Too much to handle

For me, it was too much to handle. If you never have to catch a train, you are very lucky. If you do catch it, and the shit like happened today happens on your ride, well I hope you don't feel like me!

Today I planned on going into SLQ for some (free) presentations on the last day of Brisbane Writer's Festival. This morning I could have arrived at 10am for Sarah Ridout. Le Chateau, or Rajith Savanadasa, Runis, or got there at 11.30 for Science and Belonging with Dr Maggie Hardy, Dr Maree Kimberley, Prof Tamara Davis and Ellen van Neervan. Later, after lunch, I could maybe make it to the 1pm Colonial Stories by Larissa Behrendt, Lucy Treloar and Jay Kristoff, and get to the 2.30pm Illuminae, a 'heart-stopping trilogy about truth, courage and zombies' by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. There was one I wanted to see at 4pm: First Nations Poetry with Shaner Rhodes, Gregory O'Brien and Ellen van Neervan. And my favourite was the finale, Philosophers-in-Residence, the closing address with Antonia Case and Prof Frederick d'Agnostino.

I decided to go to the 11.30 first. I made the train by 9.45am, on time, and a lady sitting at the station beside me mentioned that she was going to Altandi which was before Banoon, where the train would stop. I'd never heard about that, and when the train arrived still showing its normal destination, Ferny Grove, I'd thought the mention of Banoon was not right.

Still, we hopped on, I put my music on through my earphones, and ignored the stations we stopped at. Until we were stopped at Banoon, I hadn't seen anyone else get off and very soon a QR staff person tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I knew I had to get off. What?? She said I should catch a XX bus. Bugger!!

Out to the buses on the roadside and no XX. There was an AA and an AR, but the other QR people said the XX would be about 20 minutes. That would make me late for the 11.30 presentation I intended to go to. I found a sign by the gate, lying on it's side, not hung up, but it told me that I should get onto the AA or the AR. Had those dudes been having me? I got a good woman driver who said I could get onto AR which was express, unlike (thankfully) the AA.

We made it to the Park Road station quite quickly. I got onto another train which took me on to South Brisbane station. Five minutes walk to SLQ and I was early!

The Science and Belonging went very well, with the whole audience split into four groups with 10 minutes with each different presenter. My favourite subjects were Prof Tamara Davis talking about black holes in the universe and what we know about them, and Dr Maggie Hardy talking about spiders - growing, biting, bubbling, colour, venom... far too much for me, but Maggie was a very good talker! All four of these women have written books either in sci-fi fiction or from their education. I wish I could be a Dr!

I went out to look around the cafes by the SLQ, but they were too full (and too expensive) so I went upstairs above the museum to a cafe called Collector's Cafe and found a wonderful chicken and bacon pizza - large piece, cheap price! I forgot to get a coffee! With more than an hour before Illuminae, I went out for a walk. I headed down Melbourne St to the IGA just past the BCAC, and got a chocolate bar... instead of a coffee, which I forgot again! I think I was getting tired!

Headed back up Melbourne St towards the SLQ, but halfway there I knew I was tired, so turned around and simply headed back to the train station and went through the whole stuff I'd put up with on the way in: train back to Park Rd, bus back to Banoon, train back to Bethania. I didn't get home until 3.30, when all I'd done in SLQ was a one hour presentation and a short lunch!

I never paid the fee for going to every presentations at BWF, but in the last two days I've seen three things I wanted to... well, that should have been five but I'm not disappointed with the three. The cheap transport, even l-o-n-g travel today, made this weekend very cheap for me. Even my lunch at Collector's Cafe was only $6.50.

I would like to thank BWF for what they put on. They've spent a lot of their own time moderating presentations, doing introductions which they've become very good at, and never ignoring the audiences. The authors and any other person who presented for audiences were well-written about in the BWF "UpLit" program. Your team is full of individuals who have helped. I wish I lived a lot closer and could go to anything I wanted to.

Perhaps next year...