So from the day I arrived in Europe, when people asked for my itinerary, it included Swindon. And from the day I arrived in Europe, "I'm going to Swindon for two weeks," was greeted with "why?"

At the end of my (glorious, exciting, restful) stay in Glasgow, Stuart drove me and Amal to the train station, where she walked me through the process of getting my ticket and locating my train. This is more complicated than you might think, especially when it's happening in a country where you don't actually happen to live, and which is hence perpetually confusing. My friend Hisham had assisted me with the booking process and told me how to find my seat (also more confusing than you might think), and in short order I was squared away on the train, where I hugged Amal goodbye several times before settling down to watch Leverage for most of the duration of the six-hour trip.

(Kate's old iPad basically saved my sanity on long stretches of this voyage, I swear.)

I was about two hours in when a hand tapped my shoulder and there was Hisham, who had hopped on to ride with me for a while (he works for the trains). He brought me Coke Zero and cookies, thus cementing his position as one of my favorite humans. He also brought me Pokemon, and we passed a pleasant hour or so trading electronic monsters and chatting about all manner of things. It was awesome, and I enjoyed it a lot. I like friends on trains. It makes the time go faster.

Alas, eventually he had to leave me, and I finished the rest of my journey in electronic silence, pulling into the stop at Bristol Parkway about five and a half hours after I left Glasgow. Talis was waiting for me there, wearing a splendid scarf printed with bees. After hugs and happy exclamations, she helped me transfer my suitcase to my second and final train, and we rode on to Swindon, where we caught a cab to my true destination: the village of Wroughton.

Wroughton is close enough to Swindon that it was easier to say I was going there, but in reality, it's a lovely little village where everything is within walking distance (except for the big new Waitrose), and where everyone knows Talis, who has been getting more and more active in local politics over the years. I was staying in her upstairs guest bedroom, on a narrow bed that looked like an ascetic's cot and felt like the clouds of heaven. Her husband, Simon, was in France when I arrived, meaning it was just me, Talis, and their lovely daughter, Pippa, who I hadn't spent any real time with since she was a toddler.

Even the highlights of my time in Wroughton seem so big and complex that they're hard to wrap my mind around. I went to country market. I performed with Talis at the Greener Gloucester Festival. I went to two folk clubs with Talis and her singing partner, Chantelle. I ate a lot of Victoria sponge, and drank a lot of rose lemonade. I made chicken stock and then chicken soup, which was delicious. I went to Cheddar, and saw cheese being born. I stroked the two resident black and white magpie boycats.

I chased and caught so many frogs and toads, and ate eggs I had pulled from under chickens, and harvested raspberries and blackberries from the vine into my mouth, and it was wonderful. It was restorative and peaceful and glorious and perfect, and I am so grateful. So, so grateful.

I love my friends. I love my life. And I loved the frogs.

I'm going back next year.

When last we left our intrepid heroes, they were arriving at the Aloft, hence to set up base camp for the convention. Hooray! Only...not so much hooray, as my bank had turned my credit card off for fraud after seeing it used at Heathrow Airport and our initial hotel. In England. Where I had told them I would be.

I called the bank and had a borderline hostile conversation, ending when they turned my card back on and I was able to check us into the hotel. Wes and I then went to pick up the wheelchair Amy had booked for me. (My walking difficulties are continuing to improve, but "improving" doesn't mean the same as "better," and we very much wanted to be sure that I would be able to walk both in Paris and at Eurocon the following week.) It turned out that, despite us having put the booking in ultra-early, there were no independent mobility (IE, "big round wheels") chairs left, and I was put into a hospital-style chair that required someone to push me. Not so awesome.

We got me checked in and were off to my first panel, on pseudonyms. While I was there, Wes took the hospital chair back to the mobility desk and got me upgraded to a mobility scooter, on account of I did not have the independent movement I had been promised and no one wanted to have to help me get to the bathrooms. Everybody wins! (Vixy and I did not have a fully handicapped-accessible room, but had decided that parking the scooter in the shower was better than, again, no independence at all.) The panel went well, and we borked off for supper with a lot of my favorite people—Mary and Simon, Talis and Pippa, Brooke and Amy and Vixy and Wes—at the Indian restaurant at the end of the walk. We ran into Wesley Chu on the way back, and a good time was had by all.

That night was I'm Sorry, I Haven't A Clue, hosted by Lee Harris, and we had a splendid time. It was me and Cat "vs." Paul and Emma, and everyone acquitted themselves handsomely. I was still struggling with the tail end of my cold, and so made plans to tap out if necessary (Heath was ready to be our stunt Seanan), but I was able to get through the whole session, and only coughed so hard I stopped breathing once. Meg was seated in the front row, and was able to interpret my pantomime and get me my cough syrup. Life was very good indeed.

Friday passed in a blur. For my reading, I did half of "We Are All Misfit Toys in the Aftermath of the Velveteen War," and followed it up with an impromptu hallway signing that lasted no shit half an hour, courtesy of my not having an actual signing. (This was not the fault of the convention; I was the one who mis-booked the train tickets.) The queue was remarkably orderly, and crowned by Hisham walking over and offering me Pokemon. I LOVE YOU HISHAM. Pokemon: the way to my heart.

Saturday's panel on girl scientists was excellent, and I basically used Amanda as my guide. "Does this piss Amanda off?" I would ask myself, and then ask the question.

My concert was splendid and the filk track organizers were brilliant when they forced me to accept the big room (I had said I would be perfectly happy with the normal filk concert space). It held three hundred people, and we near to filled it. Dead Sexy was wonderful, as always. (Dead Sexy is the version of my backing band consisting of Bill and Brenda Sutton, Amy McNally, Dr. Mary Crowell, and Michelle Dockrey.) We scrapped "What A Woman's For" at the last minute, due to concerns about my voice and our arrangement, and dropped in "Still Catch the Tide," because it's something we can do without lyric sheets or practice. Talis was in the audience.

She'd never heard us do it live before.

I made Talis cry.

It was a good night, overall, and I am very glad to have been there.

I stayed on Sunday, just long enough for my panel on fan works, and then it was off to the rail station to catch the Eurostar to Paris. Vixy and I "watched" the Hugos over Twitter from our Parisian apartment (the wireless wasn't good enough to stream), and while I was sorry not to be there, Sunil was so happy to be me that I was honestly glad to have mis-booked the train: he glows in all the pictures I've seen, and I am always happy when I can give good experiences to my friends.

Congratulations to all the winners, solidarity to all the losers (of whom I am one), and I'll see you all next year.

Next up: DISNEYLAND.

I am home from Conflikt! I got up at 4:08 am this morning in order to catch my commuter flight back to San Francisco, and managed to stay awake long enough to read most of the way through Graveminder by Melissa Marr, after finishing Range of Ghosts by Elizabeth Bear. And this is why Seanans always travel with lots and lots of reading material. Nothing brings on insomnia like having nothing to read.

I'd like to say that it was a good convention, but I'll be honest: I don't know. For me, it was a series of charms strung on a silken cord, and some of them were brilliant, and some of them were bright, and some of them could have used a spot of polish, and very few of them went together in a logical way, because that is what a convention while already exhausted and overworked looks like. I had fun. I am awake enough to be quite sure of that.

But oh, there were amazing things. Talis came, white horse girl all the way across the water, one of the oldest denizens of the Babylon Wood, and she sang "Still Catch the Tide" and "Ten Years" in her concert, and I cried like a very crying thing, as did Vixy. There are very few people in this world who can break my heart like Talis can, or who I love half so much for doing it. And she had her new album! Queen of Spindles, and she put it in my hand like a promise or a prayer, and I listened to it all the way home.

Pin-trading with Jovanie and Anne, and stealing Anne's Companion Cube pillow over and over again. Dinner with Brooke and Judi and Ryan, followed by chocolate books. Lunch with Jennifer. Fringe with Ryan and rooming with Brooke and going to Old Navy (as always). The Suttons, tearing up the stage, and Sunnie's Mama Gitka, and Katie Tinney writing the "Wicked Girls" parody I think I shall everafter love most of them all. And rain, and 7-11, and hugs, and friends, and home. I went home this weekend. I will go back soon.

Perhaps then I will be able to stay.

So this is my charm bracelet of a weekend. It flashes lovely in the light, and I can work the clasp even when I'm tired. Soon I'll go to my bed, and my cats, and my dreams of the wood, but for now, I am still partway on a plane, and I am very very far away from home.