Harry Potter Book Night at Waterstones, Bradford

On Thursday, I made the last-minute decision (well, it was about 5 hours before I had to set off for the event, but it was still too late to get my Hogwarts and Hufflepuff pins from home and too late for me to have put my camera in my bag) to go with a set of friends from BUSOM and one from RamAir to a Harry Potter Book Night event at the Waterstones store at the old Wool Exchange in Bradford.  Two of my friends came in full-on Slytherin attire (one in a Slytherin uniform with tie, scarf, wand and a dark mark temporary tattoo, and the other in a Bellatrix-inspired costume complete with Bellatrix's bird skull necklace and a dark mark ring, as well as a wand and a dark mark temporary tattoo), while a couple of the other girls just wore house-relevant T-shirts/scarves/hoodies.  Meanwhile, I was just in my BUSOM hoodie and my Moby Dick show T-shirt.

To start proceedings, each attendee was sorted into Hogwarts houses for the competition aspect of the event, as we would be scoring points during each activity.  We each had the Sorting Hat placed on our heads and we picked a folded slip of paper containing our house at random from a hat.  This meant that many of us were sorted into houses that were not our official houses.  For example, my two aforementioned Slytherin friends were both sorted into Hufflepuff, and a Gryffindor friend and I (a loyal Hufflepuff) were both sorted into and scoring points for Ravenclaw for the evening.



I was sorted into Ravenclaw for the night ...



But I'm a Hufflepuff!

The first activity was a treasure hunt where we each had a piece of paper with the names of ingredients involved in making polyjuice potion (powdered bicorn horn, leeches, lacewing flies, knotgrass, fluxweed, and shredded Boomslang skin), and we had to raid the children's section of Waterstones to find these ingredients and write the letter that identified each ingredient onto the sheet.  As there were only approximately three Ravenclaws, we only scored 3 points for each of the first two activities.

The second activity was a wordsearch, where we had to find a large set of words associated with Harry Potter, including Riddikulus, Morsmordre and Expelliarmus, either horizontally, vertically or diagonally as well as forwards or backwards.

After a short break for buying ourselves presents (see below), white hot chocolate and either jelly beans or chocolate frogs (Freddo bars), the third and final activity, the quiz, commenced.  We teamed into our houses (due to there being a lot of Hufflepuffs, Hufflepuff had the largest number of groups, while Ravenclaw only had 2 teams for their 3 members) and answered questions on charms and spells, jinxes and hexes, transfiguration, potions and ingredients, curses and the dark arts, and a "wildcard" round.  Having not read the books (not because I don't want to, but because it would take a lot of concentration and time I currently don't feel like I have), I could only answer a few of the questions myself, but my aforementioned true Gryffindor friend was very enthusiastic and keen to share her knowledge of Harry Potter and we managed to achieve 100% in every round, reaching a total score of 2190 points!

In the end, Hufflepuff (probably due to their having several teams for the quiz) won both the quiz and the competition overall, followed by Gryffindor and Slytherin, while Ravenclaw came 4th with 3000 and something points (we suspect someone else had a small Hufflepuff team).  One of my friends in a Hufflepuff team won a bookmark for being the most enthusiastic team member, and we were all given certificates of attendance.



My certificate of participation in the event!

This was next to the display of Harry Potter books and other Harry Potter things and it's so cute.

I also treated myself to the Harry Potter colouring book and a Harry Potter snow globe!



My new colouring book.

My Harry Potter snow globe.


 

This Is Not A Book - 1. This Is A Recording Device

On Wednesday this week, we had our annual Christmas party at BUSOM.  We went to see a couple of our members in a local pantomime of Aladdin, which was very funny and we were noted as bringing the energy to the audience participation.  We also had our Secret Santa present-sharing.  I received (from one of my friends but I don't know which) a book called This Is Not A Book by Keri Smith.  This is a type of journal which provides the reader with different tasks which often involve the book itself, which prove that it is not a book and finds innovative ways of using it for other purposes.  I then had the idea of documenting my experiences with This Is Not A Book in the format of a vlog on YouTube for each different task.  Unfortunately, I'm not that much of a person for being filmed on camera and I don't feel confident that I'd be able to keep going with a vlog.  Meanwhile, I find writing blog posts much easier, so I want to now try to document this new adventure here as part of this blog as regularly as I can.

Without further ado, this is the first challenge:

"This is a recording device.  Record the events of your day in point form here:  Make a mark for every time you enter a room."

I'm not going to make a new point for every time I enter a room as I will be entering a lot of rooms today, but these were the events of my day on Friday 11th December 2015:

• I started my day VERY early in the morning with finishing off my posters and bookmarks for the Christmas Fayre at uni today.  I then organised my music folder for carol-singing and my pocket money for anything I want to buy at the Christmas market.
  
  
  

  

  Mickey Mouse poster made using a Mickey Mouse drawing
   tutorial and adding a hat!

  
  

  

  Reindeer and sleigh poster made using stencils!

  
  
   
• My best friend and I explored Waterstones and the new Broadway Shopping Centre for a couple of hours.  We discovered glitter spray in The Body Shop, clothes in a variety of sizes at Marks and Spencer, and lots of Terry Pratchett books in both Waterstones and WH Smiths.  I think it definitely woke us both up and cheered us up.
• The BUSOM (Bradford University Society of Operettas and Musicals) stall is full of handmade Christmas cards, hats, scarves, Christmas decorations, candles, mice, posters and bookmarks.  For group photos, we have all been using the hats, and some of us have also been buying the hats.  I've bought five Christmas cards, most of which have buttons on them, one of which is of a female same-sex couple kissing under the mistletoe.  Other stalls include Heather's Jewellery, The Art of Conversation by the chaplaincy team, a Prince's trust stall that is selling adult's colouring books called Don't Judge A Book By It's Covers, and some food stalls too!  We also sang a selection of Christmas carols at both 1pm and 3pm and drank warm, spiced apple juice.
  
  

  

  The BUSOM stall, including Christmas decorations, homemade candles,
  bows, bookmarks and earrings.

  
  

  

  Christmas cards, mice, posters, scarves and hats!

  
  

  

  Warm, spiced apple juice

  
   
• I watched some of Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog with both of my two best friends from uni, but we had some problems with the Internet connection and buffering, so we played The Hobbit: Love Letters card game and talked for a while.
• The evening ended with a BUSOM mini-Christmas party for eight, at which we ate food, sang along to You Can't Stop The Beat from Hairspray, Natalie Imbruglia's Torn, Skid Row (Downtown) from Little Shop of Horrors and Take Me Or Leave Me from Rent, amongst other songs, and found out that two of our members have just got engaged!

This was my haul from our stall, which cost me a total of £5 (£2 for any 5 cards and £3 for any 3 Christmas decorations)!  The card with two girls kissing under the mistletoe is part of a set of cards designed by Zainab Ojulari to support LGBT couples, which is something I fully support!

Christmas cards

Christmas cards by Zainab and Elina

Christmas decorations by Zainab, Elina and others

So that is now my first task complete.  I'll update you with task 2 in the next few days, once I've caught up with writing some other posts!



 

Katie's Summertime Foodie Adventures Summer 2015!

As well as a recipe (to be published tomorrow), this week, I've decided to share a few food photos from restaurants I've been to between April and August 2015.  This isn't a definitive snapshot (I've left out that gorgeous Pianta pizza from Pizza Express, for example), but there were a few pretty good dishes.

1. Oreo Slice at the Pavilion Café Bar, Bradford - this is just a short walk away from my university, so I'd come here one day in late April for my lunch between my final lecture (well, it was actually a lab session, in which I was doing a website presentation) for 2nd year and going to get ready for Colours Ball.  I'd had jam on toast for my main course, followed by this Oreo slice.
   

   

   Oreo Slice

   
   
2. Artisan Romaine Salad at California Grill, Disney's Contemporary Resort in Florida - this was my starter when we ate at the California Grill at Disney's Contemporary Resort for my dad's birthday dinner.  Our dinner reservation was at about 9:20pm, so this was what I was eating when the truly magical Night-time Spectacular fireworks display started at the Magic Kingdom.  I therefore abandoned this dish for about 10 minutes so I could take 50 photographs of the fireworks.  NOTE:  This dish is supposed to have boquerones (fresh anchovies) in it, but I asked not to have them.
   

   

   Artisan Romaine Salad

3. Toasted Goat’s Cheese with Roast Butternut Squash Mousse, Ginger and Pumpkin Seeds, English Watercress,  Almond Quinoa with Roast Squash and Beetroot, Summer Courgettes, Toasted Pumpkin Seeds, Crumbled Goat’s Cheese and Pomegranate Dressing, and Iced Blackberry Parfait, Vanilla and Orange Granola, Poached Blackberries at Eric's in Huddersfield  - we'd come to this restaurant to celebrate my brother's GCSE results.
   

   

   Toasted Goat's Cheese with Roast Butternut Squash Mousse,
   Ginger and Pumpkin Seeds and English Watercress.

   
   

   

   Almond Quinoa with Roast Squash and Beetroot, Summer Courgettes,
   Toasted Pumpkin Seeds, Crumbled Goat’s Cheese
   and Pomegranate Dressing.

   
   

   

   Iced Blackberry Parfait, Vanilla and Orange Granola, and Poached Blackberries .