Tuesday 16 August 2011

Harry Potter, A Bad Cold, and a Travelling Husband

What do the above three things have in common you ask?  What is the common link here, think, think, think....

Well let's start with Harry Potter.  It was around 10 years, two international assignments, and several thousand kilometers ago, that my youngest nephew Jordan and I (OMG, he was like 7 at the time, younger than J is now), started going to see the Harry Potter movies.  It was a thing we did every 18 months or so, dinner at Eastside Mario's and Harry Potter.  The two of us, plus his older brother Justin, also devoured the books and shared them in turn. All three of us, addicts for 10 years.  I personally think that J.K. Rowling is a freaking genius with the most fertile of imaginations that I stand in utter in awe of, a Tolkien for a different generation...but I digress.  Good so far?

Over the course of the last six months or so, on the odd occasion that C2 is in town, he is reading the Harry Potter series to J whose fascination with all things Hogwarts is beginning to rival his cousins' and my own.  They've finished the first two and we watched the associated movies in rapid succession.

OK, next.  I don't fall sick very often, in fact, I don't think I have been downed by a cold since a nasty one morphed into an unhappy sinus infection about four years ago.  But 4 days ago? Whammo!  Add to this merry mixture, my currently continent-hopping husband whose frequent absences have at times occasioned casual dinners in front of the tv, and you have all the makings of a movie-watching marathon. Getting the picture yet?

OK, let me spell it out in more detail.  A week ago, I picked the final Harry Potter book "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" out from my bookshelf.  Over the next three or so days, I reread it with fierce focus.  As my ill-health began to intensify, and I started resting more, I began re-watching the Harry Potter movies from where C2, J and I had left off; that is numbers 3, 4, 5, 6, and the first half of 7.  It's so easy to buy movies on iTunes!!!  By the time, I had finished number 7, aka Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I, I was in a sort of wizarding frenzy desperate to see the concluding chapter.

So yesterday, I packed my red-nosed and hacking self off to the movie theatre at mid-day alone to join a throng of similarly child-free adults with equally wild imaginations for the best two-and-a-half hours I've spent in a movie theatre in quite a while.

I've never been quite so grateful for a cold before...or a travelling husband but that's just between you and me!

5 comments:

Elizabeth said...

It's weird, but we are just not a Harry Potter family! I read the first one and did love it, but both boys do not enjoy them. I know that if I were a very young girl, like them, I would have eaten those books up.

Well, I hope you feel better soon -- and that photo at the top of your blog is so gorgeous I could stare at it all day long!

Melissa Miller said...

I"ve read all seven aloud. Our dog was rechristened Honey-dukes and my girls have written their own acceptance letters to infamous school of witchcraft and wizardry. They were sorted into Griffindor (Mouse) and Hufflepuff (Emma) at the Harry Potter exhibit in Toronto. We all joyfully played quidditch and were in awe of the size of Hagrid's costume. I'm so glad you've wallowed in all things magical for a time. Isn't it nice!

Anonymous said...

Book 7 in 3 days?!? It took Cameron and I about a year to read 4 and 5 together! I'd really like to read the last ones with my boy. But the evenings seem to go so quickly and Cameron also needs to be reading stuff himself. Stop the world I want to get off!... Pleased you enjoyed yourself in a self-indulgent way. Good girl.
Sx

Jen said...

I am addicted to it...I avoided the books for quite sometime and then fell victim. Sorry about the cold but glad you were able to make some good use of your down time!

M said...

...sounds like a perfectly sweet afternoon-minus the snotty nose, of course.