Thursday 4 February 2016 / ghosts, outfit

Elm Cottage

I'm writing to you from a supposedly haunted cottage, where I'll be catsitting for the week. When my grandmother lived here, the attic housed her extensive antique doll collection. They frightened and fascinated me as a child. She'd always intended for them to be passed on to me, but sadly had to sell them to relieve debts near the end of her life. She instructed me to go to the attic and select one to keep before they went to auction. An old wind-up clown toy set itself off - classic horror movie fare, though for some reason I wasn't particularly unnerved by it.

Ever since she moved the dolls into the attic, strange things have happened in the cottage. Things have gone missing only to reappear in the same spot, footsteps have been heard ascending the staircase before vanishing at the top, and perhaps most frighteningly, people have been yanked out of bed in the night. Paranormal investigators suggested the spirit of a mischievous child was attached to one of the dolls in the attic, and they had the house blessed. Apparently, nothing unusual has been reported since then.

The only strange thing that's happened to me so far is a loud crash on the stairs and a television turning on by itself. Nothing particularly supernatural, and I'm not sure if I'm relieved or disappointed. Either way, I'm relishing the silence.

Outfit details:

dress - vintage

cardigan - charity shop

Monday 1 February 2016 / harry potter, london, outfit, travel

Harry Potter Studio Tour, London

The young audience of today have One Direction. For kids coming of age in the swinging sixties, it was The Beatles. Back when my grandparents were but wee nippers, the hysteria-inducing, scream-generating sensation weakening the knees of girls worldwide was Frank Sinatra. Every era has that one band the youth lose their minds over, which got me thinking. What would it be for my generation, the teens of the 2000s? The likes of Busted and Mcfly come close, but the frenzy that followed wasn't quite feverish enough. Then I realised, my era's defining pop culture phenomenon wasn't musical at all. For us, it was Harry Potter.

I can't think of another time in which literature dominated over pop music. That's pretty special. People of all ages love Harry Potter (there are kids going on nine who weren't even born when Deathly Hallows was published), but I feel like children around my age got it the best. The kids old enough to have seen - and remember seeing - Philosopher's Stone when it hit the cinemas back in 2001, but young enough to be utterly wonderstruck by it. Imagine seeing quidditch for the first time on the big screen as a seven year old! Imagine being the coolest cat in year six because your mom got you a copy of Order of the Phoenix on release night! Imagine fights breaking out between eight-year-olds in the library because one beat the other to the last copy of a 900-page book.

Getting to the point, Harry Potter still means a lot to me, all these years later. Kind of like how your Dad still gets excited when Ferris Bueller's Day Off plays on TV, I suppose. If thirteen-year-old me had realised her future self would get to chill in the Gryffindor boys' bedrooms, pose at platform 9 3/4 and swig butterbeer in the very studios that the spells were cast in... I can't believe it took me this long to get to the Warner Bros Studio Tour! I even made it to the Orlando theme park - 4,000 miles away! - before I ended up at Leavesden.

We were taken to a screening room to watch a short film about Pottermania before the screen rose to reveal huge ornate doors, which obviously got everyone excited because we all knew what was behind them. Nonetheless, there was an audible gasp when they parted, and the Great Hall came into sight, all decked up for the holidays. It looked exactly like it did in the movies. The tables were laid out for the feast, and little witches circled the tops of the Christmas trees.

Sadly, the ceiling was a regular studio roof and nothing like the night sky. The house points hour glasses were on display behind the teachers, and of course, Gryffindor were in the lead ;)

I loved seeing all the costumes and wigs and makeup. All the girls were absolutely tiny, especially Katie Leung! My favourite costume was Luna's from the Slug Club Christmas party. I remember it being described in the book as 'spangly' and like a Christmas tree, and thinking it sounded fantastic.

Doesn't the Gryffindor common room just look like home? I tried to kind of recreate my own mini version in my dressing room a while back with some souvenirs, Halloween decorations, and a threadbare maroon and gold antique-y armchair I spotted in the charity shop. But someone bought it literally seconds before I could and, not going to lie, I'm still fuming.

"By all means continue destroying my possessions. I daresay I have too many."

Dumbledore's office was the most gorgeous set I've ever seen, and I've seen a fair few. If only we were allowed closer to gaze upon all of his dreamy belongings. Cabinets lined with curios, huge tomes (actually telephone books covered in leather), brass telescopes, silver instruments, globes, and sneakoscopes, and of course, the Sorting Hat decorated the circular office to fine effect. The filmmakers said that steampunk was a strong influence.

If only my office looked like this! In fact, I'd settle for living quarters that looked like this.

I was taken aback by how many elements of the movies I'd mistakenly credited to CGI. The crew built a fully-functional entrance to the Chamber of Secrets, though it was operated by good old-fashioned science and not parseltongue. Didn't stop me trying, though, as you can see here!

By far the darkest set was this staging of the meeting at Malfoy Manor, in which Charity Burbage is suspended over the table and finally murdered. You can see Nagini waiting to devour her corpse. It was genuinely quite scary to see. The featureless dark-faced models were creepy in a horror movie way.

The potions classroom was cool. Occasionally cauldrons would stir by magic and emit acid-green fumes. Is it weird that I was mentally taking notes for future any future kitchens I may have? I really liked the jars of strange ingredients along the walls. Herbs and plants are very interesting to me, I like reading about them in a medicinal or culinary context (in fact, I've had my eye on this Cosmic Drifters Herbology skirt for a while).

I'd heard the model of Hogwarts castle was a stand out of the tour, but I wasn't prepared for how breathtaking it truly is. To make things even more magical, a man got down on one knee and proposed to his girlfriend in front of it, when the light changed to indicate night time had fallen over Hogwarts. What a man! Future spouse, take note.

I thought this was cool. It's the hallway of the Leaky Cauldron. It was built for the Prisoner of Azkaban, and uses a 'forced perspective' to appear much larger on film than it actually is. In reality, it was only around 10-12 feet long!

I think the Burrow set was my absolute favourite. It was just so homely. I'd love to recreate it and live there myself! Everything was cluttered and threadbare, and the self-cleaning kitchen that so impressed Harry back in the Chamber of Secrets worked its magic (heh) on me. A scarf self-knitted, knives chopped carrots, and the washing up did itself. If only! The walls of the set were constructed at a slight angle to add to the impoverished, ramshackle appearance of the Weasley family home.

New to the tour last year was the Hogwarts Express. I wasn't that fussed about going in to have a look, to be honest, because I'd already 'ridden' it in Florida. I'm glad I did, though, because each compartment was arranged to recall a pivotal scene from each film/book. I have to admit, I teared up a little when I peered into compartment one and saw Ron and Harry meeting for the first time.

If you're heading to the tour, I'd recommend spending a fiver on a handheld digital guide. Usually a waste of money (in most places), this one was incredibly informative with hundreds of exclusive videos and interviews with cast and crew about everything from schooling the young actors - both in the ways of the film industry and academically - right down to the fabrics used for the Hogwarts curtains. I consider myself a thoroughly researched diehard fan, yet there was so much information and detail I'd not heard before.

To be honest, even if I wasn't particularly into Harry Potter, I'd come here for the design inspiration alone. You should have seen the beautiful drapes on the beds in the Gryffindor dorms up close. They were a heavy maroon velvet with a gold celestial print. They were neither antique nor designed for the film - they were sourced in a local shop (look, Warner Bros, you're going to need to name names). And then you've got the patchwork quilts, intricate medieval tapestries, oil paintings, decorative antiques, and strange silverware.

These are examples of the fine work of MinaLima, the graphic designers, did for the series. Their quirky, Victorian-inspired designs so perfectly suit the Wizarding World.