This weekend although great was a really hard one for me and I can’t really explain why, by the end of the event I was feeling very emotional and was so very thankful for all my amazing friends and con family who were there for me and helped me through it all. For this event we had decided to stay in the city for the duration of the weekend, saving ourselves from having to drive home and back, there was Jodie, Shona, Kara and myself and we stayed in a hotel basically just across the road from the exhibition centre and it was amazing to be so close to the event and have somewhere to chill out.

The main guest I was excited about at this event was getting the chance to see Torri Higginson again, as it had been five years since I had last seen her at that very first convention I attended, so it was great seeing her again and being able to chat with her and reminisce. It was also good to see Ben Browder and Michael Shanks again and to meet all of the other amazing guests. This year my job as a volunteer was to mind the lines of the three amazing Doctor Who guests Sylvester McCoy, Sopie Aldred and Paul McGann, who were all lovely especially Sylvester. I’m not a Doctor Who fan myself, but it didn’t stop me from chatting with them or their fans throughout the weekend I even had to get a photo with them as a memento.

I do recall one interesting moment at this event, I was doing my job when I saw that a group of people I used to go the high school with were in the queue to get autographs, I went to a fairly small school but even so we weren’t necessarily friends more like school acquaintances in other words we tolerated each other over the years I guess… Anyway, I wasn’t sure if they recognised me as they didn’t say anything to me at the time and I was being professional and treated them like everyone else, but then that evening after the event I was checking Facebook and suddenly had all these new friend requests from them so I guess they did recognise me after all.

Throughout the weekend I got several photos with different guests including Ben Browder, Michael Shanks, Torri Higginson and of course the Doctor Who guests as mentioned above. At the time of this event my very good friend and lil’ sis Sarah was overseas studying and so could not attend the event so her boyfriend and I got a photo with Torri with a sign saying we wished she was there, and there was also a tube of Vegemite because Sarah was a Vegemite Girl with me back in 2005.

On the Saturday night I had brought a ticket to the dinner with Torri and that was another amazing event, a few good friends of mine were at this dinner as well which made it even more fun and two of those people had been at the 2005 convention too. I do love that I have crated so many amazing friendships from attending these events, I was never great at making or keeping friends, so it was always special when even just five years on I still had friends from that very first convention.

On the Sunday the last day of the event and as things started to winding down, a friend who was minding Torri asked if I could take over for her for a little bit as she needed to go and do something and I was free as the Doctor Who guests had already left for the day or for a panel I can’t remember exactly. So I was sitting with Torri and we were talking about a lot of things and reminiscing about the 2005 event, then I mentioned that I was sad that my mate Sarah couldn’t be there this year and then all of a sudden I just felt incredibly sad when it dawned on me that it was the first time I had been at this type of event without her, I don’t know what exactly made me cry but I did cry, it was silly and then I felt embarrassed.

However, I did manage to pull myself together to finish off the rest of the day but then once the event finished it all seemed to hit me full force. The guests and attendees had all left and it was just the staff starting the pack-up process and I just remember sitting down against the wall and crying. I don’t really know exactly what had set me off to be so emotional, it was probably a combination of things from missing my friend, to being tired after the weekend, not wanting the event to end, and perhaps even letting out a build-up of relief as earlier that week I had received the results of some medical tests that I had been very anxious about them and perhaps it was the relief of all of that that hit me at the moment too. All I know is that I am so thankful to have such an amazing group of friends and con family because they were amazing, they sat with me, talked to me, comforted me and helped me through it all. Sometimes it’s hard to admit weakness but in this moment it just made me so grateful to be apart of such a loving and caring community. I love these people so much and cannot imagine my life without them in it, because we have such a good time, makes so many good memories together but are also there for the harder times to look out and after each other.

Complete Guest List: Ben Browder, Michael Shanks, Torri Higginson, Paul McGann, Sylvester McCoy, Sopie Aldred, Jay Laga’aia, Claudia Christian, Juliet Landau, Miracle Laurie, Michael Bieh, Michelle Forbes, Jerri Manthey, Jonny Fairplay, David Faustino, Lloyd Kaufman, Bruce Hopkins, Bill Farmer, Mela Lee, Vic Mignogna, John DiMaggio, James Tucker, Daniel Way, Darick Robertson, Lar Desousa, Rya Sohmer and Georges Jeanty.