Apologies for the absence, dear readers, but (as you will soon see) it has been a manic few weeks.
Following the (tentatively) successful meeting of Apollo's friends and family, I have had several new adventures. And, appreciating that the average reader's attention span is approximately 2-3 minutes (i.e. about 3 paragraphs), I will try and keep this as brief (hah!) and (hopefully) entertaining as possible.
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| If you wanted something short you should have gone to Vine. |
Firstly, since last posting I have celebrated a birthday and am desperately trying to ignore the fact that I am now closer to 30 than 20 and reassure myself that being asset poor/cash poor is still okay. It's when you hit 30 that it's okay to be asset rich/cash poor.
Or so my sources tell me.
Anyway, I had my birthday at Law school and was slightly disappointed that I would have to spend 6 hours in lectures but somehow my law school friends managed to make my birthday awesome.
I had cards, cake, a balloon and lots and lots of bubbles in the evening.
The lots and lots of bubbles led to some interesting situations including telephoning one of our lecturers whilst he was relaxing at home on a Saturday evening and yelling/singing at him down the phone, laying in a bath with Becky until we got cricks in our necks, being fireman lifted/kidnapped out of a Premier Inn hallway, being let off part of a taxi fare because the driver didn't want us to faff with any more money and begged me to 'please get your friends out of my car' with one such friend then stage whispering into my ear 'you should thank me! I just saved you £1.54 by saying that I felt sick very loudly'.
Ah, good times.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Birthday celebrations continued well into the next week with Apollo turning up with his gift on Monday evening.
Now, for those that don't know me (who are you, and how did you find this?), firstly; welcome, and secondly, you should know that I am a Harry Potter fan.
I am particularly a fan of the Marauders and that era in general. Probably because it is a part of a complete and well established universe but a part that has not been fully explored so my imagination can take over a bit. I also have a soft spot for fanfiction and Lord knows that there is plenty of HP stories to waste several hours (read as 'years') on.
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| ...and jeopardise your Law degree! |
In any event, BF was well aware of this fact following a quiz taken in his living room which his FlatMate had designed (a lady who has perhaps a fervour for Harry Potter even surpassing my own).
Upon revealing that I had been to the Harry Potter studios tour and had been disappointed to learn that Lily Evans' wand was not available for purchase, the wheels in Apollo's head started turning. I should point out that this conversation was a good month or so ago so this is already fairly impressive.
And several weeks later...
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| A wand was born! |
The thought and effort put into my gift was what made this so unbelievably special. And whilst some people have questioned exactly what I will do with the wand (I'm not going to re-post those questions for fear of scarring some of our younger readers), I think the point has been utterly missed.
BF cut down some willow, made me a wand, made me an authentic Ollivander's box because the wand I desired was not available for purchase.
Despite some negative comments (haters gon' hate), the internet overwhelmingly fell in love with the idea and almost inevitably with Apollo himself following his post on Imgur which you can find here if you are interested in the actual turning process.
The post received a fair amount of attention on Reddit (r/DIY) and from there...the internet exploded.
All of a sudden the wand got posted about on Pretty 52, Distractify, Buzzfeed, Mashable and many other news trending websites. Apollo was receiving messages requesting commissioned wands and even had one request for a huge batch to act as wedding favours.
It was crazy!
So BF got approximately 12 hours of 'internet fame' and was called a God amongst men and a master craftsman among many other things, namely a soppy git by the people of Reddit.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Once the internet had calmed down and BF had returned to relative anonymity once more, Thursday rolled round and we won the local pub quiz.
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| Seriously. Best. Quiz. Ever. |
However, our usual team mate, who we shall affectionately call Mr BBC, was missing for the first time since we had started this joint venture.
...so I think we now know who the dead weight on the team is.
~*~*~*~*~*~
The weekend crept up rather quickly following our decisive victory and that meant one thing: Land Rover adventures.
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| The Fleet, ready for action. |
And really, I suppose Nessie was there first so that makes me the Other Woman...? Awks. Despite our differences, we managed to form a bond over the course of the weekend so I think we've avoided any unnecessary jealousy.
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| ...I'm not labelling anyone here but...Nessie is a lot heavier than me. Just sayin'. |
With Nessie loaded up and the Fleet ready to go, off we went into the wilderness of Salisbury plain and the numerous byways found therein. (Apollo was subjected to my music choices all day including War of the Worlds, various country and a guess the Disney song round. You may pity him.)
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And then the glorious Fleet got stuck in the first big puddle of the day.
All I'm saying is it's a good job we came up from Winch-ester. ...geddit?
#puns
Moving swiftly on...we bounced along the byways for most of the day and at one point went through a big, innocuous looking puddle.
This puddle did not look substantially different from any of the other large puddles we had happily charged through over the course of the day.
Unfortunately, however, this was more of a lake than a puddle (the ducks swimming on top should have been our first clue). We ploughed through and realised very quickly that the puddle was a lot deeper than we had originally anticipated.
AJ: Wheee! (AJ is (and has been) giggling like a teenager through the puddle even as the water starts coming up over the bonnet. The car begins to slow down still in the puddle. AJ turns to look at BF and promptly stops giggling at the Serious Face she is presented with).
AJ: Err..everything okay? This is fun isn't it? (Trying to lighten the Serious Face).
BF: (Slight sarcasm is detected) Yep, all good...are your feet getting wet, yet?
AJ: What do you me-oh. (AJ has looked down in her foot well and finally notices the 6 inches of muddy water now sloshing around. The rest of Nessie is not faring much better).
BF: Yeah...and if I stall it now we will be getting out and swimming.
(The giggling has now definitely stopped).
AJ: Ah.
BF: 'Ah' indeed.
(BF is a master of Puddle Jumping and therefore does not stall the car, Nessie loves her Pilot and has somewhat warmed to the co-pilot and they all lived Happily Ever After instead of drowning in the puddle/lake like they probably deserve. The rest of the Fleet avoid the puddle/lake because they are Sensible Drivers.)
We eventually left Salisbury Plain and ended up having a BBQ at the Admiral of the Fleet's house. Which we obviously had to build first out of breeze blocks because reasons.
We are all enjoying our lovely BBQ, cider and beer are flowing and the burgers are sizzling when, all of a sudden, it starts snowing.
Because of course.
The BBQ continues because we are hardy off-roaders now, dear readers.
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| I look different without my mascara on, kay?! |
The night draws to a close and Apollo and I decide that we have been hardy off-roaders for quite long enough so we engage in urban camping (i.e. we stay on the sofa bed) rather than staying in the roof tent because a) sofa bed and b) it snowed earlier.
~*~*~*~*~*~
The next morning we woke bright and early (hard not to with a 7 year old and a baby living in the same house). After thanking our hosts, we trundled off in the sunshine (seriously, weather, what is your deal?!) to forage breakfast (read as 'find McDonalds').
The nearest we could get was a Costa which turned out to be the best decision we could have made. The Costa in Devizes has a Barista Maestro who should be receiving all the coffee awards going. If there aren't any then someone should make some so he can get them.
It was 9 in the morning on a Sunday and he was friendly, smiley, quick, accurate and just generally amazing. Apollo and I were both pleasantly surprised by this find and, as the BF, phrased it: it was nice to see someone take pride in doing a job well. Maybe he hates coffee, maybe he hates getting up on a Sunday morning to make snooty chai lattes for girls that haven't brushed their hair yet, but he certainly seemed to love it.
#serviceindustrygoals
Someone give that man a pay rise!
~*~*~*~*~*~
Sunday was spent traversing the Plain to head back home and I had the task of Navigating. Once I had figured out the scale of the map, I actually managed to do a half decent job! So we found a lovely spot for a bit of lunch which required me to ford a river in order to take the following picture.
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| Seriously some Lara Croft stuff going on to get this shot. |
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| Nessie was pretty happy out in the sunshine too. |
We eventually got back to Winchester and indulged in a hot shower (following which I could not brush a knot out of my hair and we very nearly Threw A Wobble. Apollo was spared this when I realised that it was far too early in our relationship to have a full on Hissy Fit because my hair was not behaving. Having a nap helped my mood too.)
All in all, it was a great weekend and a fantastic week.
And what does all this mean for me?
Well...my Amortentia potion now smells like wood shavings, diesel and chai latte.
And if that makes me a soppy git at least I'll be in good company.
&&Fin.
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