Journeys Are My Diary

Life, Adventures, Entertainment and more - A little bit of everything blog!

Harry Potter turns 20!

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Can you believe that on June 26th 2017, JK Rowling’s “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” has been publish for 20 years?! It seems no time at all, since I discovered my love for Harry Potter and his Wizarding World but despite being 38 years old this weekend and having gotten both my daughters to love Harry Potter too, I find it hard to believe that it really has been twenty years since the start of my favourite book series.

That said, I wasn’t one of the first people to jump aboard the Harry Potter band wagon. In fact, when both my mum and dad were raving about the books, I was actually wondering what the hell was going on with all these adults loving a “kids book”. It wasn’t until 1999 (Philosopher’s Stone was 1997), not long after Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was published, that I finally caved to peer pressure and borrowed my parent’s copy of the first book. In typical “child” fashion, I hated to admit when my parents were right, but oh my god I loved the first book. So much so that it was read within a few days, despite working full time. Book two was then devoured within days, followed by book three. It was official, I was hooked. I was desperate for the fourth book… and I suppose that was when I truly became a Harry Potter fan.

Book Four – Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, was pre-ordered. When it arrived, I couldn’t wait to get reading and I literally didn’t put it down until I was done. This became the same for all the other books, Order of the Phoenix, Half-Blood Prince and finally The Deathly Hallows. I have never before, or since, been so hooked on a book series. And it didn’t end with just the books either. I went to see every movie that was released, if not on the very first day, within very few days of released. The Deathly Hallows Part 1 was released not long after my ex and I split up and having no one who was immediately free to go to the cinema with, I ventured for the first time by myself to see a movie – rather than wait too long and go with someone else. When the final movie was released, myself and fifteen other friends, all gathered for a party of sorts. We all went to the first midnight showing of the movie and some of us even got Deathly Hallows tattoos to remember the occasion – this was my first ever tattoo.

This week I have been to London and of course a visit to the Platform 9 3/4 shop is an essential part of that trip. Not only that, but as I mentioned earlier – I turn 38 at the end of this week and guess what I’m doing for my birthday? A trip to Watford and the Harry Potter Studios (it will be my third time!). I’m really a huge Harry Potter geek and I don’t care if I should be too old for it or whatever. I have loved Harry Potter for (almost) twenty years and I will continue to do so for at least twenty more. I have loved sharing the stories with my children and hope they will continue to share the books with their own children too. This weekend we are also attending MCM London Comic Con and they have pre-releases of the 20th Anniversary “house” editions of the Philosopher’s Stone and I’m so tempted to get one (or all of them…)! Harry Potter books are the one and only set of books I would never be parted with, over all the books I own.

As a final thought and conclusion to my post, I wanted to share this infograph, put together by Cartridge Save. It has loads of fun facts about most used words and phrases, along with how many copies have been sold and how many words are in each book etc. If you’re yet to read Harry Potter, no matter what the reason, I honestly recommend you give it a try! You have nothing to lose and a whole lot of love to gain!

October Round-up

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october

Watching: I honestly don’t remember much of what I’ve watched this month. Here’s the list; Luke Cage (Series 1), Big Bang Theory (Seasons 1-10), Designated Survivor, New OUAT eps, Captain America – Civil War, Knights of Badassdom, X-Men First Class, Walking Dead (first ep, new season), Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.
Reading: A Frozen Heart, Cinder.
Sewing & Making (for Closet Geek): As of the 19th October, I’d had 214 orders since the beginning of September and 41 were dresses. This compares to 56 for the same period of time last year, 35 of which were dresses. So mostly, I’ve been really really bloody busy! Mostly I sewed Wendy dresses but clearly there were another 150 or so orders on top of that too. I also made a Jane Porter cosplay for someone to wear to Disneyland Paris Halloween party and I was SO pleased with it.

And in other news…
– Adam came to visit for a week, after not seeing him since February.
– X-Factor Live shows started… (yeah sad, but I like it).
– Chris and I celebrated 4 years together. We had a night together by ourselves while the girls were with their dad but our actual anniversary was spent as a family.
– Insanely busy with Closet Geek as I mentioned above but finally it died off in the last week of October and it was actual heaven to have time to breathe again.
– Megan went back to school a day before Lily after half term and so Lil and I enjoyed a rare day together, just us. Sadly we both ended up ill the following day and Lily was off school for two more days!
– My new ear stand arrived. Chris bought me a Minnie Mouse Disney Tradition. We got a new coffee machine. Chip and Dale in Christmas form Tsum Tsums are now on our mantelpiece and I’ve really enjoyed some Lush baths!

Looking forward to in November:
– Being calmer to some extent, because Halloween is well out of the way and the drop in orders has been significant. However since I’m getting ready for Christmas market, I still feel a lot of pressure to work and build stock.
– Honestly there’s not much else to look forward to I don’t think. More Lush baths. The new “Harry Potter” movie. Celebrating mum and dad’s wedding anniversary. Nat’s birthday. Okay so I guess that’s more than I thought…

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Book Review – A Frozen Heart

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frozen_heart

I bought this book from Asda and I have to admit I was pretty excited to find it, especially for £3.75. This book had been on my Amazon wishlist for some time and I assumed it would be similar to the Twisted Tales by by Liz Braswell. I had read A Whole New World, picked up Once Upon a Dream and this seemed like it would be similar, despite being by a different author, Elizabeth Rudnick.

Sadly, I was quite disappointed. If you want to read the novelisation of the Frozen movie, then this book is for you. It’s the exact story that the Frozen movie provides you with, except in a written form – meaning more detail, more description, more dialogue etc. That said, any dialogue that appeared in the movie, appears in this book. Every quote your children (or you) know off by heart, will be in this book. At first its sort of lovely – an indepth look to Anna and Elsa’s life, even a bit more background on Hans which you don’t really get in the movie. However once the storyline gets going, the story is basically exactly like the animation and it loses something for me.

That said, the end still made me cry, just like it does when I watch it. The book is a beautiful rendition of the movie, but that is all it is. I was expecting something more, something different, something that tells us a different part of the story. But sadly it’s not that. If you want to read “Frozen”, then absolutely pick up this book. If you’re looking for something more, it’s probably best not to bother.

Book Review – Kingdom Keepers: Disney at Dawn by Ridley Pearson

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Last week Lily and I finished the second book in the Kingdom Keepers series. As you may remember, I reviewed book one, Kingdom Keepers: Disney After Dark, only a few weeks ago. This book was quite different from the first – and in my opinion it was much better in lots of ways.

Again, reading it aloud to Lily, I did at times struggle with the structure of the writing. However I generally found it improved from the first book. Where the last book was set at night time – bedtime trips to Magic Kingdom in holographic form – this was set in a whole day time, a day time in fact where the kids couldn’t sleep (just in case) in Animal Kingdom. Now this is really the main reason I said it was better in lots of ways. I enjoyed the story more, the writing was good and I really enjoyed the plot as a whole. However (and I’m sorry, please don’t hate me) I wasn’t at all sold on Animal Kingdom when we visited Florida last year and it just didn’t really do anything for me on that front. I’m not fussed about animals either, plus I think many aspects are quite old and therefore not necessarily accurate, but yeah… Animal Kingdom is a bit blah for me.

So obviously I never like to spoil the plot on these things, but despite being set in Animal Kingdom AND being all about animals, the story was good. I liked the addition of Amanda and Jez to the gang, plus I enjoyed the way the kids are all much closer and better friends in this book. Unlike the first book, which tied off quite nicely, it was obviously that this book was “to be continued…”. While it had an element of tying off loose ends, it clearly left a storyline open for another book (which we have actually started now and it does pick up from the end of the last one).

All in all, I’m really enjoying these books. The next one is apparently set in Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios, so I’m interested to see how that plays out. Also the fact the books started off calling Hollywood Studios – MCM, I feel like these are becoming newer and more up to date.

Book Review – Kingdom Keepers: Disney After Dark by Ridley Pearson

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disneyafterdark

A long time ago, in fact for Megan’s birthday in December last year, I picked up this book – Kingdom Keepers: Disney After Dark. It’s not a book that I knew much about, but I had spoken to Amy about them (who has read it and several in the series afterwards) and she thought it would be something Megs would like. However as Megan was so into reading at the time, she got loads of books for her birthday and this definitely wasn’t top of her list to read. Lily and I had been reading larger, more grown-up books at bedtime together, and so when we finished the Roald Dahl book we were reading, we made our way on to this.

First the positives. It really is a great book, especially if you love Disney. Set in Walt Disney World park (and Florida generally), the story centres around five kids who have been picked out to be DHI’s (Disney Interactive Hosts). They have been made into holograms who show park guests around the park – but this of course means the real kids are only allowed in the parks under certain circumstances, with permission and in disguise – so they don’t spoil the magic. None of the kids know each other, they just showed up for auditions, got picked out and then got videoed etc so their holograms could be made. ANYWAY, there’s trouble brewing in the park and it brings these five kids together. After dark, when they go to sleep, the kids somehow find themselves in the park – in their DHI form. They have to figure out what the Overtakers are doing and how to stop them and it’s really quite exciting. As someone who had visited Florida only recently when we started the books, it was so nice to have a way to remember the park – to be able to know the places that were referenced and even be scared by the thought that some of the rides might come to life and attack you!! Lily and I thoroughly enjoyed the book and of course moved on to the next one, which by that point I had bought for her, not Megan.

The negatives. There aren’t many to be honest but the major one as someone reading the book aloud, was definitely the language and grammar. If you were just reading the book yourself, then I’m sure you wouldn’t notice it as much but reading aloud definitely caused the odd confusion or complication. Large patches of speech didn’t have “said Finn”, “said Amanda” etc. which could get make following the conversation a little difficult. I found myself adding these as I read it, or re-wording the odd thing here and there, just so Lily would understand. On top of that, the first book in the series was written quite some time ago (2005 I think) and because of that certain changes have happened in the parks. The major one I noticed was the reference to MCM which of course is now Hollywood Studios, so again this is something I changed as I read.

Overall it was a fantastic book and as I said, Lily and I have already moved on to the second book in the series (and she has the next few after that as well). We love our villains so it was a little hard not to champion the bad guys at points, but all in all we liked Finn and his friends enough to want them to succeed. Having gone on to the next book already before writing this, I feel like the second book does improve with language in some aspects, (though the conversation points are still the same and the parts where they use VMK and usernames is a bit complicated) but more importantly the characters seem better developed and more likeable too.

If you love a Disney book and especially want to read about Magic Kingdom (and the second one is Animal Kingdom) then give them a read. There are about seven or eight in the series I think and then there are spin-off books too.

May Round-up

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may

Watching: Once Upon a Time (still watching with Lily and Megan, but also finished Season 5), Suits (5), Jane the Virgin (1-2), GAME OF THRONES (we watch it ASAP on Monday morning since it records at 2am), the usual weekly episodes of Arrow, Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, The 100 etc etc. Walt Before Mickey, Maleficent, Star Trek Into Darkness, Super 8,
Reading: Six Lies, Kingdom Keepers: Disney at Dawn, A Whole New World: A Twisted Tale, Fated, Wait for Me.
Sewing & Making (for Closet Geek): Ears!! It’s been all about the Ears this month after being featured on Sarah’s instagram. I’ve also made two Rapunzel dresses, a Pinocchio dress, an Alice in Wonderland dress and apron, a Briar Rose dress, a Wendy dress, a Woody dress, plus loads of bows and Tangled bunting. There was also an adult Briar Rose dress, a Beauty and the Beast skirt (again for Sarah) and made alterations to Lottie’s Dumbo skirt (and made her some ears too).

And in other news…
– Amy came to visit for the first weekend in May and it was SO nice because I hadn’t seen her since the beginning of March!
– Megan took her SATs (and got ill during them) but fingers crossed she still did well.
– Got the girls into several more food options including homemade turkey burgers.
– Chris bought me 221B Baker Street board game and we played and it was very reminiscent of my youth!
– We went to Paris for the weekend as a family, with my mum and sister too. We weren’t there long but I got to go up the Eiffel Tower which is something I’ve always wanted to do AND we went to DLP. You can read about it in my Travel Diary.
– It was my birthday. I turned 37! It wasn’t too bad though as I got some nice gifts and spent the day with family and friends.
– Disney Lego figures were released at the beginning of the month and I managed to collect them all. There were a few swaps involved and I did buy the last two I needed of Ebay!
– Tried to be healthy, failed. Tried to be healthy, failed. Tried to be healthy, failed…
– Bought a laser cutting machine but didn’t get it set up :(

Looking forward to in June:
– Going to Paris again. I have my regrets about booking it (it turned out so expensive and it’s 4 days away from Chris and the kids) but overall I’m looking forward to it.
– Sadly, nothing else. Hopefully some free time for myself. Maybe set my laser cutting machine up. Hopefully crack screen printing. Nice weather maybe?

Book Review – Six Lies by Ben Adams

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sixlies

I was sent this book to review quite some time ago and to be honest it took me a pretty long time to read it. Not because I didn’t like it, or it wasn’t interesting, but it just wasn’t particularly grabbing so it didn’t make me long to get back to it. That and I was pretty busy and I went through a period of just not reading very much at all.

Ben Adams writes in a nice comfortable style and it definitely makes easy reading. The book is about a man Dave whose wife has left him and he wants her back, plus his mum dies – only for him to find out she wasn’t his biological mum. It’s a very “real life” story, but not in a gritty way just an “every day” way. Dave is a normal bloke who likes to hang out with his mates at the pub, play in his band and go to work. The book tracks Dave’s life over the span of a few months, through the every day pickles he gets himself into and also through the voyage of discovery that is his true parenthood.

While it isn’t a bad book (in fact I quite enjoyed it), there isn’t an awful lot to say about it either. It’s not a chicklit by any means, but its not an adventure, or thriller or crime or whatever. It’s just sort of a fiction life story. That said, Ben Adams made for a pretty good read and if he did anything else I would definitely be tempted to read it.

Book Review – A Whole New World by Liz Braswell

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I have SO many book reviews to write now as I’ve been lucky enough to catch up on loads of reading recently. I also have my Paris 3 Day diary to write over the next few days. However I really wanted to share this particular book review quickly, as A Whole New World (A Twisted Tales) is very topical right now!

This book had been on my Amazon wishlist for quite some time, in hardback, along with Once Upon a Dream (by the same author). However it seems to have gone somewhat viral over the last few weeks, as the paperback appeared both on Amazon and more specifically in Morrisons, for only £3.50! I was lucky enough that Chris bought it for me and I managed to get to read it immediately, due to a very long car ride to Paris this weekend just gone!

If truth be told, I started the book in the bath on Thursday night, but only the first few chapters. I then started to read it on the journey from London to Maidstone, then from Folkestone to Calais (over the tunnel) and Calais to Paris. I did in fact complete the book in this time. I have to admit I really enjoyed it, despite seeing on Goodreads that many people didn’t like it.

First of all, I want to start by saying, Disney own the rights to this book so be prepared for it to be VERY Disney. The book starts with an introduction to Aladdin, his life and of course Agrabah. It mimics the original animated movie almost exactly, but in words and with more description, than you perhaps get in the movie itself. For me, I liked this. I love Disney, I love the movie and I had no objection to the first quarter of the book being pretty much exactly the movie. However the point of the book is that it’s a twisted tale and without ruining it for anyone – the change occurs in the Cave of Wonders, whereby Jafar gets the lamp and Aladdin gets trapped, thus changing the storyline.

Caveof Wonders

I don’t want to get into spoilers as that’s something I always avoid in my book reviews, but I’m sure you all know that if Jafar got his hands on the lamp from the beginning, it can only mean bad things! At this point, I think the book really stepped into it’s own. “A Whole New World” is not just a spin on the Disney movie, it is a story and book in it’s own right. The author is actually very clever in my opinion, to take characters and a world invented by someone else and somehow make it their own. While others have called it a rip-off or a fan-fiction, I disagree. I think it’s well thought out and really quite good. The theme is far more dark and mature than a regular Disney movie or book and I liked that. This is not a book to be read to kids, its something much more adult orientated and while it still has a happy ending, its a more realistic one than a typical “They all lived happily ever after”.

If you’re looking for something Disney, but perhaps a little more unique, I recommend you give this a go. You need to go into it open-minded though, no expectations and just let your mind fall into the new world and it’s new story, instead of drawing comparisons! Let me know what you think if you give it a read.

Wednesday Wishlist – Disney Style Books

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I have to admit that I’m super excited about this week’s wishlist, because I’ve been working on it for absolutely ages! I don’t read half as much as I’d like to as I’m always busy sewing or blogging, but if I did, I would read ALL these books I have listed and many more. This week I wanted to show off some of the many Disney/Fairytale style books that I’ve come across over the last few months. Some I’d never heard of before and others being sequels to books I already own or have read.

Disney style books

Disney is one of my favourite topics ever but I love a good spin on it too. Nearly all of these books follow that idea and so hopefully if you’re the same, you’ll like the sound of a lot of these books.

Starting off with Poor Unfortunate Souls, this book has been on my wishlist for a while now. When we visited Florida last year I discovered Fairest of All and The Beast Within, both of which I regretted not buying. However for my birthday the following month, I was lucky enough to get bought both. This third book is about Ursula and honestly she is pretty much my Villain spirit animal. It’s not released yet but I would love to own this book and add it to my collection.

As Old as Time is a similar story, it’s pre-order and not released yet. However I’ve had my eye on Once Upon a Dream and A Whole New World (Chris just bought me this a few days ago) in hardback for a while (they just got released in paperback) and now spotted this Beauty and the Beast Twisted Tale coming out soon. I have yet to read any, but I plan to start AWNW this week!

The next couple of books, Unhooked and Never Never, are both Peter Pan/Hook themed books. They both appeal to me to read, though I’ve heard nothing about them other than reading the information on Amazon. There is one on the next line down called Wendy Darling (and its a Part 1 I believe) and this is the same sort of thing. They all just sound like good books. Finally on this line is a book called Fairest and its part of The Lunar Chronicles series. I currently own Cinder which is by the same author and while I haven’t read it yet, I’m told it’s really good.

On the middle line is a book called Once Again, its by the same as the Twisted Tales but I think it’s co-written. From what I can gather its two stories in one, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. Since I mentioned Wendy Darling above, I’ll skip on to Kingdom Keepers. This is a series that I only recently discovered and have to admit I’m thoroughly enjoying. The first book, Kingdom Keepers: Disney After Dark, I actually bought for Megan for her birthday, but Lily and I ended up reading as a bedtime story. Once we’d finished, I moved onto Kingdom Keepers: Disney After Dawn. Since we only read one chapter a night, it does take quite some time to work our way through, however Lily was lucky enough to get bought the next 3-4 books for her birthday so we should have enough to keep us going for a while. This particular book I listed is a sort of spin-off series I believe, called Kingdom Keepers: The Return. Obviously we will be finishing our current series, before heading off into that one though.

Finally on the middle line is another book which I believe is co-written, by Riley Pearson (the author of The Kingdom Keepers) and Dave Barry. There are several books in this series too and again I haven’t read any of them, but given that they are by the author of The Kingdom Keepers, I would definitely give it a try.

Finally on the bottom row is a couple of cheeky additions. Return to the Isle of the Lost is a sequel book to The Isle of the Lost: A Descendants Novel. All I really know of the Descendants is the Disney movie that was on TV last year, which I watched with the kids, but I did buy this book for Lily and we haven’t got around to reading it yet. Given that the first book is good, then we’d probably want the sequel too! My next cheeky addition is actually Once Upon a Time (OUAT) related and though there were several to choose from, this one is my top pick. OUAT isn’t technically Disney but it’s pretty damn close so any book connected to the series is something I want to read.

Finally that leaves three books which I only found today as I was searching for last minute additions. I honestly know nothing about the three picks but the blurbs appealed so I threw them on. Disneylanders and The Disneyland Quest, remind me somewhat of the Kingdom Keepers style book. The last one, is Fairy Godmother themed and is part of a series, some of which Megan owns but hasn’t read yet (The Snow Queen and The Sleeping Beauty). The series is called Five Hundred Kingdoms and from what I can gather, all the books can be read independently.

So these are some of my treasure finds but I’d love to know if you have any other suggestions!

February Round-up

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Somehow the beginning of March seems to have escaped me already and I realised I never did my monthly round-up! Despite the fact February actually ended at the beginning of last week, I thought I should make the time to sum up anyway!

index

Watching: Vampire Diaries (Seasons 3-6), new series X-Files, current series NCIS, Limitless, Blindspot, Mean Girls, Tron Legacy, Moulin Rouge, Terminator Genisys, Ant Man, Deadpool, The Walking Dead,
Reading: George’s Marvelous Medicine, Fantastic Mr Fox, Six Lies
Sewing & Making (for Closet Geek): Custom dresses – it’s been really nice to sew a few different things. I made a Snow White fabric dress, a Mickey travel themed dress, an Alice in Wonderland fabric dress and a Thumper fabric dress. I also made a few other dresses including Belle (blue) and Honey Lemon. There was a Marauders Map passport cover and a few new pencil cases too. Finally I knocked up a Wendy Disney-bounding dress for Amy to wear on her birthday in WDW.
I also pimped out a Locker for a competition and I’ve done a fair bit of cooking this month!

And in other news…
– Spent the first week of the month feeling completely ill! Was so glad when I finally got over it.
– Pancakes on Pancake Day – yum! We had stuffed savoury pancakes for mains and sweet ones for dessert.
– Had probably one of the best Valentine’s Days ever. We spent it as a family and it was fab from start to finish.
– Lily was in a class assembly and Megan was in her first Shine assembly of the year.
– Booked extra tickets for the same Harry Potter convention as before, this time for a Yule Ball.
– Celebrated a belated Galentine’s Day, Amy’s birthday and Easter, all in three days while Amy visited.
– Lily had her first ever sleepover – and I cried because she’s growing up!
– Chris and I traveled to London and Walker Stalker. It was a bit of a flop but we made the best of a bad situation. We did have a nice hotel room, bought a few nice things and had a lovely meal out.
– Finally made headway with the house. We made a list of all the DIY to do, booked people to come and do valuations on the house and started looking for houses to buy.
– The girls attended their first school disco together, at the same time. Usually Lily fell in to the lower school part and Megan the higher, but for the first year they are together. They looked so grown up too!
– My GBF Adam came to visit for the weekend. I only saw him once last year so it was really nice he came to visit so early in the year!
– My mum finally returned from holiday. She went away from 1st Feb to 29th Feb and it felt like a long time! I cried when we first chatted afterwards…

Looking forward to in March:
– Finding out which secondary school Megan will go to (I know by the time I wrote this since it was 1st, but it was a major point in March). This will begin our house hunting.
– Lily’s 8th birthday. Technically this has already happened by the time I wrote this post but I definitely was looking forward to it.
– Chris’ birthday. It falls a little later in the month but I always enjoy celebrating anything with him.
– Getting a handle on selling the house. Making a good dint in the DIY and getting the house on the market.
– Closing Closet Geek for 10 days. This is connected to the last one really but because of all the DIY we have to do, I’m closing my store for just over a week. I do love to work and sew but it will be nice to have a break too.
– Easter Holiday. Just like Half Term in February, I enjoy having the kids off school. This is partly because I enjoy their company and partly because I love not having to trek out in the morning and can stay in my PJs!