It would seem that high water levels and book events have a habit of crossing my path at the same time every now and again.

Going back… more years than I am willing to work out, it was the publication day for the final Harry Potter novel and my friends and I drove our way to a midnight release together. It wasn’t long after my friends had passed their driving tests (I didn’t learn for years), and we all lived in various bits of the middle of nowhere, so it was somewhat of an adventure.

As we made our way there, it was raining and being late, also pretty dark.

But we queued up and got our books (time on my receipt was 0002 – pretty close to midnight!) and were all happy and excited (and weirdly sad because it was the end of an era) but then we had to get home.

It had continued to rain whilst we were inside and getting everyone back to their middle-of-nowhere houses was a bit hairy and required some weather-related detours. At about 1am.

It made for a memorable night at least!!

And then there was yesterday. This time I was driving and we set off in daylight, but we were headed from Shropshire to Leeds and it had been raining *hard* and constantly for over 12 hours…

Wet doesn’t do it justice.

Liberty and I had booked to go see Leigh Bardugo on her Ninth House release tour and we were determined to get there.

There were sections that may have been more easily passed by boat.

For example my sat nav suggested we took this route:

…which we politely refused and found our own way. Because I drive a car, not a ferry.

One hilariously soggy journey later, we made it to Leeds, failed at working the multi-storey car park barrier (worked it out eventually!), and the clouds parted enough to remind us that clear skies are actually a thing.

We found ourselves somewhere for dinner and enjoyed some rather tasty burritos which re-energised me after the long drive.

I am loving the Hallowe’en Fanta cans that are out at the moment 😍

Finally we headed to Waterstones for the event, and spent a while perusing the shop and making accidental extra book purchases before going upstairs to wait for everything to start.

Leigh Bardugo was super lovely and funny and her chat and Q&A session has left me really excited to pick up Ninth House and get started on it.

The special edition is ridiculously pretty too, the naked cover is lush.

Thankfully the drive home in the dark was distinctly drier than the drive up. (Drier, but really not dry!)

So, I wonder what my next soggy bookish adventure will be on the future!!