I’ve had a couple of days of sleeping late and reading most of the day (I am *so* glad I decided to take this week off work!), so I’m pretty much recovered from the convention now (it wasn’t so much the actual convention events – it was the staying up half the night talking and sorting out books for the next day and waiting for a turn on the internet to make release notes and journal entries and forum posts and…). We went over to Trattorie for breakfast this morning, to return the “mobile OCZ” to its proper place on the bookshelves there. Of course, when I got there, I couldn’t help having a glance through the few books still on the shelves, and ended up picking up three: The Shipping News by E Annie Proulx, Like You, Really by Kate Flannery, and The River King by Alice Hoffman

And now, to get on with writing backdated diary entries for the convention weekend (hopefully I’ll be more successful at getting it written up this time than I was for Sydney – I never did finish that, did I?)

Currently reading: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by JK Rowling

I didn’t pick up nearly as many books at this convention as I did in Sydney, but I still acquired quite a stack:

• The Cat Who Knew Shakespeare by Lilian Jackson Braun
• Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by JK Rowling
• Press Send by John McLaren
• The Theory of War by Joan Brady
• Grand Ambition by Lisa Michaels
• Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella
• Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
• Act of God by Susan R Sloan
• The Trough by Jon Gadsby
• The Narrow Corner by W Somerset Maughan
• I’ll Take You There by Joyce Carol Oates
• The Republic of Love by Carol Shields
• Vroom with a View by Peter Moore
• The Winners’ Enclosure by Annie Caulfield
• Gump & Co. by Winston Groom
• Falling Angels by Tracy Chevalier

Breakfast on Monday was a much more relaxed occasion – the sun had finally come out, so we sat outside at the cafe, and enjoyed one last chance to talk to our new friends, and to share a few last books.

We had a few thank-you speeches, and then presented the NZBC Awards (invented for the occasion, but so popular I think they’ll make a comeback at the next convention):

The NZBC Awards 2005

Best Themed Release

Awarded to Skyring for releasing In the Pond in the pond.

Most Unusual Release

Awarded to lytteltonwitch for dropping Doberman Pinschers onto some very surprised tourists in a passing punt.

Best Release Photo

Awarded to littlemave for a photo of Damaged Gods on a statue of a damaged god.

Best Catch

Awarded to Skyring for getting The Secret of Santa Vittoria caught despite the best efforts of an agressive seagull.

Bookcrossing Ambassador Award

Awarded to Cathietay for spreading the Bookcrossing word to all the staff and patrons of the Dux de Lux on Friday night (whether she remembers doing so or not).

Special Award for Bookcrossing Beyond the Call of Duty

Awarded to Mundoo for her endless supply of labels, badges, stickers, mugs, and enthusiasm.

After breakfast, we officially handed over the convention (Olympics-style) to the Dunedin team for 2006, and then took a few last pictures of Bookcrossers displaying some of the Bookcrossing merchandise from the supply store, for Ron to use for publicity:

Lytteltonwitch showing off the latest fashion accessory – Bookcrossing earrings (not actually available from the supply store – she bought the little charms from there, and turned them into earrings herself)

And then it was all over. People drifted off to catch planes, or to fit in some last-minute sight-seeing, and the 2005 NZBC Convention was no more.

All over too soon (although I was kind of glad it was over, just so I could finally rest – rarsberry dashed off straight after breakfast to catch her bus home to Dunedin, and littlemave and Lollie-mavette went to spend the afternoon with some friends, so I was left at home, all on my own for the first time in about a week. I thought I’d sit down with a book for a few minutes… and woke up 3 hours later!)

All in all, a great convention, and worth the effort that went into organising. But I am NEVER going to organise another one!!!!

Bright and early on Sunday morning (ok, so it was 9 am again, but by this stage we’d had so many late nights that 9 felt *very* early), lytteltonwitch picked us up and took us into town, where our bus was waiting for us. We met the driver and his family (who we’d invited along for the ride, seeing as he had to work on Easter Sunday), loaded up the bus with boxes of books, and plastered the windows with Bookcrossing logos.

It was much too big a bus for our small group, of course, but it had actually worked out cheaper than hiring a smaller bus (weird, but true!), and it did mean that everyone got a spare seat for their bags of books!

We counted heads (then counted again because I lost count the first time…) and were off on the road to our secret destination: Akaroa. First stop along the way was to pick up Daveytay, who was waiting for us at a bus stop on our route (he’d dropped Cathietay and the picnic food off in town, and then driven back home to wait for the bus, to avoid having to find a park in town). Then things settled down for a while until we reached the first bit of windy road around the base of the hills, when Lollie-mavette was sick. A stop for fresh air perked her up, and finally we reached our first official stop, Little River, where we all piled out of the bus to use the toilets, buy post-cards, and release a few books.

My Little River releases:
Death Notes by Ruth Rendell
Disclosure by Michael Crichton
Paradise Lost by John Milton
Tyler’s Gold by Andrew Grant (which got caught!)

Then it was back in the bus, and up the steep road to Hilltop (with lots of jokes directed at the Australians about them needing breathing gear for the altitude), where we had a brief stop to admire the view. There was a barbed-wire fence at the edge of the carpark, and I had a couple of books I’d put in plastic bags, so it seemed the obvious thing to do to hang them from it.
You Can do the Cube by Patrick Bossert
Poirot Investigates by Agatha Christie
They were quickly joined by other books, until we had a pretty impressive looking “book fence”.

Not all of the releases at Hilltop were to the book fence. rarsberry released a book on a large rock at the lookout point, and we saw it being picked up and passed around by a group of people.

I think they were put off by us watching them (and taking photos!) though, because in the end they left it where it was

Back in the bus, and down the hill to Akaroa. As we pulled into the domain, where we were going to have lunch and leave the bus, I spotted a promising sign: “Booksale!!!” I called out, and everyone pressed against the bus windows trying to spot where it was. It turned out to be in the bowls club, right next to where we were stopping! And a very promising sign read “Books 3 for $2″ (Of course, we tried to claim that we’d known about it all along and that’s why we were stopping there, but for some reason nobody beleived us!) We left Cathytay in charge of setting out the lunch (don’t worry, several of us volunteered to help her, but she sent us off to the sale), and ran over to the bowls club to see what was on offer. Bookcrossing nirvana! Tables piled high with books, hardcover and paperback, many in very good condition, and all 3 for $2!

(Photo courtesy of Skyring)

The people running the sale couldn’t beleive their eyes as we all swooped on the tables and began picking up armloads of books. We all left with at least one supermarket bag full, some people with several – so not only a lot of happy bookcrossers armed with new ammunition, but a happy bowls club that made a lot of money very quickly!

Catsalive leaves books on windshields in the carpark on her way to the booksale.

Lunch was a picnic of subway sandwiches, hot soup (Cathietay’s clever idea when she realised the weather was going to stay overcast, and heated on a camping stove), biscuits and apples. Again, no shortage of food, and only cost us $8 a head! The catering was definitely something we did well with this weekend.

You can tell it’s a Bookcrossing picnic – rarsberry gets in some reading time as she stirs the soup (I don’t know why this thumbnail came out sideways – the full picture is the right way up)

Cathietay tests out the effects of soup on her new mug.

The “books on fences” theme continues.

After lunch, we had three hours to kill before the bus had to leave again, so we went our separate ways to explore the town and release books. Of course, Akaroa is a very small town, so we were constantly bumping into other Bookcrossers, spotting bright yellow bags in the distance, and most of all spotting books, released in every conceivable location. For a while there it was getting hard to find somewhere to release a book where there wasn’t one already! Each time we’d meet another Bookcrosser we’d compare notes on where we’d released, what we’d seen picked up, the reactions we’d seen from tourists and locals… loads of fun (ok, so it probably sounds really boring, but trust me, if you’re a Bookcrosser this kind of stuff is fun!)

My Akaroa releases:
Bebert et L’Omnibus by Francois Boyer (I cheated, because I knew our destination, so could bring a few French books for themed releases)
Le Sabbat by Maruice Sachs
Une Passion by Christiane Singer
Le Palace by Claude Simon
Le Fond Du Probleme by Graham Greene
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
The Pigman’s Legacy by Paul Zindel
The Scarlatti Inheritance by Robert Ludlum
Darts by Tom Barrett (Got caught!)
Crisis on Conshelf Ten by Monica Hughes
The Trojan Horse by Hammond Innes
The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan
The Daffodil Girls by Peter Hawkins
Onward Virgin Soldiers by Leslie Thomas
A History of the United States by RB Nye and JE Morpurgo
The Moon’s a Balloon by David Niven
The Case Against Adolf Eichmann ed. by Henry A Zeiger
Classic Irish Drama ed. by WA Armstrong
Three Plays by Sean O’Casey
A-Z and Back Again by Carol Mills

And best of all, the sun came out, and it turned into a perfect day!

As usual, most of the photos I took were of my releases, so I’ve included them in the journal entries for the books, but here’s a few of random scenery:

Best release of the day was by Skyring, who in his inimitable fashion threw a book (safely waterproofed in a plastic bag, of course) into the harbour, much to the bemusement of the people walking by. It quickly attracted the attention of seagulls, and one large black-backed gull in particular took exception to it, pecking violently at the plastic bag. As it (accompanied by seagull) floated out to sea, we expected that would be the last we heard of it.

(Photo courtesy of Skyring)

But surprisingly, there was a happy ending to the seagull story – the book actually got caught! Some people spotted it from a boat, and rescued it (although lytteltonwitch is still sticking to her theory that it was actually the seagull who registered it, thus disproving rarsberry’s theory that beaks are ill-suited to typing).

We left Akaroa tired but happy, and headed home to Christchurch, with just one brief stop at Hilltop to replenish the bookfence (all the books we’d left there in the morning were gone!)

Goodbye California by Alistair Mclean
Proteus by Morris West
Flanagan’s Run by Tom McNab
Trophy Wife by Nicola Thorne (Got caught!)

“Convention Dinner” sounds like such a formal thing, doesn’t it? Not in this case – we’d surveyed a few bookcrossers when we were first planning the convention, and the general consensus was that cheap and cheerful was the way to go, so we booked a meeting room at Christchurch Girls (luckily getting a nice discount because lytteltonwitch is an Old Girl, and the person she booked the room through had heard of Bookcrossing and thought it was a good idea), and got Thai takeaways for dinner (we got a selection of 5 dishes for each table, plus tonnes of rice and prawn crackers (which the takeaway place threw in for free when they saw how big our order was!), and they were really nice – everyone seemed to enjoy them, and I don’t think anyone went short of food!)

As usual, the tables were piled high with books. I contributed:

• Witchcraft by Geoffrey Parrinder
• The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N by Leonard Q Ross
• The Last Emperor by Edward Behr
• Charley by Joan G Robinson
• The Bedside Esquire ed. by Arnold Gingrich
• Pardon Me, You’re Stepping on My Eyeball by Paul Zindel
• Trophy Wife by Nicola Thorne (which ended up in the OCZ, got released on Sunday and got caught!)
• Sharpe’s Triumph by Bernard Cornwell
• Shadows by Shaun Hutson
• Magnolia Street by Louis Golding
• Good Wives by Lousia M Alcott
• Buy Jupiter by Isaac Asimov

I’d also brought along Empire of the Sun by JG Ballard, but ended up giving it to the school caretaker, who’d come to open up the room for us. While we were talking, he asked us what the dinner was for, and we were telling him about Bookcrossing and the convention, so I grabbed a book out of my bag to show him the labels etc, and he mentioned that it was a book he’d always wanted to read – so of course I gave it to him Don’t know if he’ll ever journal it, but at least it’s gone to an appreciative home.

After the dinner, we had our “celebrity” debate. The celebrities were, of course, bookcrossing celebrities, in the loosest definition of the term (we couldn’t afford the airfares to bring Ron over!). On the NZ team we had me (by now famous to everyone at the convention!), rarsberry, and ORNOT (both well known to anyone who spends much time on the forums), and on the other side we had the Australian team: Skyring (famous within Bookcrossing for all sorts of reasons), <a href="http://www.bookcrossing.com/mybookshelf/Mundoo"Mundoo (Australia’s top Bookcrosser), and littlemave (well known on BC-AUS). Lytteltonwitch was the chair. The topic was “That Kiwis are the best Bookcrossers in the world”, but to make it more entertaining, the Australian team took the affirmative, and we took the negative. The debate was great fun – first, Skyring described in glowing terms what a wonderful place NZ is, and how much he likes NZ Bookcrossers (he didn’t actually say a lot about Bookcrossing, but that’s a minor problem!). ORNOT retorted with a totally off-topic (but amusing) speech about “Bach-Croissants” (claiming to have mis-heard the topic), and then Mundoo brought in a note of reality by giving some statistics about NZ and Australian Bookcrossers. I responded by admitting that NZers were better than Australians, but that didn’t make us the best, and tried in vain to prove that Americans were actually better Bookcrossers than NZers. Littlemave’s response was brilliant – she stalled for time by asking for a drink, rearranging her papers, clearing her throat a lot… and then presented her argument: “Mornington Crescent” – and sat down (MrPloppy was highly amused, claiming that he was the only one in the room who got the joke (Littlemave is originally British too, so they have a lot of shared culture, adn very similar senses of humour) – not strictly true, because I’ve spent enough time in Britain that I got it too, but it certainly stunned the rest of the room into confused silence!). There wasn’t a lot we could do to refute that, but rarsberry made a brave effort, explaining that “Kiwis” couldn’t be the best Bookcrossers in the world, because they are small flightless birds that have trouble using the internet (though Littlemave attempted to disprove this by fashioning a beak from a rolled up sheet of paper and pecking at an imaginary keyboard on her desk). After rather short summing-ups by our team leaders (Skyring and ORNOT), the Australian team were declared winners by audience applause (though we were placated by the thought that that meant New Zealand was *really* the winner!).

Coffee and tim-tams followed, and Mundoo presented lytteltonwitch, rarsberry and I with special coffee mugs she’d had made (there was also one for Cathietay, but she couldn’t be there that night, so got hers the next day). They looked like plain black mugs, but when you poured hot water into them they slowly changed colour to reveal the convention logo and our names. Seriously cool!

(Photo courtesy of Skyring – I did take my camera with me, but was too busy to use it!)

Saturday morning was my big responsibility, so I dragged everyone out of bed and onto the bus into town bright and early (ok, at about 9.30) so that we’d be the first to arrive at the assembly point. Of course we weren’t – we spotted the yellow bags of those even more enthusiastic than us in the distance as we walked towards the Square (the bright yellow bookcrossing totebags are ideal for spotting other bookcrossers in a crowd!), and discovered the base of the Chalice already dotted with books (The Trouble with Donocan Croft by Bernard Ashley).

By 10.15 all the bookcrossers had gathered, so I led the group off on the walk. I wanted to make it interesting for the locals as well as the tourists, so I tried to include a few things the locals might never have noticed (like the Birdman plaque in the Square, or the old Provincial Chambers). At each stop (and even between stops), books were being released right and left, so that anyone who wanted to track our movements wouldn’t have had much difficulty – just follow the trail of books!

From the Square, we walked over to New Regent Street, which is ideal for releasing books, being filled with cafes and people relaxing. I released Cannily Cannily by Simon French and Nordy Bank by Sheena Porter (which got caught!), and as the tram passed by, dropped The Case of the Daring Decoy by Erle Stanley Gardner on the back bumper. Every time that tram passed us for the rest of the day, we’d look out for the book, and it was still there (it was even seen still circling at 5.30 pm that night!).

We then walked along the river (Take the Long Path by Joan de Hamel), past the swimming pool (Diving Adventure by Willard Price) and the odd little “telephone cabinet” (BMX Billy by Brian Ball) to the Firefighters’ Reserve, where there is a monument to the World Trade Centre made from pieces taken from the rubble of the building (Men Without Women by Ernest Hemmingway and Z Warning by Dan Oran and Lonn Hoklin).

Then it was back along the other side of the river (A Woman’s Place by Katherine Yorke) past the Retour restaurant built inside the old band rotunda (More Home Life by Alice Thomas Ellis) and the Seattle-Christchurch Sister City monument (Modern American Humour ed. by Michael Barsley) to the Town Hall and Victoria Square (The Mouse Who Trusted the Cat by Mischa Damjan and Tiger of the Track by Michael Hardcastle).

On the tram bridge in Victoria Square, lytteltonwitch discovered a new release technique: as a punt full of tourists passed under the bridge, she dropped a book into the arms of one of them, much to his surprise!

Next stop was the old Canterbury Provincial Chambers, a hidden gem that no tourists and very few locals know about, but which are totally free and open to the public. We spent quite a while exploring the beautiful old buildings, resting on the comfy chairs, and releasing books here and there (Milkman Bill by Jessica Potter Broderick, The Balcony by Jean Genet, The Siege of Babylon by Farrukh Dhondy, and The Chancellor Manuscript by Robert Ludlum).

Lollie-mavette recording the official council minutes in the stone chamber.

We left the Provincial Chambers and continued along the river to the Kate Sheppard memorial (Happy Easter Mother Duck by Elizabeth Winthrop), where the discovery of one of catsalive‘s books led us to the discovery that catsalive wasn’t actually with us any more – we’d lost her somewhere along the way! We finally narrowed it down that the last place we’d seen her was in the courtyard of the Provincial Chambers, where she’d stayed outside for a smoke while we went inside to explore. I then realised that I’d led the group out through a different exit, so she wouldn’t have known that we’d left! A couple of people retraced our steps back to the courtyard, but returned to say there was no sign of her. We were nearing the end of our tour anyway, so I pointed out the location of the Arts Centre, where we’d planned to have lunch, and the Museum where we’d be meeting for the afternoon’s Flashmob, and we set off on our separate ways, hoping that someone would run into catsalive.

As it turned out, someone did, quite quickly. rarsberry found her a few minutes later, sitting happily outside the Arts Centre waiting for us. When she realised we’d left without her, she did the sensible thing and followed the map I’d put in the goody bags to the Arts Centre, where she knew we’d be finishing our tour, and managed to arrive there before us (because we were all still mucking around up by the river looking for her!) So, having found our stray cat, we headed into the Arts Centre to check out the food stalls for lunch (but not before I’d released Painted Lady by Francois Sagan beside a statue of a woman outside the Art Gallery – a themed release that paid off, because I got a catch!)

Lunch

I released a few books around the Arts Centre: The Cat on the Dovrefell by Tomie De Paola, Eighteen Desperate Hours by Roderic Jeffries, Return to the Stars by Erich von Daniken, and Little Chick’s Big Day by Mary DeBall Kwitz, which we not only watched get caught (again by an excited child), but the people who caught it re-released it in Wellington on Monday, and it got caught again!

Little Chick being caught.

After lunch, we assembled in front of the Museum (No Fighting, No Biting! by Else Holmelund Minarik) where rarsberry gave us the instructions for the Flashmob: we were to slowly make our way from different directions to the North Quad, take out a book or two with an animal theme (a couple of people didn’t have an appropriate book, so I passed out some of mine: The Country Mouse and the City Mouse and The Three Little Pigs by Alan Benjamin, Fantastic Mr Fox by Roald Dahl, and Ride a Wild Pony by James Aldridge), and sit there reading it (or pretending to read it) until the signal was given (Littlemave standing up and walking away), when we should one at a time put down our books and walk off, leaving them behind. So the Flashmob, which is normally a very energetic event, turned out to be the calmest part of the convention – we sat and read in silence (I read Fraidy Cats by Stephen Krensky and Betty Lewin and Mother Rabbit’s Son Tom by Dick Gackenbach – actually I read them both several times over… remind me to take an *adult* book next time we do a Flashmob!), drawing very little attention to ourselves (although I noticed out of the corner of my eye that quite a few people did stop and look at us – I think by our very calmness we attracted some attention – there was certainly a strangely calm atmosphere pervading the quad, almost like people became silent when they entered – maybe we *did* turn the world into a library for just a few minutes!).

The only time it rained properly all day was for a few minutes between the release walk and the flashmob – perfect timing.

Rarsberry giving instructions (photo courtesy of Skyring)

Afterwards, we met back at the Museum, and then raced back through Hagley Park to Riccarton Road to catch the second-hand bookshop on the corner before it closed at 4 pm. We got there in time, which I was very grateful for, because I managed to find loads of “releasable” books on the 20c table, and came home with a couple of supermarket bags full of books for only $15.

The convention started last night, and it’s going wonderfully! Loads of wonderful people, and wonderful books, and wonderful food, and wonderful fun, and we’ve only just started! (I know it’s immodest of me to describe the convention in such glowing terms, but I’m just so happy that it all seems to be working out, and that everyone was so obviously enjoying themselves last night)

Anyway, more detailed entries with lots of photos will follow once I get more of a chance to use the internet (a difficult feat in a house full of bookcrossers!). Watch this space…

We packed our bags of books and the huge box of goody bags into lyttletonwitch’s car, and headed off to the Dux de Lux. When we got there, we discovered that they’d given us one long table instead of the several smaller tables we’d asked for (long tables make it very difficult to talk to anyone but your immediate neighbours), but that problem was overcome easily enough – when we ordered the pizzas for dinner, we made sure that different parts of the table got different toppings, so people had to get up and move about to find their favourites. And people got moving around quickly enough anyway – if the pizzas weren’t enough reason to move, the temptation of piles of books down the table definitely was!

As the 6 pm kick-off time approached, bookcrossers started to arrive thick and fast, and we were kept very busy ticking off names and handing out goody bags (which were received with much admiration). Books were piled on the tables, and Libragirl arrived with a huge box and bag of books – she couldn’t come to the convention, because she was off on holiday, but she’d stopped in long enough to drop off all the books from Trattorie, so we could have a mobile OCZ for the weekend.

The attendance list:

• FutureCat (me!)
• lytteltonwitch
• Cathietay
• daveytay
• rarsberry
• catsalive
• Littlemave
• Lollie-mavette (Littlemave jr.)
• Skyring
• Mrs Skyring
• thebiblioholic
• Mundoo
• meganh
• leith (Mr Meganh)
• puppymummy
• redguard (Mr Puppymummy)
• awhina
• meerkitten (awhina jr.)
• natecull
• Alithia
• steelman
• non-fiction
• alpherae

When we placed our order (for 5 large pizzas, 5 plates of buffalo chips, and 2 large salads), the staff member taking our order was worried it would be far too much food even for 23 people, but it was amazing how fast it disappeared – tribute to the quality of the food at the Dux, I think.

As the night wore on, the piles of books on the tables diminished, and the number of empty glasses increased.

Cathytay, who’d contributed more than her share of the empty glasses, wandered around the other tables with a pile of books, telling the other diners about Bookcrossing, and offering them books. Quite a few of them took books (and a few (including one of the waiters) even came over to search the piles on the table and the mobile OCZ for one they wanted), so I don’t think she scared too many of them off

It was getting pretty warm in the Dux by this time, so rarsberry and I grabbed a few books off the table and went for a walk round the Arts Centre, releasing books in quiet corners to hopefully be found by curious tourists the next day:

• Childhood at Brindabella by Miles Franklin
• Grandmothers by Neil Dunn
• Liberty Belle by Deborah Coddington
• Lovingkindness by Sharon Salzberg
• Sarah Whitman by diane Pearson

It was only 11 pm when we got back, but the number of people round the table had decreased markedly, and those remaining were starting to flag.

The restaurant staff were starting to pointedly clean everything in sight, so we decided it was time to call it a night, and headed home (only to spend the next 2 hours talking and making release notes, so that it was after 1 am again when we got to bed).

Books released to convention table (some of which were caught by other bookcrossers, the rest ended up in the OCZ at the end of the night):

• Exiting Nirvana by Clara Claiborne Park
• Two Against the Tide by Bruce Clements
• David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
• Book Club Journal by Martha Rosen
• Summer Adventure by John Pudney
• Sons and Lovers by DH Lawrence
• Godzone 1993 edited by Andrew and Emma McDougall
• Flanagan’s Run by Tom McNab
• Lucy and the Mapcap Mystery by Cole Fannin
• Is That It? by Bob Geldof and Paul Vallely

Despite the late night the night before, none of us could really sleep, so we were all up pretty early Friday morning. After a leisurely breakfast of hot cross buns, and some juggling of the shower rota (we quickly discovered that our hot water cylinder only contains enough hot water for two and a half showers), rarsberry, Littlemave, the Mavette (who later announced that she wanted to be known as “Lollie-mavette” from now on) and I caught a bus down to Riccarton to the Aalton Motel, in search of Bookcrossers.

Rarsberry thought Skrying had said he was in unit 3, and lo and behold, the door to unit 3 had signs of Bookcrossing activity:

Inside, we found Skyring and MrsSkyring, along with lyttletonwitch, who’d had the same idea as us of seeking out Bookcrossers. We stayed for a while chatting, then Lollie-mavette started getting restless, so we decided to go for a walk, while Skyring tried to track down Mundoo, who he’d offered to help shift from backpackers to motel. Outside, we discovered catsalive enjoying the sunshine – it was an exciting feeling, all these Bookcrossers suddenly converging in one place!

Littlemave, lollie-mavette, rarsberry and I headed for Hagley park, and walked through to the botanic gardens, releasing a few books as we went. I released Numbers of Things in a phone booth, Tricks and Games with Paper in a tree, and Losing Willy at the entrance to the gardens, at which point my camera started to do odd things:

(I later figured out that it was just that the batteries were running low, but I’ve never seen it do that before – normally it just turns off when it’s out of power. Luckily, I had some spare batteries in my bag, which solved the problem.)

We bought pies and milkshakes from the kiosk (and paid the 15% public holiday surcharge – businesses really seem to be milking this new employment law!), and I left There are Trolls on the counter. We sat and watched it as we ate our pies, and eventually, after it being ignored by a few families, a small boy picked it up and ran over to his mother, calling out “Look Mum! Trolls!”. They wandered off looking at the book, and later when we passed the family again, I noticed it sitting in the carrier-tray of their pram. No journal entry yet, but who cares – from the big smile on the boy’s face when he picked it up, I know it’s being appreciated!

Lollie-mavette wanted to try out the playground, so we spent a while there (and eventually succumbed to her blandishments to join her on the swing/seesaw thing),

and after releasing a few more children’s books around the playground (I left Brave Captain Boldfood on the climbing frame), we wandered on to the greenhouses. Releasing books is so much more fun when you’re with other bookcrossers, egging each other on to release in ever stranger places, and laughing over themed releases (Littlemave left Damaged Gods on an armless statue of a woman in the begonia house, I left Bambi among the ferns), and not suffering the embarrassment of non-bookcrossing friends and family trying to pretend they’re not with you when you release a book.

(We did spend a while admiring the plants as well – it wasn’t all releasing books!)

From the balcony of the main glasshouse (where I left Richard Scarry’s On Vacation), we saw a small girl walking through the rose garden carrying Bambi. Again, no journal entry yet, but found by an appreciative reader, which is what really counts.

Further on in the gardens, we came across a statue of Moorhouse (who, when asked who he was by Littlemave, I declared to be “famous for having an avenue named after him”, but apparently was the engineer who built the Lyttleton tunnel), and with the help of the athletic Lollie-mavette, rarsberry managed to get a book into his arms.

Then it was on to the Square, and the intention of more sight-seeing, but all the walking combined with the late night was taking its toll on lollie-mavette, so a quick call to Skyring brought our knight in shining armour (or at least, in a hire car) to our rescue, and he gave us a lift home, where we had a few hours spare to make release notes and check for catches before lytteltonwitch was due to pick us up to take us to dinner (Skyring and lyttletonwitch between them ended up as the unofficial taxis for the convention, giving lifts all over the place to all and sundry).

These are the books that ended up in the goody bags (some of which were re-released over the course of the weekend):

• Alex by Tessa Duder
• The Worst Day of My Life, So Far by MA Harper
• The Two Pound Tram by William Newton
• Death is Relative by Edward O Phillips
• The Crazy World of Cats by Bill Stott
• Paddy’s Puzzle by Fiona Kidman
• Tears of the Giraffe by Alexander McCall Smith
• In Our Strange Gardens by Michel Quint
• Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk
• Pouliuli by Albert Wendt
• Tara Road by Maeve Binchy
• Whispers by Belva Plain
• The Wheel of Fortune by Susan Howatch
• Mirror Image by Denielle Steel
• Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett
• The Master Puppeteer by Katherine Paterson and Haru Wells
• Pastime by Robert B Parker
• Potshot by Robert B Parker
• A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters
• Cape Fear by John D MacDonald
• Circus Shoes by Noel Streatfeild
• A Married Woman by Manju Kapur
• Breaking Open the Head by Daniel Pinchbeck
• The Mermaid’s Purse by Katy Gardner
• The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer by Jennifer Lynch
• International Velvet by Bryan Forbes
• The Bear and the Dragon by Tom Clancy
• Spin Doctor by Michael Shea
• Pattern by KJ Parker
• Memory by KJ Parker
• Maroc by Daniel Easterman
• The Vulture Fund by Stephen Frey
• Black Sunlight by Tom Davies
• Treasons of the Heart by Charlotte Lamb
• Flowering Judas by Elizabeth Palmer
• Phantom of the Pueblo by Jerry Jerman
• Shadow of the Moon by MM Kaye
• Riona by Linda Windsor
• The Sands of Time by Michael Hoeye
• Masuto Investigates by Howard Fast
• Introducing Aromatherapy by Margrit Bachmann
• The Eighth Day by John Case
• Crossroads of Twilight by Robert Jordan
• The Changes: The Weathermonger by Peter Dickinson
• Great Wartime Escape Stories by Eric Williams
• Act of God by Susan R Sloan (I ended up with that one)
• The Calder Boats by Gabrielle Ross

As well as two books each, everyone got:

• some information sheets about the convention
• a couple of tourist brochures about Christchurch
• a pen
• a decorated notebook
• a convention badge
• several different bookmarks
• a couple of sheets of bookcrossing labels
• a pad of bookcrossing post-it notes
• some maple candy from Toronto
• a bookcrossing fridge magnet
• some mini Easter eggs and a marshmallow bunny