Showing posts with label helen: like my patronus was a doe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label helen: like my patronus was a doe. Show all posts
Quick July Wrap Up
July, let me show you some love. I had such a fun July, I would like to live it all again, please. It was busy though, oh so busy. Also I am so tardy in getting this post up. Blogger fail.
Anyhow.
Anyhow.
.
Off My Bookshelf: The Miniaturist
Here she is a puppet, a vessel for others to pour their speech. And it is not a man she has married, but a world
Quick March Wrap-Up
March. We’re a quarter of the way into 2018 and so far I
don’t love it.
I absolutely definitely spoke too soon back in January when
I was all YEAH 2018 because let me tell you a thing – so far this year has sucked. Still, it does not do to dwell
on these things does it, and in amongst the days when I just wanted to curl up
in bed and cuddle and pretend life wasn’t happening, I still squeezed in a fair
amount of smile-worthy adventures.
Quick February Wrap Up
For a short month I don’t mind telling you that February has
felt kind of long.
Review(ish): Not A Book. A Show
Things I don’t
review: everything else. Like theatre shows.
That’s just a thing,
I just don’t ever. Mostly because I can talk about books and what I like and
don’t like and not look like a dick, or if I do look like a dick (which I
might) then I don’t really care that
much because I’m confident enough about what I do and don’t like and what I do
and don’t know to throw my opinions out there in the general direction of The
Internets and not be all that bothered whether anyone else agrees.
When it comes to
anything else though I’m not sure I can get beyond ‘yes nice I like it’ and
‘yak 0/10 do not recommend’ and so I just…don’t. Hush. I see you there, reading
this at your computer screen eyebrows raised quizzically and wondering what, actually,
I am talking about because all of these words, do they even have a point?
In which I am back...
Let’s talk about life.
I feel like that is a thing that should happen, since it’s
what’s been going on in the way that it tends to do, and seems to have gotten
in the way of any kind of blogging ever. I was doing so well this year too,
reading all the books and writing all the reviews and then LIFE. So, let’s have
a catch-up post. Not that any of my news is all that exciting.
Except, maybe a little bit exciting.
You may remember that I spoke a few months ago about The Break-Up which was epically epically shite and totally knocked me off my feet.
It took me a while to pick myself back up again truth be told, but I did. I did
some crying and some shouting and I lost my dignity for a while because hey,
there’s nothing less dignified than a heart that is broken, but now I’m here
and I am doing ok.
No really. I am. I’m doing ok. I am doing so much better than I was two months ago. I can stand here,
finally and say I’m alright and more importantly I can mean
it. I made it.
And, AND, I have my own place.
This is A Major Thing. I’m 32 and for the first time ever
(save for a few months when I was 18 and lived in a grotty bed sit that falls
under Things We Don’t Talk About) I am living on my own. ALL BY MYSELF. I know.
Amazing.
It’s a cute little house too, super small, and also super
cute and I feel like I’m going to really love it. I already kind of really love
it. I mean, it’s not perfect yet: I need to get pictures on the walls and my
books on shelves but once all that happens I feel like it’s going to be
excellent and I’m actually kind of excited.
Let’s be real here: this was not what I wanted and this is
not the direction I ever expected my life to go in, but since it has I’m kind
of determined to make the very most of it. I’m going to make the rest of my
life the best of my life and I care not a freaking jot how much of a cliché
that makes me. Do you hear me? I do not care.
So, in amongst breaking up and moving out and starting over,
WHAT HAVE I BEEN DOING?
Well, I went to London
to visit Jen. We walked a million miles along Regents Canal - a million miles and that is not an
exaggeration (I know, I know, totes an exaggeration) – and drank cider and ate
pizza and giggled our way around Alice’s Adventures Underground which is crazy
and trippy and all kinds of excellent. I
also saw Jen again on Saturday night – this never happens. Seriously, the two
of us being in the same place at the same time without several months between
is unheard of. So on Saturday night I drove
over to Ilkley where Jen was doing an event and we went for dinner and it was,
as always, marv. Jen’s doing another 100 poem challenge this week actually, you
should check that out.
And Helen had a baby who has stolen my
heart oh my God. Seriously, I am so in love. SO IN LOVE. She’s
called Molly and she has all this hair and she’s
just perfect. Perfect.
I’m off to London
again on Friday to see Cumberbatch as Hamlet, again with the exciting. That’s
with my friend Natalie. We’ll see Hamlet and eayt lots and drink cocktails and
probably shop and maybe catch the Audrey Hepburn thing at the National PortraitGallery and it shall be a lovely lovely time.
Other than that I guess I’ve just been being,
you know? It’s been nice because I live 5 minutes walk away from my favourite
pub so I’ve slipped right back into going there on a Friday night with the same
friends I used to drink with a decade ago so that’s been excellent. I’m seeing
Helen and my Mum and I have other friends in walking distance and I’m also
doing a really godo job of enjoying my own company. Naturally that means I’ve
done a little bit of reading and a little bit of getting excited about books
because that’s just what I do, even if I’ve done it a little bit less this
summer. Let’s talk about that a minute shall we? Let’s talk a little bit about
the 6 books that I am probably most excited about right now, and then I’ll
queue up some reviews and it will be like I WAS NEVER AWAY. (You do not even
know how much I cannot wait to have internet access at my house. Hashtag first
world problems, I know.)
If you know me at all then you’ll know how much of a Rainbow
Rowell fangirl I have turned out to be and it will come as no surprise that I
am spiralling a little every time I think about her new novel Carry On which is released this month. Carry On
is the novel that features in Rainbow’s fabulous Fangirl
and I am gloriously delighted by all that it stands for. I absolutely laughed
my socks off when I heard that Rainbow was writing it and I cannot wait.
The third book in Kat Zhang’s Hybrid
Chronicles was released in paperback a couple of weeks ago. I loved
the first two books in this series, and if you haven’t already I suggest you
read them right now. SO GOOD. I read Echoes of Us
this weekend, and I actually really liked it. It’s a pretty good conclusion to
the series I think and I’ll talk about it soon in its own post so I shan’t go
on too much, just, check it out okay? Okay.
There’s a new Atwood - The Heart Goes Last
- out RIGHT NOW, which y’know even though this is definitely not my favourite
of hers, Atwood owns a piece of my soul and I can’t not be excited for more of
her stuff being out in the world. I’’ll be posting a review of that one very
soon so eyes peeled please!
Imagine a world where everyone is born with a 'skin' name. Without skin you cannot learn, you are not permitted to marry, and you grow up an outsider amongst your own people. This is no future dystopia. This is Celtic Britain
I know right, it sounds amazing. There’s been a lot of buzz surrounding this book and I have to admit to having gotten a little caught up in the hype. I hope it’s as good as I feel like it might be.
David Levithan’s Another Day was published at the end of July. It’s a companion to Every Day which I loved and I’m super looking forward to it.
Since The Gracekeepers is one of the best books I read so far this year it’s probably no surprise that I’m super excited about A Portable Shelter. It’s on my bookshelf due to my pre-ordering skills (it was published in August) and it’s so pretty and I just know it’s going to be wonderful. I can’t wait to read it.
If you keep checking back I’ll be talking about the new
Atwood, Patrick Gale’s fabulous A Place Called Winter, Sarah
Crossan’s One, Katie Pierson’s ’89 Walls, What Milo Saw and The Sin Eater’s
Daughter as well as The Hybrid Chroncicles over
the next few days. I’m also planning a lovely re-read of the Little House on the Prairie books so I’ll likely blog about
those. Lets see if I love them as much as I did twenty-plus years ago. Also Jen
and I discussed a reread of His Dark Materials
so that might be a thing I talk about.
Right now I’m reading Rainbow Rowell’s Landline. It’s
a nice time. Then I might read A Little Life.
I’ve had an ARC for a while, but it’s so huge. I think I need to work on my
arms a bit at the gym to be able to lift it….
This Is A Post About Me
This week has been a week, not a terrible week but not a
great week either. Seems like sometimes That Break Up feels so much more raw
than it has any right to be really, this far down the line, and it’s hard to
get past the fact that my heart just hurts. I’ve
totally self medicated though, with OItNB and new bedding and San Pellegrino.
It’s been a week of being in bed by 8 pretty much every day, but whatever.
Soooooo, the week might have been pretty miserable but I
will not be defeated because now? Well, first of all there’s THAT HARRY POTTER
NEWS. You’ve all heard that by now right? That JK Rowling has confirmed that a
new Harry Potter play will be coming to the London stage next year? It’s called Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and whilst she’s keeping all her cards v close to her chest like she
does, she has said it’s not a prequel. I have all the feelings. I am simultaneously excited and nervy (I
am not so good with the unknown. The unknown makes me very anxious) and you
just know that I (along with oh, the rest of the world) will spend some time in
London Town next year. Ha.
So, there’s that. There’s also the weekend. Hurrah. It’s
going to be a good one. LEMME TELL YOU AAAAAALLL ABOUT IT.
I’m meeting Helen for lunch any minute. Helen’s baby is due
in August (I AM VERY EXCITED ABOUT THIS FACT YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW) and she’s
easing herself into her mat leave; last Friday marked her last Friday at work
and we’re celebrating that fact today with lunch just because we can. Hurrah.
Sometimes all you need is a bit of QT with your BFF you know?
Time with Helen is different to time with anyone else and
it’s my best. Last week we met up and visited her nephew before we went to
Maccies and then just huddled under blankets on her sofa to watch Before I Go To Sleep which mostly meant we talked shit to
each other the whole way through, renamed the characters, got very angry at Mr
Darcy being a badass, criticised Kidman’s hair, and generally took the film
nowhere near as seriously as we should have done thus missing a few important
plot points. I can’t do that stuff with anyone but her.
This evening my pal Jane and I are headed to Hoyster’s for
dinner.
Look how lush it is. You wanna come, right?
Prosecco on tap, this is not a drill.
Prosecco. On. Tap.
For some reason I see lots of prosecco in my future. Also
tapas. Oh, all the tapas. Jane and I
often have these grand plans of big nights out and cocktails and living the
high life. The truth though? We’re eating at 6.30 so do not be surprised if
we’re tucked up in bed for 11. Ha. We’re the most rock and roll. I’m excited
because I haven’t been out since Before the Break-Up so you know, it’ll be fun
to dress up and drink bubbles and let my hair down a while.
Tomorrow I’m getting my culture on with a matinee
performance of Dreamers at Oldham Coliseum. It's a new comedy musical about a group of girls in 90's Manchester: small town nights out, friendship and 90's Indie classics. I am all over that. I’m
going with my friend Natalie – the show was co-written by her sister in law, which
is super cool. Then, we’re heading back to Natalie’s for takeaway food (I hope
Chinese. Nat, if you’re reading this, shall we have Chinese?) and a film –
we’ve mentioned Selma
as we missed it at the cinema. It will be a delightful day of delightfulness
and will probably involve us making plans for when we go to London in October to see Cumberbatch as Hamlet. Nat was all Cumberbatch crazy until I gently pointed
her in the direction of Elementary. She’s seen the (Jonny Lee Miller shaped)
light, naturally because how could you not when he’s that
sexy, but she still has a soft spot for old BC and me? Well I just like London and the theatre
and cocktails so you know, fun times. We’re going to do Hamlet and hit up some
of the galleries and find some awesome cocktail bars and generally just spend a
weekend being super sophisticated. I’ll follow Natalie’s lead on that then, I
know: I am the least sophisticated of them all...
On Sunday I have a blissful ZERO PLANS, but whatever I end
up doing it will not involve food. [& next week will involve a lot of gym time. That cross trainer and I will become very
well acquainted] I might just drive home, and watch the rest of the first
season of Grimm in bed. Yep. That sounds like it
could be a plan. I’m still on the fence about Grimm. Ems
and I watched six episodes the other Sunday which means I have to finish it,
because I’m too far into it not to, but I’m not sure that I love it, yet. I
might also finish my book. I’m reading The Beach Hut at the moment, which is brill and marv. I love
the way Cassandra Parkin writes. I also love that the beach in the book is
based around Perranporth. I love Perranporth.
Anyway, I’ll talk about it properly when I’m done but in the meantime, you can
(and should) get a copy here. Next on the list is the
new Rosamund Lupton The Quality of Silence
which is out next week and which as a lover of Sister I
am super excited about.
I’ve also been house-hunting which is both exciting and
terrible. I have a lot of emotions about it, and if I let me think about it
properly then I get rather weepy but, well, the actual ‘let’s find a cool place
to live,’ that’s sort of fun. I feel like I’ve found the perfect place,
actually. . It’s at the upper end of my budget, as in the very most I would be
prepared to pay right now, which is obviously not ideal: the higher my living
costs the lower my savings/book money, but it’s beautiful, so beautiful. I’ve
even been furnishing it in my head this week which is perhaps not sensible. So,
I made a deal with myself: it’s not even available til August, so, if it’s
still on the market this time next month I’m going to go and view it. If it’s
not, well, then it was never meant to be and I shall find somewhere less
beautiful and less expensive. This is my plan.
The 2015 Book Challenge
Happy New Year blogosphere!Somehow it always comes as a kind of surprise to me, the passing of time. I mean, I'm aware that it is passing, I just never expect it to pass as fast as it does and I feel like I've barely made any New Year's Resolutions before its December 31st all over again.
I am totally the 'oooh doesn't time fly' kind of a cliche. It's a problem that I don't know quite how to solve.
I'm making resolutions this year, as I do every year, but am still mulling them over so if you're looking for a blog post on how I plan to improve my life in 2015, well, this isn't it.
What this is, instead, is a post whereby I declare my pals to be absolute diamonds. Seriously, I must not have hit the snooze button on the day friends were handed out because mine are so excellent I can only have been first in line. (I've hit the snooze button every day since though. Waking up in a morning? Totally not my thing.)
The reason for my praising their collective excellence today, is that I received some excellent Christmas gifts, like for example the bag given to me by my BFF, that is upcycled from an actual copy of Alice in Wonderland (Those who know me like she so obviously does, know is The Book. I own more copies of it than is probably fine, I have no idea how to begin to care about that.)
A bag, made of Alice.
I'm telling you, so much pretty. I made some weird kind of squealing noise when I unwrapped it. So much pretty.
It's not the only truly excellent gift I got though (I told you, front of the line) and this one, from my pal Sarah, is one that you're going to hear a lot about this year.
Sarah got me a ribbon tied pile of sealed envelopes - one for each month, a handful (7 actually) marked ICE - and a book.
She's set me, as she also seems to know me rather well, a book challenge! How marvellous is that!?
I don't know much about how it's going to work out, other than that each envelope contains a challenge for that month, I'm not allowed to re-read, and the book for January is Bill Bryson's 'One Summer' which I am RIDICULOUSLY excited about because Jazz Age America people: the roaring twenties. Al Capone and prohibition and the Flappers and talking movies and Atlantic flights and all that, well, jazz!
When people ask me, as people do, what decade I'd choose to live in, if it were in fact a choice, then pretty much every time I find myself thinking 'the twenties.'
I mean, there are other periods that interest me, others times I think I'd fit in with quite well, and perhaps I've just over read Fitzgerald (can you over read Fitzgerald?) but there's something about the twenties that just appeals to me. Needless to say, I cannot wait to read this book and I cannot wait to see where the rest of this challenge will take me.
I'll tag all the related posts with 'the 2015 book challenge' if you're interested - which well, it's a book challenge. Why would you not be! For now though I can't stay and chat; I have 600 pages of Bryson to read...
My Best Friend's Wedding
That's right boys and girls, my best friend is a wife.
Although the wedding was last Friday, it was entirely possible when I woke for work on Monday morning that I was still, in fact, hungover - on Saturday following the wedding, I opened my eyes and wondered briefly if I had died, making my way down to breakfast where the Father of the Bride grinned at me and said 'I hope you feel as awful as you look' (I love that man) - if not still hungover by Monday then I was definitely still the kind of tired that you only ever are after a truly excellent night and too much alcohol. Even now I still feel like I could sleep for a week. We started on the fizzy stuff at around half past 10 on Friday morning, my glass wasn't empty until gone 1am Saturday and I may not be 100% sure where my dignity is. Probably on the dancefloor. There was a lot of dancing.
What I am 100% sure of is that Helen was the most beautiful bride I've ever seen and I was beyond honoured to stand by her side on her big day.
It was one of the best days of my life.
When you have a friend that's as excellent as Helen then you find yourself wanting, more than anything, for them to find true happiness. When they do, and you get to stand by their side and watch as they promise to try to be that happy for the rest of ever and always, well, it's a pretty fabulous feeling.
Helen and Dan just sort of....fit, and the look in his eyes when he married her on Friday kind of made me want to cry.
Helen was a remarkably chilled out bride, I feel you should know that. Not a hint of Bridezilla in sight, even for a second. Not all brides can claim that. If I ever get married I can only hope to be as chill as her.
One of the things she asked of me was to give a reading at the wedding. One I had written myself. She asked me after I'd had wine and I cried. My mum whispered in my ear 'you can do this' and I figured that yes, I could. I don't think I had quite grasped at that point that effectively I was writing a speech that I had to give in front of close to 100 people. Not that I regret it. Not a chance. I was petrified, to the point that I felt sick and my hands hurt but it never crossed my mind for a minute to say no, or to back out. Out of those 100 people she had asked me: I felt honoured. & I always have a lot to say - even if I do generally say it in writing rather than out loud. Writing it was easy, and reading it, once I was up there doing it was much less hard than I thought it would be. I almost cried, very nearly lost it twice, but I made it through. I think it was a success. I don't have a lot of money and was never going to be able to afford an expensive wedding gift; I kind of hope then, that my words last Friday let Helen know how much she matters to me, how much I love her, how truly happy I am that she has found Dan, and that I wish them the very happiest of lives together.
Helen was a beautiful bride; Dan a handsome groom. The venue was lovely, the whole place felt full of love and laughter and as I danced the night away in my bridesmaid dress, my shoes abandoned somewhere and wine glass in hand, I felt certain I was a part of something special. It was a day I know that I will always look back on with a smile and above all it was a day that marked the start of a brand new chapter for Helen and Dan.
It's where the fairytale always ends, the wedding, but I can't help think that ending, really, is just the beginning.
And they all lived happily ever after.
No Other City Ever Made Me Glad
In 2007, on the night I met the boy who was
to become the ‘love of my life,’ he asked me – quite nonchalantly – if I’d like
to go to New York
with him the next Christmas. Fast forward to just over a year later and we were
grabbing a yellow cab at JFK. It’s one of my favourite stories to tell about
the way that we met, and, New York
is quite possibly in my top two places on earth (the other is by the sea but
that’s a story for another day.)
Fast forward another 6 years from that and
here we are. We watched the New New York
episode of Glee this week and when it ended we
looked at one another and sighed a little sadly. We miss
New York, we
miss it in a way not dissimilar to the way you miss an old friend you haven’t spoken
to in a while: it was fun and we want more and why are you so far away. That’s
kind of how New York
makes you feel, like it’s that holiday romance, all too fleeting but so intense
that you look back on it both fondly and with a sense of longing that almost
takes your breath away.
I’ve been having a lot
of New York feelings recently, perhaps due to
my best friend’s forthcoming wedding (in real life, not the Julia Roberts film)
which has a New York
theme. She got engaged in New York (top of the
Empire State Building
the whole shebang), super romantic, right? I KNOW. I’ve been feeling nostalgic
for that week we spent there, possibly the best week of my life, and have what
can only be described as a longing to go back. A quick look on Skyscanner and a
check of my bank balance swiftly reminds me that that is not even a remote
possibility right now. Woe is me, I know. Feel free to send sympathy on a
postcard.
I never expected to love it so. I went
because Ian wanted to, mainly. I mean, I wanted to go,
don’t get me wrong: who doesn’t want to go to New York,
but I hadn’t spent the 25 years of my life prior to my trip with New York City dreams. I’m
not a city girl. At all. I like the feel of the sea breeze on my face; I like
the feel of grass between my toes; I like wide open spaces and making daisy
chains in a field knowing there might not be another person for miles. That
feeling, of being the only person in the world? I love it.
My grandparents owned a farm when I was
small and I grew up collecting eggs and venturing as far away as I was allowed
(which looking back wasn’t all that far but which felt like a million miles to
me) and rolling down the hills in the top fields, faster,faster,faster. I was
nettle stings, and grass stains, and sitting on a fence, laughing when the
goats tried to eat my shoelaces. My cousins moved to Manchester when I was in
my teens and visiting them, whilst an adventure, left me feeling like a fish
out of water: it was big – too big- and loud – too loud- and dirty and all of
the people were in such a hurry to get nowhere and I longed to go home to my
small town life.
London was the same again – a big city, too
much too fast, although I was older when I first went there (for my 21st
birthday) and I kind of got caught up in it all – I love me some time in the
capital, but I’m always ready to come home again after a couple of days, to the
relative peace of a hometown that doesn’t even have a shopping centre, where a
5 minute walk has me feeding the ducks in the park.
I thought New York would be the same: bustling, and a
little insane, too many people in too much of a hurry and so much to see it
would make my eyes burn. I thought I’d be ready to come home after a couple of
nights; I worried our trip would be too long.
It was exactly what I expected: New York is bustling, and a little insane, with too many people in
too much of a hurry and so much to see it made my eyes burn.
& I loved it.
Our trip wasn’t long enough.
I loved the line of yellow cabs waiting for
us when we left the airport, bundling our cases into the trunk and giving the
driver our hotel address, and the way Ian’s hand felt in mine as we crossed
over to Manhattan.
My heart raced and my stomach churned and I was just so freaking excited. Excited and overwhelmed and head-over-heels in
love. I loved the way it looked; the way
it smelled; the way it sounded. I
loved wandering through NoHo on our first night, grabbing a coffee and not
being able to quite believe I was really there, being tired and grumpy but not
wanting to stop walking those streets, ever.
We went in December, so it was cold, and
the Christmas Tree was outside the Rockerfeller Centre and all the shops on Fifth Avenue were
lit up with pretty lights and we got to go ice skating in Central
Park. There was a Christmas market at Union Square and every day was so cold I
could see my breath mist in the air in front of me. We walked and walked and
walked til my boots wore away a patch of skin on my ankle; we didn’t catch the
subway once. One night as we wandered hand in hand through Greenwich Village to
John’s Pizzeria on Bleeker St it began to snow, enough for me to leave noticeable footprints on the New York sidewalk, and I stuck out my tongue – do
New York snowflakes taste different than those back home in Lancashire? They
do: they taste like possibility and dreams coming true.
I loved the people, the ones in the street
and in the shops and in the all night deli on the corner of the block near our
hotel (Washington Square baby) where I could buy hairspray and takeout food and
a packet of Cheetos all under one roof. I loved the amazing concierge we made
friends with in our hotel, and the guy who gave Ian a high five when we stopped
for a slice of pizza in the pouring down rain when even my best Carrie Bradshaw
couldn’t secure us a cab (you’re from England. Happy holidays!) and the
lady with the broadest of New York
accents who handed me my plate of pancakes and bacon in the diner we shared
with the NYPD and a massive big dog. She said ‘coffee’ like they do in the
movies. I kind of wanted to sit there all day. I loved the shopping (as did
Ian. So many pairs of shoes oh my god) and the food and the sights. I loved the
atmosphere. I loved how everything somehow felt familiar but at the same time
utterly unknown; the view from the Empire State building that blew my mind and
the view from the Statue of Liberty that did the same; Ground Zero which made
my heart hurt and my eyes burn; Times Square and Wall Street and Bloomingdale's
and Grand Central Station and City Hall and The Brooklyn Bridge and this tiny
little café almost hidden by some scaffolding where the lino was peeling at the
edges and the grilled cheese tasted like something straight from heaven.
I loved it all, so very much and even if I
never get to go back I will be forever grateful that I ever went at all.
Oh New
York. No other city ever made me glad.
in which I mark the passing of time.
This week marks the seven year anniversary of the release of
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Can you even believe it?
I was 24. I’m fairly sure
that puts me outside of Harry Potter’s intended demographic and yet I felt like
I had been waiting for this book my whole life. Helen and I had spent more
hours than it’s probably even possible to count after the end of Half Blood Prince coming up with theory after theory: Who
was RAB and surely Dumbledore’s not really dead and omg the Snape of it all. We drove ourselves crazy.
I live out in the sticks a little bit, so there was no
exciting midnight release for me. I was living with Helen at the time, and
instead two shiny new copies of the book were delivered by a postman (who
likely had the heaviest post bag of his career that day, except for OotP
release day, obvs). They were so shiny and new and beautiful and my tummy did a
funny flippy thing.
& then Helen went out. I’m not even kidding. Off she
went with her chums from work on a beer bus around the Yorkshire Dales. She had
to lesve the book behind – needless to say she wasn’t happy about it. I waved
her off and then I went back to bed. To read. I spent the morning reading in
bed and the afternoon reading on the sofa & I exchanged a ridiculous number of text messages with Jen (who thank
goodness reads at the same speed as I do)
By the time Helen got home that evening I was done. &
emotionally drained. I’d laughed and I‘d cried (oh God, the tears) and I’d held
my breath. I’d barely been able to turn the pages fast enough. And then it was
over.
All was well.
I felt strangely bereft, knowing that there would be no
more. These books had a profound effect on me, one that I still don’t really
understand. & I didn’t quite know what to do
once I’d read the last words of the last book. When I went to the premiere a few
years ago, Ian asked me what I would say if I met Jo Rowling. Half Blood Prince had
been my lifeline; the only thing I could think of was ‘thanks.’
I think I all but threw the book at Helen when she got back.
I pretty much forced her to read it, if you
listen to her version of events. If you listen to mine she didn’t take much
forcing, but still, whether my fault or her choice, I don’t think she’s read a
book that fast before or since. ‘Where are you up to?’ I’d demand at intervals,
or when I heard a quiet ‘oh,’ from her bedroom ‘Hedwig?’ (Still not over
Hedwig. Will never be over Hedwig.)
I can’t believe it’s been seven years. I still love the
books and the characters as much as ever, but more than that I love what they
represent: the hours of conversation, the friendships that have formed (and
strengthened) because of a shared love of Hogwarts, the way it’s like being
part of a really big family – you see someone reading HP and you give them a
little nod and a smile. You do right? It sounds trite, but the Harry Potter
series has given me so much more than just a story. & if I ever do get the
chance to meet JK Rowling, I still think the only think I’d be able to say is thanks.
