a lot of Doctor Who-related geeking, as well as visiting with family and friends. The trip started in London, and introducing cousin's small girls to the joy that is Jill Thompson's Scary Godmother and Magic Trixie, and the delicious nutritionally-useless evil that is Candy Corn. (Cousin Rhona may never forgive me for that.) There was a day of site-seeing with lovely Lee Thompson and (World Fantasy Award-winning) Rob Shearman, and we then continued on to Stratford, Cardiff, back to London, and then finished in Oxford.
I saw lots of Ood in both the Cardiff Bay and Earls Court exhibitions, ate many English breakfasts, drank endless cups of tea, had a fantastic guided tour of the monsters at Crystal Palace, and had a lovely night out on Hallowe'en with friends Sue Cowley, Steve Roberts, and Simon Guerrier. And I got to cuddle with friends Carolyn and John's wee sprog, and see Sarah Jane Adventures from Monday I missed due to pre-Hamlet travel.
As wonderful as it was, I was glad to come home to my own bed Sunday night. I'm still basking in the glow, however. And I saw my first stage production of Hamlet at the RSC, which was utterly fantastic. I'm madly in love with the lighting design, and Patrick Stewart blew me away with his sympathetic Claudius. David Tennant's hair performed Hamlet very well, and he came bounding back out on stage for a second curtain call with the rest of the cast so gleeful and exuberant you could feel the wall of joy radiating from the stage. I got to see the announcement Wednesday night (very nearly live) that the Doctor will be regenerating, and I am now so incredibly excited and filled with joyful anticipation for what is to come. It feels utterly right that the Moffat Era will have a fresh start with a new Doctor.
Other highlights of the trip included random zombies in Leicester Square, Jedi along the Embankment, a lovely and very helpful employee at Waterstones in Piccadilly, an entire floor of second-hand books (and the always delightful Caroline Symcox) at the top of Blackwells in Oxford, and unexpected Who geekery with in The Eagle and Child pub where once Lewis and Tolkien nursed pints and argued religion for hours. I even survived the Eye, despite being deathly afraid of heights.
Alas, I came back to a work PC that needs to be rebuilt, mountains of work, and I picked up a cough my last few days in London that I've yet to shake.
