MIMM: Dragons and Dungeons

Whew, where did the weekend go? It flew by for me, which is good because I was working! And when I say working, I mean pulling an 18 hour day on Friday, a 17 hour day on Saturday and then eight hours on Sunday. Remarkably, I feel quite energised although my falling into a coma-like sleep at 9.30pm last night probably has something to do with it…

Anyway, it is Monday and that means time for some marvellous, thanks to the blooming lovely Katie at Healthy Diva Eats, who hosts a weekly party to beat any back-to-work blues.

I may have worked hard and for long hours but it was actually for something quite exciting…

Yup – an audience with J.K. Rowling on Friday night! I was covering her appearance at the Bath Literature Festival for one of the national papers so was able to enjoy an hour of her talking about her new book, The Casual Vacancy – as well as some Harry Potter magic.

Before the hour-long talk I snacked on a new-to-me treat – BEAR fruit yo yos.

They were really tasty and fun to eat!

If there are any real Harry Potter fans out there, send me an email and I’ll send you the whole transcript of her talk. I say ‘real fans’ because it is more than 5,000 words long so isn’t exactly a quick read!

For those of you who don’t want to read that much, I’ve put a few of my favourite parts below (feel free to skip if you really don’t like the books!).

• J.K. Rowling is in the early stages of writing a new children’s book, which will be aimed at a slightly younger audience and be shorter than the Potter titles.

• J.K. Rowling based the character Hermionie on herself. She said: “I burningly wanted to write a girl I would have liked as a child. I didn’t want her to be the pretty girl, or the tomboy, and for that to be ok. A plain clever girl.”

• She sees Dumbledore as a “great irony” because he was manipulated and betrayed by Grindelwald but still remained the “biggest supporter of love”.

• Others may hate the ending of the Potter series but J.K. Rowling loved it and refuses to change anything: “my characters, my book”, she said.

• Her first French kiss was aged 12 with an older boy at a youth disco and she remembers a “distinct tang” of cheese and onion crisps.

Thought I’d drop in a little tabloid excitement at the end

The event passed by pretty uneventfully although I did struggle to find my seat at the beginning. Still, it’s not like my colleague was there to capture the moment on camera…

Brilliant.

Saturday

Rinse and repeat! It was back to work early after a late night as I had to complete my usual tasks before heading to watch Hilary Mantel talk at the festival.

Again, the same offer on the transcript stands. I must admit I’ve not read any of her books but it was fascinating hearing her talk about the Tudor court, Anne Boleyn, Oliver Cromwell and Henry the Eighth.

Before the talk I was able to grab a very, very quick dinner with my colleague. We were both hankering after a proper dinner but alas time was against us so a Caffe Nero run had to do.

The biscotti was a much needed addition!

Sunday

Sunday was all about the work so I don’t have any pictures or exciting stories to tell apart from the fact I was dead to the world at 9.30pm. There was absolutely no waking me apparently!

Monday

Today has been quite exciting so far because the weather has given us a little snow! Not enough to settle but enough to give me a rather red nose as I grabbed lunch.

Oh the joys of another winter in March. The depressing thing is I can’t even say my red nose is festive and it stays for hours. And no I haven’t taken my hat off much over the last few days!

I actually picked up a couple of new eats while at the supermarket and can’t wait to give them a try.

Yu! jus fruit mango bites are made from 100% dried fruit and natural flavours. I love some of their other flavours so interested to try these.

Liberte strained greek style yogurt looked pretty interesting too! I am a massive greek yoghurt fan and the nutritional stats weren’t bad either – the 100g pots have 8g of protein and less than 100 calories each. I’d really like to try the lemon version if these are good!

Hope you’ve all had a brilliant weekend!

About these ads