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Order Only: Best. Holiday. Ever.
Jun. 21st, 2012 08:43 pmAnd we thought the Dragon Reserve was fun! No offence, Charlie, but this is even better. Not only have we had the chance to catch up with the Professor and get to know Dudley (with heavy emphasis on teaching them how to be kids again) but we're meeting all SORTS of other fascinating folk and exploring every corner of Moddey Dhoo. And this time there aren't any flame-throwing dragons around to chase us away when we stick our noses in where they don't belong. Bonus!
Order of the Phoenix, we are seriously impressed with this place. We can tell how carefully you've planned it out. This place is living proof that magical and muggle folks can live together to the benefit of all, no matter what the Ministry says. We like your plans for expansion: the exchange program with Sherwood, the calculations about increasing food production with the greenhouses and the goat and sheep breeding program. And there's the school, which is brilliant, we tell you, brilliant even though we can see how the struggle for supplies gets frustrating. The memorial garden, the fishing expeditions, the water pump that's also a whirly-gig for the children to play on, and how cool is THAT? And a resident wandmaker and a potions/healer and teachers and baby minders, and a corking good cook (Victor, you have to give our mum that recipe for that shepherd's pie you made for lunch today). And best of all, a bloke who loves to blow stuff up while his kids toddle about around his knees. We tell you, it's a paradise.
Yesterday morning, after sleeping in late (Dudley calls our muddle of cot mattresses in the middle of the room 'the Dogpile'), we spent the morning with Melli. We'd nicked an old book about wand wood lore from the Hogwarts library for her, hoping it might help (no worries, Professor McGonagall! We did a duplio spell on it and put the original back and gave her the copy). She'd already picked up a lot of wand lore from her family, but she looked through the book and said there was some stuff in there that was new to her. With the new French book on wand lore Frank brought back from the Solstice run, we bet she'll have enough avenues for research for months to come. She has some queer stuff she's trying to make wands with, non-traditional cores: kneazle whiskers, centaur tail hairs, merpeople scales, kappa fingers. We'd also hunted around the Forbidden Forest a bit, hoping to find some unicorn tail hair (did we say the Forbidden Forest, Professor McGonagall? Well, just the outskirts, no need to ruffle your tartan over it). Anyway, we DID find a hair or two, but when we explained that we think it came from the unicorn killed in that hunt a few years ago, she said the hairs wouldn't be good for anything but wands that would lean toward Dark Arts, so she didn't want to use them.
Luckily, we'd managed to nick about three more hairs from Sluggy's private stores, and we gave her them, too, and those she can use. (Sorry, Professor McG, did you think we said something about Sluggy's private stores? Oh, no, you must have misheard us somehow; tra la la, move along, nothing to see here, nothing to see!). In the afternoon, we split up. Dudley and Terry went to talk with Judith and Laura, so the two teachers can see where they are in their education. And the two of us spent the afternoon with Fu. He's experimenting with iron armour for muggles, since it tends to drain and weaken magic, but of course it has drawbacks: it's heavy and it rusts. We had a happy afternoon indulging in mad flights of brainstorming, scribbling notes and prototype designs and digging through the collection of his prototype armour models, trying to come up with the best modifications. Could we use hammered steel to make a breastplate instead, if we did something like inset iron coins at the joints? What about running steel fibre through the fabric padding? Regina finally plucked the quills from our eager hands by force and chased us off to dinner.
Solstice night is sort of a grand occasion at Moddey Dhoo, because of the Hopeful runs across the wards. So the kids stay up late at the sandpit beach by the boat jetty, waiting for Frank and the rest of the crew to return. We practised skipping stones. We swam and splashed in the water (Terry spent a lot of time as the Professor, chasing minnows in the shallows, while Dudley taught the kids how to play chicken fights. He and Lisa Turpin emerged victorious. We suspect he's already sweet on her.) Winston rolled in a pile of dead fish and then loped down to slobber all over the little kids, sending them shrieking down the beach.
We gorged on fried fish for supper, caught that day and cooked right there on the beach. After the bonfire died down to embers, we finally settled back on blankets to lie down in the sand and look up into the sky, supposedly so that Laura could give an astronomy lesson, but really to give the little ones a chance to sleep. The adults murmured around us as the waves broke against the shore. The stars wheeled over our heads and we watched them with drooping eyes until we heard Frank's voice calling across the water, faintly: 'Hallooo, the beach! Wands! We have wands!'
Terry, lying between us, heaved a sigh. He said it so low we almost missed it.
'I've never been so happy.'
Order of the Phoenix, we are seriously impressed with this place. We can tell how carefully you've planned it out. This place is living proof that magical and muggle folks can live together to the benefit of all, no matter what the Ministry says. We like your plans for expansion: the exchange program with Sherwood, the calculations about increasing food production with the greenhouses and the goat and sheep breeding program. And there's the school, which is brilliant, we tell you, brilliant even though we can see how the struggle for supplies gets frustrating. The memorial garden, the fishing expeditions, the water pump that's also a whirly-gig for the children to play on, and how cool is THAT? And a resident wandmaker and a potions/healer and teachers and baby minders, and a corking good cook (Victor, you have to give our mum that recipe for that shepherd's pie you made for lunch today). And best of all, a bloke who loves to blow stuff up while his kids toddle about around his knees. We tell you, it's a paradise.
Yesterday morning, after sleeping in late (Dudley calls our muddle of cot mattresses in the middle of the room 'the Dogpile'), we spent the morning with Melli. We'd nicked an old book about wand wood lore from the Hogwarts library for her, hoping it might help (no worries, Professor McGonagall! We did a duplio spell on it and put the original back and gave her the copy). She'd already picked up a lot of wand lore from her family, but she looked through the book and said there was some stuff in there that was new to her. With the new French book on wand lore Frank brought back from the Solstice run, we bet she'll have enough avenues for research for months to come. She has some queer stuff she's trying to make wands with, non-traditional cores: kneazle whiskers, centaur tail hairs, merpeople scales, kappa fingers. We'd also hunted around the Forbidden Forest a bit, hoping to find some unicorn tail hair (did we say the Forbidden Forest, Professor McGonagall? Well, just the outskirts, no need to ruffle your tartan over it). Anyway, we DID find a hair or two, but when we explained that we think it came from the unicorn killed in that hunt a few years ago, she said the hairs wouldn't be good for anything but wands that would lean toward Dark Arts, so she didn't want to use them.
Luckily, we'd managed to nick about three more hairs from Sluggy's private stores, and we gave her them, too, and those she can use. (Sorry, Professor McG, did you think we said something about Sluggy's private stores? Oh, no, you must have misheard us somehow; tra la la, move along, nothing to see here, nothing to see!). In the afternoon, we split up. Dudley and Terry went to talk with Judith and Laura, so the two teachers can see where they are in their education. And the two of us spent the afternoon with Fu. He's experimenting with iron armour for muggles, since it tends to drain and weaken magic, but of course it has drawbacks: it's heavy and it rusts. We had a happy afternoon indulging in mad flights of brainstorming, scribbling notes and prototype designs and digging through the collection of his prototype armour models, trying to come up with the best modifications. Could we use hammered steel to make a breastplate instead, if we did something like inset iron coins at the joints? What about running steel fibre through the fabric padding? Regina finally plucked the quills from our eager hands by force and chased us off to dinner.
Solstice night is sort of a grand occasion at Moddey Dhoo, because of the Hopeful runs across the wards. So the kids stay up late at the sandpit beach by the boat jetty, waiting for Frank and the rest of the crew to return. We practised skipping stones. We swam and splashed in the water (Terry spent a lot of time as the Professor, chasing minnows in the shallows, while Dudley taught the kids how to play chicken fights. He and Lisa Turpin emerged victorious. We suspect he's already sweet on her.) Winston rolled in a pile of dead fish and then loped down to slobber all over the little kids, sending them shrieking down the beach.
We gorged on fried fish for supper, caught that day and cooked right there on the beach. After the bonfire died down to embers, we finally settled back on blankets to lie down in the sand and look up into the sky, supposedly so that Laura could give an astronomy lesson, but really to give the little ones a chance to sleep. The adults murmured around us as the waves broke against the shore. The stars wheeled over our heads and we watched them with drooping eyes until we heard Frank's voice calling across the water, faintly: 'Hallooo, the beach! Wands! We have wands!'
Terry, lying between us, heaved a sigh. He said it so low we almost missed it.
'I've never been so happy.'
