[Lalaith]

Well yesterday was a red-letter day for me as not only did I go to my first ever Tolkien event, but I also had my first-ever RL meet-up with a Downer.
Mith kindly offered me a spare ticket to the 75th anniversary Hobbit talk at the British Library.
We met up early so that we could first see the Writing Britain exhibition, also the BL. It was amazing. My only complaint was that we only had an hour and I would have liked to have spent at least twice that time there. Some highlights for me were (of course) Tolkien's watercolour of Hobbiton, a beautiful manuscript of the Canterbury Tales, Jane Austen's notebooks and the A4 notepad on which JK Rowling wrote the Philosopher's Stone.
The event was excellent. Brian Sibley (much to Mith's delight) also Alan Roberts, who was a really engaging speaker - he talked about the two versions of the Hobbit (and prefers the first) - plus Jane Johnson and David Brawn.
There was also chap from the Inner Magic Circle who did a very dramatic reading of Gandalf's rescue of Bilbo and the dwarves from the Great Goblin. I did hope, childishly, that he would do some wizardry for us as well, but the magic was purely of a literary nature. It was interesting to see too what a mixed crowd made up the audience, shows what a wide demographic Tolkien reaches.

We then had something to eat on the South Bank before Mith set off back to the south coast - unfortunately it was a journey of tortuous diversions and delays (which she may share with you). As I said to her, I hoped it hasn't put her off visiting the metropolis again. It was really lovely to spend an actual face-to-face evening with someone I've spent so long cyberchatting to over the years.