Complete DVD Boxset Signing!

[ducatilady]

Its interesting to read everyone's reports of the signing, so I'll add my version now!
First of all, as organised by Kim, 7 of us met up for lunch at Pizza Express, we spent two very happy hours catching up with each other, and in Spence's case eating once again 'the best pizza ever!' Romina texted us from Italy to say that she couldn't make it as she was ill in bed, after booking her flight & hotel she was VERY disappointed.
We then all moved on to Starbucks, where several others had already gathered, we grew to about 20 at this point, and completely overwhelmed the coffee shop! We moved along to Virgin at about 4 o'clock, and started the queue, it was all very relaxed this time, lots of the younger fans were sitting on the floor playing cards etc.
As usual the signing started late, and it was disappointing to learn that Steve wouldn't be there, I think its the first signing he has missed. However we can forgive him he did have a good excuse.. the birth of his baby son.
Pippa & Julian seemed delighted to see some familiar faces, and it was lovely that they remembered so many names and faces. It was also nice that the security staff were not hassling us & we had time to chat with them.
Rachel was wearing her 'shark' coat, which created a lot of interest, Lucy was wearing a super 'T' shirt that she has designed herself, and Annabel was wearing her 'Green Wing' 't' shirt as well, plus FQ with her poster. I'm sure the cast must have been very impressed with all this effort.
Most of us then went on to the nearby 'cheers' bar for a much needed drink. Before heading for home a handful of us decided to just call back into Virgin in case Tamsin had shown up. She had, so we joined the back of a very small queue, and Kim phoned around to alert everyone.
It was quite funny, I heard Julian say to the security guy 'I thought you said there were only another 20...thanks to Kim the queue kept growing!
Pippa & Julian's faces were a picture when they saw us come round again. It was lovely though, because the queue was just for Tamsin by this time, we were able to just stand & chat to Julian while we waited. he gave Kim some details of his forthcoming projects, which I am sure she will post soon.
Tamsin was great fun to talk to, she told me I looked like a lady of distinction, and how did I cope with all the swearing in Green Wing? She messed about when we had photos taken with her and was happy to pose with Julian for us.
Altogether a very sucessful day, it was lovely to meet up with so many of you & great to meet Julian and the others once again.

[xpingux]

I've written about my report on livejournal here
http://community.livejournal.com/___gre ... 11643.html

i also saw a lot of you when i was with my friend Ros but i was too scared to say hi!

[jrt patch]

Thanks everyone for your fab reports.
I'm so glad all your efforts were appreciated and that you all had a good day.

[marinewarden]

I've just read your report FQ...very good and how cool that both Julian and Pippa recognised you ...think I might need to go to a few more signings/plays (or whatever they do next) for them to recognise me - mind you. now I know that Pippa lives quite close to me (and has friends in the village I live in) might see her around...who knows?!

Anyway, here's my report of last night:
Got the train up to Waterloo only to discover (while I was buying the tickets) that Pippa Haywood was also on the train! So I located the carriage in which she was sitting and sat a few seats away from her. After texting Kim on my whereabouts and asking her whether I should go and talk to Pippa (she replied, "Go for it!") I decided to do exactly that! So we chatted about Miss Marple and I commented on how I thought her part should have been bigger and asked if she knew who was turning up to the signing so she informed me that Julian, Steve and Carl were confirmed, Mark wasn't going and Tasmin was possibly turning up later. We chatted a little bit more and then I noticed that she was reading a script (tried to see if I could read what it was for) I said, "Well you look busy; so I leave you to it" she did appreciate that as she told me she had to have read by the end of the journey "See you later though" she said.
Got Starbucks where a very large group of women was hard to miss! Shortly afterwards, went to Virgin to form a queue. After about 2 hours, there were the occasional shrieks of delight..."are they here yet?" I wandered but no, there were a few false starts until finally....
...The queue started to move and we all had out turns to go and up and have our boxsets signed (and other literature we had bought along - like my LWW book for Pippa to sign) As soon as Pippa saw me, she said, "Ooh hello again - did you enjoy your journey? Are you going back tonight?" I told her I was staying over ( wish I did go back in a way 'cos then we could have chatted some more) then she said "My mind has drawn a blank on your name" so I told her it and then she signed my boxset and asked if I wanted her to sign the LWW book too, to which Julian looked over (having already signed my boxset..God they are/were quick...hundreds to get through though so..) and said "Ooh do you want me to sign it too?" to which I replied, "No you've signed it already" he looked rather disappointed so I then said, "But I tell you what you can do; you can cross out Mac and put Daniel instead, pleses, as we all know you are not Mac in this!...obviously! - but you always write Mac after you've signed something!" I lol so, he did just that. Then I offered him some marshmallows (home-made I just like to add and green too!) and he took a couple of bags - "go on take another!" I said "I have, he replied, "but the lady conviscated them!" Then I had a picture taken with all of them (after briefly saying hi to Karl) and took one of Julian on his own (looking gorgeous but my hands were shaking so the picture is rather blurey so i need to "fix" it before i post it on here)
Then we headed onto to "Cheers" for a drink and some food and just about to order when..."Quick, lets go back to Virgin - Tasmin has turned up!" so off I rush with EmmaQ1, Jade and LinkaNeo to join the queue again! We were the last few remaining in the queue so just "got in" in time. Had another chat with Pippa about each other's whereabouts in Dorset and turns out, she lives quite close to me! Then I actually managed/remembered to thank Julian for signing the Petition Fish (I wrote to him about a few months ago) and he was like "Ohh right..its you!" as if to say, "now I can put a face to the name...how'd it go?" I then proceeded to tell him that the stupid bloody Government wasn't going to make it a priority for next year....and if they don't get theit fingers outa their arses, they never will!" by this time I thought, "Mmmm better stop now before I get really wound up (I am very much into my conservation , as most of you know and do get very "heated" when I talk about it!) Then I got to Tasmin who saw my T-shirt and said, "Where did you get that?" pointing to my logo "Ebay" I said "What the t-shirt?" "No, I said "just the logo and I put it on!" She was like, "Wow thats soo good!" "if you're impressed by that, I said, "check out the back!" so I turned around so she could read my back and said, "thats brilliant!...want me to sign it?" I was like "YES PLEASE!" so she did and as she was doing so, she kept saying, "OMG you are so hot!" about 3 or 4 times..I was getting rather embarassed after a while and Lucy was like, "that just sounds so wrong!"..
...So there you go my FULL report (sorry for taking up so much room - no more than a picture would though I hope?!...you can edit it if you like - ChBox, DL or FQ if need be? but give it a few days first please!)
All-in-all, a great evening!!!!
Fantastic pictures Pingu - especially, the one where they are all huddled together and laughing! Nice one!

[LinkaNeo]

Hahahaha Annabel! I'd forgotten about the "so hot!" thing! Hahaha I have to wite about that in my letter. I really wanted to get a photo of Tamsin and Jullian together but I figured I'd bothered them too much
=P If they do one for the new scripts then I'll ask for one then, then I'll post it to them and ask them to sign it. Muahaha.

[goshandcrikey]

did anyone manage to get the dvd booklets I left for me and baggie signed when I had to leave??

[chatterbox]

Lovely accounts everyone - sorry I haven't posted mine before - I've had to be busy with work ...tsk... !!! Marinewarden, I wouldn't dream of editing your account - great just the way it is

Well I arrived a little bit late at Pizza Express as I had to pop into work first, so everyone was already seated and waiting to get started when I got there. Food was good, and it was really nice to catch up again with everyone. It was great to find even more people at Starbucks when we got there, although because it was tiny, we did overwhelm it a bit (particularly the poor young man that Spence scared away so we could have his table )

The queueing was very good natured and relaxed, with lots of milling about and chatting up and down the queue. I certainly recognised a number of people from other forums and livejournal although I didn't get a chance to talk to them all. The group at the front did a good job of chatting up the security so we got regular updates on progress, although it was a bit difficult as he hadn't ever watched Green Wing so he was having to point to faces on the box set

We were a bit late getting started, and because of the way the queue was organised we didn't actually know things were underway until there was a bit of a cheer and the queue started moving. It was a bit of smaller crowd this time, without the screaming, and it was less frenetic and much more enjoyable because of that. At our first round, Pippa, Julian and Karl did the signing, and we had a general chat, then we stood around chatting for a while before security moved us on (although not before I had managed to catch Rob Harley's attention and he took my dvd for the writers to sign - yay!) . However, the security lady made it very clear that this was against the rules and we weren't going to be allowed to talk to them - a shame I thought as I am sure that there plenty of people who would have loved to thank them for their wonderful work.

Then we headed off for a drink, and some of us decided to head home, whilst others were going to eat. As our way home took us back past Virgin we decided just to check that Tamsin hadn't arrived, and of course she had So, as the others have already said, I phoned to share the good news. At the second round, most of us were just waiting for Tamsin, so we had a lovely chance just to chat to Julian, Pippa and Karl whilst we were waiting. Julian did give us some ideas of future plans, which are expected to include a documentary about music in Africa, a ghost story for christmas, and a new book at bedtime Tamsin was full of energy, and it was lovely to have a brief chat with her before we headed home.

A lovely day - it was great to catch up with old friends, although I'm sorry I didn't get to say hello to everyone that I now realise was there... Maybe next time?

[maisie]

So glad everyone had such a great time! Thanks for all the reports and pics. I'm cursing night shifts and expensive college courses, but it's lovely to live vicariously through everyone who went. Sounds like the cast were fantastic as ever and although I've not been able to make any of the signings or meetups (yet!) I love to think that a programme (and it's actors) I love so much is still going strong so long after the final episode!

[Bekiboo]

just read all your reports of the signing and it sounds like it was fantastic! i wish i could've gone they sound like genuinely lovely people - although i'm so shy i probably would've classically passed out at the excitement of meeting them all! Tamsin especially sounds like such a fun person to be around!

[Spitting Bunny]

Thank you all for your reports - just wish I could have been with you. And fantastic that Tamsin turned up. Great photos xPingux!