It's always a rush when you get home from a trip, but this last week was even more so, even though I didn't do as much as I had in previous trips, like India etc. etc. But for those who missed it, I've been away from the PC for a while as for the last seven days (well, seven days until Monday) I was in Los Angeles, the city of Angels. And, for a change, Time Lords.

I had been invited across by the lovely Shaun and Robbie to be a guest once more at the Gallifrey One Doctor Who convention in LA, easily one of the biggest ever Who-cons, with a confirmed 1500+ fans in attendance this last weekend. It's a big one; there are guests from the TV show, the audios - even IDW had a booth there and made great advances with the Doctor Who ongoing, even announcing future plans at one of the panels. What was even nicer however was that Shaun and Robbie flew me in a couple of days early, not because I asked for it, but because friends like Gary Russell were doing this, and they thought I'd want to as well. Which meant that I was in LA from the Monday before the convention.

Being in Los Angeles for a couple of days is an interesting beast, as unless you drive, you'll never see anything unless you have a chauffeur or a ton of bus maps. I'd say 'don't forget the taxicabs' but to be honest, I think I saw three all week, so cabs in LA? Seemingly uncontactable. But I'd spoken to my agents a couple of months earlier, explaining that I was going to be there and they sorted me a whole swathe of meetings to attend, which was nice. Except that by the Sunday before I flew (and remember, I flew on the Monday, so we're talking the day before) I still didn't have a schedule from them and was unable to book any of my own meetings / drink ups, which was annoying me. And then they called me and I discovered that internal issues within the agency had meant that my agent had been running pretty much everything and hadn't booked me anything. Well, bar one meeting that kept changing. I was disappointed, and eventually after a long conversation we parted ways amicably. Because although I love the guys to death, they needed to concentrate on people local to them and I'd just got lost in the cracks.

And so I arrived in LA agent and manager-less.

It was a small and friendly group that arrived in LA on the Virgin flight - I'd never flown Virgin Atlantic before and I have to say I like it, especially the ease of printing a boarding card before you leave the house - saved a lot of time, which was lucky as my tube was delayed while waiting for someone to fix the emergency cord (which some braniac had pulled) and I made it with minutes to spare, pretty much running from check in to boarding. I didn't even see anyone I knew on the flight - but that was fine as I had a lot to do, my laptop was out for a fair chunk of it.

But arriving at LAX I caught up with Gary Russell, friend and Script Editor for the BBC (among other things) and Scott Handcock production runner (among other things) for Gary / BBC, Tommy 'Luke Smith' Knight and his mum Sandy and Graham Harper and his family. We checked in and after a shower made our way to dinner where Gary caught up with Eoghann and Tommy showed us his love of Lucky Charms.

Tuesday was a 'day off' - as I was supposed to have meetings and now didn't, it was spent mainly on email to various people that my celebrity chum Andy Briggs had suggested emailing (he had heard of the agent problem and shared similar managers), so while waiting for replies I went out for the day with Gary, Eoghann and Scott. Gary, a fourteen year veteran of the LA experience had hired a car - something I was too scared to do, having never driven on the right hand side - and we drove around LA, visiting Amoeba Records (where I spent money), Griffith Observatory (where I spent money) and Santa Monica (where I spent money) among others. It was a good day to be had and Scott (who I'd never met before) and I clicked in our mutual love of 'irritating Gary'. I'm stunned we weren't left on the edge of a freeway.

While out, I found a couple of meetings were able to be rebooked and I also arranged an evening meal for the following day with celebrity chum and all round good guy Leslie Klinger, author not only of The New Annotated Dracula and the Annotated Sherlock Holmes, but also the unofficial editor of my Harker GN. When we returned to the hotel we saw that the early birds to the convention were starting to arrive, and a couple of drinks with old friends occurred.

Wednesday I had meetings, and I decided that the only way I could do it was to take the risk and hire a car. As it was, it was the best idea I had all week, as I found LA driving to be actually quite easy. I went to a variety of places including Golden Apple Comics where I did a impromptu signing and saw CBR's Jonah Weiland, I met with Arcana EiC Sean O'Reilly to discuss both The Gloom and Shotgun Samurai and I managed to get real close to the Hollywood sign and see it up personal and all that, among other things. I had a couple of other meetings, but I can't talk about them yet.

In the evening it really started to rain, but the restaurant that Leslie had picked had valet parking, so I was kept mostly dry. Although I was however half an hour late as I didn't realise how much 'fun' an LA freeway is at night, and particularly when it's raining. Man, and I thought London fell apart when it snowed.

Leslie was as ever a great dinner companion and is rapidly becoming one of the nicest guys I know in the industry. We had a wonderful meal and caught up on a variety of things and I look forward to seeing him at San Diego. And Leslie, when you get there? The meal's on me. I was finally able to get him a copy of Harker, and he wrote me a nice home-made book plate for my Annotated Sherlock Holmes books that I bought recently.

Thursday was a day that started with a meeting in Culver City, a very nice and social one that has me quite interested in where it'll go, and then I grabbed uber-geek extraordinaire Tara O'Shea and went to Warner Brothers where she'd sorted us tickets for the VIP tour.

We stopped off at 'Bob's Big Boy Burgers' for lunch and then we headed to the lot where I saw a variety of magical things including Sarah Connor's back yard, the steps that the Adam West Batman ran down, the CBI set of The Mentalist and the Two And A Half Men studio.

We also saw the Mogwai shop from Gremlins, the set of ER and spoke briefly to Zach 'Chuck' Levi who was between takes (he was filming on the lot) and I saw not only the Casablanca Oscar but also the real, original Maltese Falcon. Oh and I sat on the real Friends couch, and had a green screen picture taken with a creature from Where The Wild Things Are - although I was apparently the first person ever to not make a 'running' motion, and instead look as if I was peeing against the tree...

Well worth the money. And by the time we returned, the convention was in full swing.

Friday was the start of the convention and here (as ever) I'm going to try to stop naming names as I saw too many people to accurately remember all of them. Suffice to say I spent the weekend constantly busy, whether it was doing panels (I interviewed Georgia Moffett on stage as well as doing an IDW panel, two comics based panels and a last minute stint on 'Just A Minute' among others), signings or simply meeting fans. My movie The Shoot was well received, even if I tweeted the wrong time and had people entering as we were leaving. I attended the Friday night casino in full tux as a favour to the Torchwood Kids (who were running it) and this somehow turned into a Sinatra skit on karaoke. I talked about Vampires. I talked about comics. I talked a lot about Time Lords.

The IDW panel showed not only previews of the final Doctor Who story - 'Final Sacrifice', but also announced that yes, I shall indeed be writing the Matt Smith Doctor for IDW. Basically, it goes as follows - I'm currently writing 'Don't Step On The Grass' with art by Blair Shedd, which comes out in March - June, issues #9-#12.

Then, we have an annual, where I have a four page story that links the massive cliffhanger from #12 into the start of #13, the final ever ongoing David Tennant 'Doctor' story, both of which are drawn by the freakishly talented Matthew Dow Smith, who did 'Fugitive' with me in issues #3-#6.

Issues #13 - #16 end the stories of Matthew, Emily and The Advocate, as well as bringing back two old enemies from The Time Machination, now living in Edwardian times. It is the final story of the ongoing series as well, as you'll see in the very last pages we link it directly to a particular episode and the final page itself links back to an earlier story. And hopefully you'll see that we planned this from the very start.

And then a couple of months later in December 2010 we'll release an all new Doctor Who #1 - but this time it's the Matt Smith Doctor, the Eleventh, as we chart his travels with new companion Amy. And Matthew once more will be on art duties. And very glad I am about that too. The guy is a genius, incredibly talented and makes me look brilliant!

But I digress.

Back to the con, and most importantly of all, on the Saturday morning I gained a new US Manager, who sat in the hotel bar with me in a state of vague confusion as various people dressed like Cybermen wandered over and told me that they loved my books. It was incredibly surreal.

And then in was over, and I was sad. And on the Monday I sat with Pia Guerra, Ian Boothby and Richard Starkings for breakfast and then sat in the hotel lobby with Richard Dinnick, Tammy and Jim Garrison and a few others while waiting for my shuttle. I know I missed so many people, people now friends who I haven't mentioned here, but this is the case with conventions. I haven't mentioned Blake and Matt, who I sang karaoke with, the Torchwood Kids who as ever kept me laughing, the Big Finish guys, actor John 'Hollyoaks' Pickard who I made utterly paranoid about germs by the end of it, John Fay who endured the Torchwood crazies with a gentlemanly calm, DWNY's Barnaby and his finance Dale, Chip and the podcast guys, Matthew Dow Smith, Denton Tipton and the ever suffering Alonso, Paul Cornell, the marvellously mad Katy Manning, the wonderful Phil Ford, both Dan's, Hannah, Rhonda the Gin Fairy, Nicole the Booze Leprechaun, Torchwood Babiez Katie, Daphne and Vito, Mark Ryan (Who I hadn't seen since '92), Anne, Terri, Bryan, Mette, Jason, Scott, Mark, Texas Jon, John Williams, Marv Wolfman, Sam Stone and David Howell, Maureen, Mo, Kari, Kerri, Johnana, Lee, Billy, oh, hell - EVERYONE.

And now I'm home. And I have a lot of work to do. But all I seem to be able to do is flick through pictures of Gallifrey One on Facebook. It really was that good. Well done to all involved.

And now I think I'll go to bed for a while...