Current mood:

bouncy

Meeting Zed and Graham Norton
I've had a fun day!

Today Zed was down in Bournemouth to see a band, so we took the opportunity to meet up for the first time. I caught a bus to Bournemouth early this afternoon and walked up to the railway station to meet Zed off her train. (I took a map this time, so there was no more station-related getting-lostness.)  Zed's train was due in at 2:13, but it was running just over ten minutes late, so I needn't have made the effort to get there slightly early!  I had to go through the subway to get to the right platform, but then annoyingly they made a platform alteration at the last minute and I had to go all the way back again. (Random observation: the toilets at Bournemouth station absolutely reek of aniseed, for some reason.)

The train finally arrived, and was extremely long (ends out of sight in both directions), so I wasn't quite sure which way to look!  For ages I couldn't see anyone wearing Zedlike clothes, and I was beginning to wonder if she hadn't caught the train, but then I caught sight of someone who absolutely *had* to be Zed due to the amount of blaaack and the large boots. ;o)  (I also recognised her from photos.)  I hope I will not embarrass her if I say she was really nice - I'm always a bit nervous of meeting people IRL, but I felt comfortable talking to Zed straight away. :)

We walked back down Old Christchurch Road, chatting about a variety of random things (I believe we started with a discussion of Pixar movies!). Zed spotted a strange poster which said something like "WANTED - [picture of girl] - thought to be disguised as a cat". Ummmm... okaaayyyy!  We decided to give most shops a miss, but Zed did want to visit a Claire's Accessories so she could buy some more black jelly bracelets for her growing collection. I said I didn't think there was a Claire's Accessories in Bournemouth, and then 10 seconds later we found one - that's my powers of observation for you!  They didn't have a pack of black bracelets, though, so we abandoned that quest and fled the shop before we were crushed to death by the crowds in there.

Upon reaching the Square, we wandered over to Borders as Graham Norton was going to be signing copies of his autobiography later, and I wanted to try and see which part of the shop had been cleared for him. But there were no signs or anything about it, so we left the shop and headed across to the Gardens. We strolled down to the Pier and then walked along the beach to Durley Chine, where we sat on a bench and witnessed a *gorgeous* sunset - the Isle of Wight was actually RED as if someone was shining a coloured lamp on it!  I took a bunch of photos but I've no idea if they'll come out alright. Amazingly we still had not run out of things to talk about - we were exchanging holiday memories by this point.

Zed briefly ventured into the sea (just because), and then we walked back, with a detour into the arcade so that Zed could get rid of her 2p coins in the thing with the moving shelf. (She didn't manage to dislodge anything, and it was a rubbish machine anyway as there were no extra prizes to win!  Bah.)  We returned to the Gardens and went to look at the aviary, but didn't stay there for long as it was already quite dark so you couldn't see much!  We still had something like 25 minutes to kill before we needed to return to Borders, so Zed suggested a trip to HMV. There we examined their metal selection and were bemused to find The Rasmus under this category(!). We were also appalled by the sight of a DVD version of Trivial Pursuit... disturbing enough in itself, but even more so because the question categories were things like "Trends" and "Gossip" instead of History and Geography. Dear god. 8|  This shop was even more crowded than Claire's had been, and we had some difficulty making our way out again. We then met Mum outside Borders at ten to five as planned, and Mum took a photo of Zed and I with my camera. She had managed to establish that Graham Norton would be doing the book signing downstairs, and that it was probably OK for her to use the copy I'd already bought her for Christmas (although the shop preferred people to buy the book *there* after getting it signed).

So we headed downstairs and were pleased to find the queue wasn't too bad, stretching the length of just two aisles. A fair few people joined the line behind us, but it still wasn't too manic - I'm sure they will have finished within an hour. Graham turned up a few minutes late, dressed in a surprisingly tame red shirt. When it was our turn to go up, I took a photo of Mum & Graham while he signed the book (he wrote "For Doreen, So Me, love Graham Norton"), and then one of the shop staff offered to take a picture of all three of us posing with Graham. There was also a press photographer taking pictures of everyone who went up, so who knows, we might end up appearing in the Echo. ;o)  Mum told Graham that the book was a Christmas present from me (he said something like "Nice present!"), and that I'd been the one who originally introduced her to his shows - Graham turned to me and said "That was brave, introducing your mother to me!". Hee hee... he was really nice, just as down-to-earth as he seems on TV. I think that's the first time I've ever talked to a famous person, too, so it was all very cool. :o)

We came out of Borders at about half five, which left just enough time for us to walk Zed back to the train station where she would be meeting her friend Alex at 6pm. I was really impressed by how well we filled out the time today, I had *so* been expecting us to run out of stuff to do!  My thanks to Zeddeth for a most enjoyable afternoon; we really must meet up again sometime.

My mood was slightly dampened as Mum and I passed the Litten Tree on the way back down to town... I caught sight of a ZU2 gig advertised in the window, but then noticed that the date of it was 18th NOVEMBER!!  Nnnnnooooooo, how could I not have known about that?!  I could have sworn I checked the gig listings last month. Evidently I did not. I can't believe Dave Chinery never even mentioned it... perhaps he didn't know either?  I'm so gutted, that's the second time I've missed them this year. The first time was unavoidable as it clashed with my exams, but I did NOTHING of any importance on 18th November!  *wails*  I bet they won't be back till the summer now, if not later. 8'(

Still, the day ended on another cool note - Mum and I were exiting the Con Club after popping in to tell Dad we were back, when we bumped into a guy we hadn't seen in years (the son of Mum's old next-door neighbour). I wouldn't have recognised him at all, I hadn't seen him in over a decade and don't even remember what he looked like then. He's *incredibly* tall now - I practically wrenched my neck trying to look him in the eye when we spoke!  Seemed like a very friendly guy, though, and he gave Mum some updates on his mother, who it turns out is now living in a care home quite near us. So Mum will be able to go and visit her sometime, which is nice.

I guess that's about it!  I wonder how many vital details I've forgotten to include in this report?