My time at Hogwarts

Gosh, two weeks of silence… well sadly I did not get to stay at Hogwarts, though I tried my best! Returning to the real world has been pretty depressing – once you’ve run down Diagon Alley, Swindon high street just ‘aint the same.

Sadly most of the best photos (i.e. all the ones with me posing!) were taken on other people’s cameras, so will have to post them another time. In the meantime though, here’s a little bit of magic for your Friday afternoon

The cupboard under the stairs

'Harry was used to spiders, because the cupboard under the stairs was full of them, and that was where he slept.'

The Great Hall! My sister got overly excited at this point of the tour and we may have ended up re-creating the infamous ‘Troll in the dungeon!’ scene… complete with dead faint at the end… (and I wonder why they wouldn’t let me stay…)

  

The Gryffindor common room - how gutted was I that those stairs didn’t actually go anywhere!

The boys dorm – actually felt a bit naughty being in there! Not sure girls are allowed…

Dumbledore’s pensieve… Cannot stress how badly I need one of these at the moment!

This was actually the greatest optical illusion of the day – a corridor in the Leaky Cauldron – actually only goes back about three feet! That door at the end is tiny!

  

Diagon flippin’ Alley! The cobblestones are very uneven. Think twice before you decide to run the length of it.

We all had our pictures taken outside out favourite shops. Annoyingly these pictures are on my sister’s camera! My picture was outside Flourish & Blotts, naturally!

Magic is Might at the Ministry…

I also paid a visit to the Dursleys…



Hello? Social services calling…



I feel a little context is needed for what happened next… It was the end of a long day, I was tired, probably over excited, and already wishing that I never had to go home…

Throughout the tour they had been playing music from the films, and as I was making my way through a corridor full of the most amazing tiny models I have ever seen, surrounded by some stunning artwork, over the sound system came Patrick Doyle’s Hogwarts Hymn (from the Goblet of Fire… where Cedric dies… anyone see where this is going?)  

I looked up to see that I had lagged behind (again) so jogged down the rest of the corridor, turned a corner and was faced with this.

I did what any life-long Potter nerd would do.

I, um...cried.

Yep. Actual tears. And then I laughed, and then I made the tour guide take a picture of my whole family outside Hogwarts while the tears were fresh on my face! (Grrr – again I do not have this photo!)

I have to confess that these last few pictures are not mine – my memory card was full by then, I sent my brother off on photo duty whilst I gazed in wonder until I had to be asked to leave!

On the way home I knew how Harry must have felt going back to the Dursleys every summer.

Was pretty much the best day of my life!

All you Potter fans, go, go! You will not be dissapointed! Though you may become completely dissillussioned with your own hum-drum lives.

Bye for now!

Laura

I’M GOING TO HOGWARTS!!!!!

I had a lovely sensible post all line up for today, but it’s been bumped because I’m far too excited to talk about sensible things!

Firstly, if you are not aware of the extent of my Harry Potter obsession take a look here, then, if you are brave enough, come back for the rest of this post.

I’ve loved Harry a long time. A good twelve years and counting! Not only was I one of those fruitcakes who camped out till midnight to get the latest book, on more than one occasion I was first in line!

My sister and I have had endless conversations on our imaginary lives at Hogwarts. I would have been a Ravenclaw, Jo fears she’d have been a Hufflepuff. My Patronus would have been an elephant (awesome for stomping on Dementors, less effective at delivering stealth messages…) Jo’s Patronus was a hedgehog – curling up into a ball at the first sign of danger and having to be rolled into battle like a prickly bowling ball.

Neither of us fancied becoming an animagus – I always thought it sounded too much like hard work, and what if at the end of it all you turned into was a slug?

We both agreed that we’d have got into as much trouble as Harry though – how could you live in a castle full of secret passageways and not go exploring at two in the morning?

Well, after all these years of dreaming, we are finally off to Hogwarts!

Tomorrow I shall be boarding a train (sadly not the Hogwarts Express) and heading to the Leavesden studios for the Harry Potter tour! Quite frankly it’s taking all my willpower right now not to run around the office waving a wand and shouting EXPECTO PATRONUM at fellow employees!

If I get my own way, I will stay there forever. I  wonder if work will allow me to conduct business via Owl Post…

I think perhaps I will be forced to leave at some point though, so will be around next week to report back (and of course post about a thousand photos!)

Well that’s it. I’m off to pick my sister up from the station before we head off home to embark on a Harry Potter movie marathon!

Have a good weekend Muggles!

Life contemplation, Lefty style

Well this is it. My last post as a Twenty-Nine year old!

Any attempts to let this birthday slide by quietly were scuppered this morning when I walked into work to find my desk covered (and I mean covered) in banners, balloons and glitter.

People I don’t even know are currently wishing me a happy birthday as they pass by my desk! (It’s actually not till Tuesday folks!)

So for this week’s post I thought maybe I should contemplate the milestone that is turning 30.

You know, assess my life so far, decide what I want for the future do some soul searching and bare my feeling to you all…

Yeah… needless to say I got no further than three lines into that before I abandoned it in favour of Hollyoaks and half a packet of chocolate buttons…

Turns out my desk this morning sums it all up better than I ever could. Glitter, sparkles and lovely surprises. (Oh and a card that quotes Shakespeare. Well done people!)

Who cares where my life is heading? Who cares where it’s been? So long as there is birthday cake all is right with the world (There is cake, right? Someone has remembered cake? Mum?)

I have a week off work now to lounge about and enjoy myself (you know the usual - reading, writing, watching America's Next Top Model...) but my real birthday treat isn't until the 16th June, where I will be heading off to the Harry Potter studio tours!

Yep. This is what real grown-ups do on their birthdays!

Am quite ridiculously excited about this - have been dreaming of running amok in Diagon Alley since I was seventeen! I promise pictures and stories galore when I get back (unless of course I just decide to live there forever...)

In other news, I had a lovely message yesterday telling me I had been nominated for a Versatile Blogger award!

Watch this space for my own nominations – and thank you very much for the nomination Amy!

Hope you all have a fantastic Jubilee weekend, and I will catch up with you in a week!

Laura

PS – Don’t forget Race for Life is on the 9^th – you can still sponsor me here! Thanks!