Llangollen and Analog

Friday evening, and as we hitched up for our Llangollen #caravanning weekend, a thought occurred, that while Boris Johnson’s water cannon sits forlorn and unloved in its London garage, we were assured of a more thorough hosing at the hands of Mother Nature herself, and without having to go to all the bother of rioting and civil unrest to get it. The weather was awful. The forecast was worse. Tornadoes were predicted as a side order to the riot-quelling rain. Somewhere in Wales a long-bearded gentleman had one eye on the sky while sharpening his boat-building tools and lining up his animals in pairs. As we left home, our neighbours waved us off, shaking their heads and wondering at our stupidity.

We arrived at the site, beside the river Dee… and the rain stopped. It stayed dry all night and, okay, we had a few showers in the morning, but by lunchtime the sun was shining and we were carrying our waterproofs. The moral of the story: Don’t always believe the weather forecast. It’s still just a forecast. Sometimes they get it wrong.

Anyway, no trip to Llangollen is complete without a visit to the huge second-hand bookshop that sits in the attic of the café, right on the high street. It has a huge SF section, mostly golden age stuff from the sixties.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I have enough books, but look what I picked up for just two quid! Analog from July 1976. A guest editorial by Arthur C Clarke and stories by Joe Haldeman and Stanley Schmidt. Woohoo! This will cheer me up when I look at Facebook and Twitter and read all about the whole SF community being over at Spokane for Worldcon this weekend. Loncon seems so long ago now.