My Harry Potter group hosts a tea every year. This year, we shared tea virtually on board the Hogwarts Express on the way to Hogwarts at the beginning of September. I took the opportunity to incorporate that into a travel from home trip to England.
Tea Time
It was difficult choosing just a few things to do for a fake visit to England. Binging Taskmaster television episodes have been one of my bright points of the pandemic, for example. So I was glad to give myself a weekend to be able to cover several choices. I did enjoy a few Taskmaster episodes in addition.
My Choices
Books: I started reading Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston (which I’ve been hearing about for more than a year). It uses a trope I enjoy (enemies to fake friends to real friends to lovers), and I’m happy to report that I definitely love it. For a book club, I’m also reading Dodger by Terry Pratchett and rereading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban for another meetup discussion.
Meal & Sweets: Cucumber sandwiches (made for the first time; they weren’t bad), strawberries, raspberry scones, and lemon curd. I had five cups of tea (Adagio fandom blend teas of Hufflepuff and Simon Snow to go with the scones).
Music: The first musical group that came to mind was, honestly, The Spice Girls. But once I gave it a little more thought, there’s just so many I love, from The Beetles to Ed Sheeran. I decided that the best way to incorporate the music into my day was to choose music to work out to. I really enjoy Kyra Pro’s dance workouts, and I’d done her Queen workout before. So I put together a playlist of workouts done to Queen songs starting with hers. Some are workouts more my fitness style than others, and there isn’t a lot of range in the song choices, unfortunately. I also added one of my favorite Queen songs to dance to at the end to make myself happy with some freestyle dance like no one’s watching.
Movies: Earlier in the week, I rewatched Goodbye Christopher Robin with the commentary track (I’ve been meaning to do that for a year now). Following the tea event with my Harry Potter group, I sat down with one more cup of tea to watch Tolkien. I really enjoyed it! Of course the movie couldn’t cover every aspect of his life and writing inspiration, but I loved what they chose to convey. During the weekend, I also took the opportunity to finally watch Disney’s Christopher Robin for the first time (I bought it when it came out and still had never seen it). I had a few issues with it, some of which was why I held off watching for so long. But overall I did enjoy it much more than I expected.
