Productivity Thy Name Is Hayley… Sort Of

We bought a drill last week… which may not have been a good move given my history. My first real contact with a drill was when my Dad had left one out on my grandparent’s kitchen table to do some sort of handy work so naturally I was drawn to it and managed to drill a small but noticeable hole in their table… oops. The second time I used a drill I was lent one by a much loved colleague, “borrow the non electric one because you can’t break that”… then I dropped it and it broke in half. Oops. THIS time went a lot better, observe our boiler room where we do our laundry.

And now observe there are some shelves.

So that went OK until this set up on the right turned out to be too heavy so I had to distribute the weight and involve a bit of Gorilla Glue. As a new home owner I’ve discovered that Gorilla Glue is absolutely necessary.

I’ve also been signing up for a new agency job to get a few extra hours every now and then and when you join up to a lot of new jobs here you need to take a drugs test. So I had to drive bloody miles to take a drugs test and when I got there, next door to the building that ran drugs tests was a Planned Parenthood – in the car park there was some crazy protesters. I thought that only happened on TV… jeez.

We had a game night this week.

And I learnt how to play Uno and Dreidel.

I used my new drill skills to install a key safe in case Kim locks us out again.

Kim’s parents came over and I successfully made a pavlova.

And then last night we went to Harry Potter in concert where an orchestra played the sound track to Harry Potter live alongside the film which was good. The first movie came out in 2001 and it looks so old now, I hadn’t watched it in years.

So that was my week.

Harry Potter Part 2 & Visiting Family

On Friday we had part 2 of Harry Potter lined up for the evening so we took a trip to see my family, some of which live in London. We all met at my Great Aunt’s house and then my Mum, Uncle, their cousin Elaine and her daughter Alison, my Great Aunt, Kim and I went for a lovely lunch out. It was so good to catch up and I hadn’t seen my cousin Alison for years (although we couldn’t quite believe it had been that long!).

After dinner we took the underground to Covent Garden for a walk around.

And we got smoothies, Kim sporting the lovely ring my mum gave her for her birthday.

We got to part two of Harry Potter & The Cursed Child a little later the second day but we still had time to browse the gift shop. We got matching house necklaces because we’re that cool and met a very excitable Harry Potter fan who we chatted to in the queue. She was slightly mad and had already booked tickets to see the play a second time, she compared her own life several times to Harry Potter characters and knew strangely in depth information about the gift shop, the theatre and signings of books.

Anyways, backing away slowly from the mad girl, the play was enjoyable however if I had any criticism of it it would be that it didn’t feel like it was written by J K Rowling.

Also this time I didn’t choke coughing from my cold. This time I went to Boots and was armed with cough syrup which I swigged from frequently any time I felt like coughing and it worked a treat, it’s pretty much gone in fact.

 

We went back on the tube, they just opened the night tube too and it was pretty busy and I was so tired I think I fell asleep immediately!

Harry Potter & The Cursed Child

Last year I left Kimmy with express instructions to bid on tickets to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and after she waited online for hours clutching my credit card she got them in exchange for a small fortune. We took a trip to London where we’d booked a Harry Potter manicure with Maddy at Wah Nails. Kim went for a deathly hallows theme.

 

And I went for slytherin nails. I annoyed Kim during all intervals in both parts by hissing and making my snake nail pretend to bite her

We queued up at 18:30 on the dot, we saw a lot of people dressed up and lots of Harry Potter themed clothes, hair and jewellery.

Inside the theatre it seemed small but someone told us it sat 1400 people at a time so I guess it wasn’t that small.

We were in row E so really close to the front, we made friends with our seat buddies, to our right were girls dressed in hufflepuff robes. Now these must have been expensive to buy… Where the hell would you wear official hufflepuff robes to? On our left were a gothic pinup styled couple with a Harry Potter tattoo, we liked them best and speculated during breaks as to the plot line.

I won’t give spoilers… But oh em gee.

The Casual Vacancy and Snow Drops

I got the last one on the UEA Campus today!!! I read a bit, it’s ok so far but it can’t ever be as good as Harry Potter can it… it’s about a small town where a Parish Councillor dies suddenly leaving a casual vacancy (as the title suggests).

And this one I’ve just finished, we got it free from university as a gift. It was good but I like books with a happy ending and this one didn’t really have that one. It’s set in Russia where an English lawyer has a really dull existence until he meets this girl and her sister and events turn from then on.

Lego Harry Potter

I was a bit childish this weekend and whilst the boyfriend subjected me to endless hours of sport (yawn), I decided I would play Harry Potter Lego years 1-4….. I won’t lie… it was pretty damn awesome.

So far I’ve gone round the leaky cauldron, diagon alley, gringotts, i’ve been sorted and now I’m going to a few lessons (wingardium leviosa!!).

The nice thing is that the games meant for children so it’s quite easy for people that are crap at games like me

How exciting!