After staying at Annie’s on the Friday night, we travelled to the conference centre together on the Saturday morning. Annie thinks London suits me. And I have to admit I do love my Oyster card, while I don’t even have the Dutch equivalent of it. Anyway, we were finally going to Astrofest!
Astrofest is a magnificent event for mainly (amateur) astronomers, with a great exhibition and some interesting lectures. The familiar venue seems to be made for it, though manager Nish told us about what other – very different – events they’ve had too. What I like most of it though, is the atmosphere and walking around and then bumping into people you know or not know yet. For people who tuned in reading this year, I have to say that, even though I now get the occasional article published in proper science magazines (Astronomy Now’s March issue!), I’m not writing up lectures. You’ll just have to come along yourself next year for that.
We did manage to get tickets to the third session and also saw the fourth. In between, Brian May came to tell us about the Starmus festival, on which Robin had already given me some insights. It was still a nice surprise to catch up a bit with Brian of course and he gave a lovely speech! Then we had lunch and decided to queue again. Brian Cox was doing the book signing this year, along with Dr. May and Sir Patrick. Last year Chris was here too and laughed at us for queueing, but we had a great time and met a nice guy called Philip. Can you imagine how funny it was we happened to join the queue the same time he did this year again?!
I’d already seen the (rather blue) “green room” from the inside, but it was nice to meet Paul, who then introduced me to Brian, who’d already heard of me (yes, that still surprises me). Brian’s a lovely and bright chap and his ‘Wonders of the Solar System’ copy he signed for me, is the book I currently enjoy reading. We spent the rest of the day chatting with some great people. Nathanial (Tommy’s ‘bro’) joined us again, I finally met Keith, and we did not only say hi to Emily, but gave her an interview too.
Max Alexander captured the moment Brian (May) and I met the first time this year, when he introduced me to the other lovely people present.
Philip Roberts took this picture of Brian (Cox) and I, after he’d just signed my copy of his book.
The after party took place in The Devonshire Arms, where we’d been on a previous gathering as well. As it happens, it was Tommy’s 34th birthday again and I sang for him and made the whole crowd sing along too. There’s never enough time to speak to everybody long enough, but at least I did get the chance to say hi to a few people who joined us for the first time. Much better than the couple of Astrofesters who mentioned on twitter afterwards they’d seen me but didn’t say anything. I think you lot must rectify that next year!
Annie, Graham, Tommy, Mandy and I were the last (of our group that is) to leave and I remember walking along the streets with a big smile on my face. The next morning Annie walked me to the station and I met up with Tommy for a goodbye-for-now-lunch at Liverpool Street. We walked past some shops, philosophizing about how lucky we feel to have such great people around us and about how important it is to make the most of things (although Tom also agrees I’m ‘jammy’). I feel I sleepwalked home, dreaming of a nice weekend.
And although I’m afraid I’ll forget to mention some of you great people, I’d like to say thanks to Graham for taking care of everything, to Annie Q for making London feel like home (in case you wiped that message off your kitchen tiles), to Tommy and Els for the great laughs and to Bunny for being there again – we missed you mate! To Anders for the nice conversations in the pubs and to Geoff, Jules and Rona and everyone I didn’t catch up with enough – see you soon though! Thanks also to Emily for the great time (with the camera) and to Philip (in the queue). To Paul, Nish, David, Fitzy, Jonathan and Brian (C.) – it was so nice to meet you guys! To Robin, Patrick and Brian (M.) – you still impress me. And thanks to Phil for the nice memories (and for getting that smudge of mascara off my forehead) and to Max for the wonderful pictures! Hopefully see most of you next year or sooner!
Annie and Tommy in the pub. We’re crazy.
Nathanial (Bunny) and I, in the same pub. What a weekend!
6 Comments
Heh. Great pictures! What a day!
Oh and my pleasure as always xx
A great Saturday and Sunday, hanny, thanks for making my birthday special. It’s always such a pleasure to have you visit.
x
What a great day it was! Glad you liked my pic of you and Brian Cox. Meet in the queue next year…?
I do, thanks again. And sure, let’s call it a date.
ja ook geweldig ,a date yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaah liefs gerry
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Hanny van Arkel, Mark redgwell. Mark redgwell said: RT @hannyvanarkel: Alright, here's my Astrofest part 2: http://bit.ly/fvOuyX (With pics of @ProfBrianCox & me & Brian May & @KmunityOfEq … [...]
[...] Gia Milinovich, @giagia on twitter (whom I found through her husband @ProfBrianCox, whom I met at Astrofest). [...]