Weekend Adventures

Hello everyone!

So on Saturday I celebrated my friend’s 30th in style! Yes, we went to the Harry Potter Studio Tour in London. Now I will be honest I have been quite a few times but I have not seen the Forbidden Forest or Gringotts bank so I was very pleased to visit and see the new scenes.

I will be honest I am terrified of spiders so the Forbidden Forest was a bit of trial for me but I absolutely loved Gringotts bank and it is possibly my second favourite part because of course the ultimate favourite is the castle at the end which is always rather emotional to behold.

What is everyone’s favourite part of the tour?

Here are a few photos from the day!

Birthday Treats

For my birthday my wonderful husband bought us both tickets to see The Cursed Child parts 1 & 2 with a one night stay in a very posh hotel.

So this weekend found us both in London at the Palace Theatre.

I remember reading the script as soon as the book came out in 2016 after waiting and waiting for the book to arrive. I will be honest the story was a slight disappointment however the actual play was amazing! On Goodreads I only rated the book as 2 stars, my husband gave the same rating.

I am so pleased the script did not put me off as I would have missed out on an amazing stage production.

The first thing that struck me was the amazing stage effects, how they did all the magic was just wonderful and the choreography that went with it was the icing on the cake. The second part was the music, there was no hint of the music from all the Harry Potter films in it. The music stood on its own and was just stunning, it really helped back and move the storyline forward. The only thing I would say is that sometimes the music was a little on the loud side.

Finally there was the acting. The actors were phenomenal, how they kept their energy up for the two parts was unbelievable. The star of the show in my opinion was the actor who played Scorpius. He was amazingly talented and his energy was electric. I think the actors who played Harry, Ron and Hermione were excellent, as they had hard acts to follow from the three actors we know so well from the films. Ron in particular was my favourite, he was just as fun and as happy as he always was and I am happy that did not change.

All in all I loved the play even though I still can not get used to the storyline, it was an amazing day and I can not recommend it enough.

I also visited a new book store during the gap between the two parts. I went to Foyle’s bookshop and I loved it! Sadly I did not buy anything from there as I did not want to be carrying lots of books in to the theatre but I had a good explore. I really loved the layout so open and brightly lit, and the sheet music selection was incredible! I was completely overwhelmed but I desperately want to go back (another trip to London in the planning I think).

Sunday was a relaxing day exploring The Natural History Museum and I might have bought a T-Rex toy wearing a Christmas jumper because dinosaurs are awesome and even better in Christmas jumpers.

Lady Book Dragon

Weekend Adventures

This weekend I went to London for a couple of days, I needed to get my flute serviced and that has to be done in Croydon so I used this as an excuse to spend some time in London.

My husband and I did not really have a plan of what we wanted to do in London but we came up with the idea of visiting the National Gallery and having a good wander around London. I was also determined to go to London’s biggest bookshop which is the Waterstones by Piccadilly.

The word overwhelmed comes to mind. As a book dragon and self confessed book hoarder being confronted with that many books in one building was rather daunting. I had set myself a budget and was determined to get a diary for next year. Well I got the diary, but the budget got broken, I was doing ok till I got to the till and the man behind the counter suggested a certain book to me and I could not say no, so the budget was broken. I promise I will try harder next time.

I bought five books and one diary.

My book haul is as follows:-

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

The Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

The Librarian by Salley Vickers

The Death of the Fronsac by Neal Ascherson

And my wonderful Sloth diary! I can not wait to get started putting things in my new diary. I love diaries and notebooks, does anybody else share my love?