Legends of the Sun Pig

In my previous post about being at worldcon with kids , I made three points about the experience:

• We were seeing very few programme items
• Just hanging around in the convention centre with kids was fun
• Handling kids while still trying to be a grown-up is very tiring.

I wrote that on the Friday evening, a day and a half into the con. By the time Monday came around, the whole “con experience” still revolved around those three items, but in a very different way:

• Handling kids while still trying to be a grown-up is really, really tiring.
• The number of of kid things to do at the convention centre was actually pretty limited, and we had exhausted them by Friday. The following days were spent going around the same things again and again, with the kids both getting progressively more bored and irritated. Alex spent some time in the YAFA (Young Adult Fun Activities) area, where they had some videogames to play, but (ironically, and annoyingly) it was the older kids who refused to share, and behaved like toddlers when something didn’t go their way.
• I really did want to see more programme items. Thursday and Friday it all seemed like a lark, but the more the con went by, the more I felt irritated by having to miss out. Which led to increased frustration with the kids, which led to increased tiredness. By Monday afternoon, I was right up there with Alex whining that I just wanted to go home.

On balance, I enjoyed the long weekend away with Abi and the kids. It was fun staying in the hotel, eating junk food, swimming in the pool, and generally getting away from the everyday. But did I actually enjoy the con as a con? No, I don’t think I did. It was a fine con, but I’ll certainly be thinking twice about bringing the kids to the next one. (Which probably won’t be for a few years anyway.)

Abi had a much better time, mainly because she was more involved. She was exhibiting several of her bookbindings in the art show and auction, and she had designed and created special editions of the souvenir book for the Guests of Honour. She got to chat with Jane Yolen and Alan Lee, and even got a name-check and a round of applause at the closing ceremonies. That’s how cool my wife is.

As a final note, staying in Glasgow for a long weekend has given me an increased fondness for Edinburgh. The estimable Mr Scalzi commented on the fact that the con, and the con hotels, aren’t located in the best part of town. The motorways and main roads leading through the place don’t lead you past the wonderful architecture and bustling, atmospheric city centre, either.

Getting from one side of Glasgow to the other takes a long time. By comparison, and even in absolute terms, Edinburgh is a very small city. But that is part of its beauty: the fact that, from the right hilltop, you can take in the entire city in a single gaze. My bus to work takes me over one such hilltop every morning. On Tuesday morning, with my eyelids heavy from exhaustion, and the August sunlight blazing down on the Castle, and the sandstone buildings of the Old and the New Town, I could hardly conceive of a more beautiful sight.

Growing up in the Netherlands, part of my identity was always tied up with being from Scotland. When I returned to Scotland and went to univerity in St. Andrews, my heartstrings were always being tugged back to Limburg. We’ve lived here in Edinburgh for twelve years now, but it was only on Tuesday morning that I realized that this city really is my home.

This is my fourth Worldcon, following on from ConFiction in Den Haag in 1990, InterSection in Glasgow in 1995, and BucConeer in Baltimore in 1998. It’s actually my first con at all since that last one, and thus my first con ever with kids.

Some observations about attending a con with a one and a four-year old:

(1) Programme? We don’t need no steenkin programme. So far, I’ve been to one panel. The rest of the time has been spent just hanging around, and trying to keep the little ones simultaneously occupied and not freaking out at the big enclosed spaces with lots of people around. (Curiously, Alex actually asked to go to the creche this morning, and spent a pleasant two hours playing there. When we took him out again, though, he solemnly said that he didn’t want to go back.)

(2) Also, merely “hanging around” is actually a lot of fun when you have kids around. I’m a shy and retiring person by nature (read: misanthrope), and I don’t tend to go out of my way to socialize and mingle. Yet at previous Worldcons, I felt a strong compulsion to do so, driven by a need to be accepted, and to be seen as a true fan: one of the community. This time round, I feel no such need. Kids are conversation magnets. People talk to me rather than the other way around! Also, being a parent is top of my list of priorities, and so I don’t feel any kind of strange guilt about missing all kinds of opportunity to meet people and make new friends.

(3) Juggling kids while even trying to perform grown-up-related activities, is very tiring. It probably doesn’t help that Abi and I have both been respectively working very hard and suffering from raging insomnia for the last few weeks, but most of the time, we’re both just exhausted. Evening parties? Um, maybe next time….

The overall atmosphere at the con is very good. I don’t remember much about Intersection ten years ago, but Interaction certainly feels bigger, better connected, and more organized. The folk are universally friendly and very capable. The security staff at the convention centre (from Rock Steady) are amazing. They’re as friendly as the con staff, and appear to be having a fine time themselves.

Top strange event of the con so far: walking across the tunnel from the SECC to the train station with Alex and Fiona (Alex wanted to know where the tunnel went), and having a local fan collapse with a seizure right in front of us. Two women from the SECC were right beside him when it happened, but couldn’t catch him as he fell. I called 999 to get an ambulance, and we all helped him sit upright when he regained awkward consciousness, and stayed with him while the paramedics arrived. Fiona freaked out, but Alex was a very brave big brother, and helped her stay calm and stopped her running away.

We were all pretty scared, but when the paramedics eventually arrived (they were dispatched to the SECC itself, rather than the train station), they cleared him, and he was able to head home under his own steam. I’ve never dealt with epilepsy before, and he still seemed a bit out of sorts to me; but the paramedics sensibly explained that if anyone knows the limits of their capabilities after a seizure, it’s probably the sufferer themselves. We offered to drive him home, but he declined. I hope he’s okay.

Second-strangest event: finding out that there are actually two J.K. Rowlings! Unfortunately, they both couldn’t make it to the con.