January 3, 2014, by Eve
Harry Potter Battleships
A significant sign that it’s a New Year: there are more diet adverts on TV.
The New Year is a strange invention. It’s a bit like birthdays. One day follows the other as usual but, for some reason, the next day feels like a, well, a whole year later. It could be any day in the whole 365 of them.
But having this concept of a turning-point day is extremely useful, not least for marking time. It gives us an opportunity to re-start, turn over a new leaf – maybe it should have been called New Leaf-Turning Day, but I guess New Year’s Day is catchier. It’s a chance to reflect on the past, promptly forget it and move on. A life-looking day.
It’s also an excuse to have a happy bottle of sparkling pink wine. And steal other people’s fireworks with a look.
I had a quiet, domestic New Year’s Eve. Which is probably why it felt like just another enjoyable evening.
Items which make up my perfectly enjoyable evening:
Firstly, popcorn from my very own super-cool popcorn maker – it is actually quite terrifying to watch them jump out, I would never have described popcorn as aggressive until post-maker. A slight problem with home-made popcorn is its lack of consistent flavouring. I ended up having to do a lick-and-stick motion to get each popcorn to have the right salt percentage.
Secondly, a rather unique game, I’ll admit: Harry Potter Battleships. Basically it was hybrid of battleships and the quiz questions from a dusty Harry Potter Quiddich board game – we never actually learnt how to play that game properly, we just ended up testing each other on the questions. I recommend the hybrid version of HPBS most strongly.
Actually, I should add, for the perfectly perfect enjoyable evening, item two needs to include ‘and I win by a long way’, which, in fact, is what did happen.
We almost forgot to watch the fireworks on TV. Playing a thrilling game of HPBS (that name sounds like a bank, come to think of it) you run the risk of forgetting what time it is.
I was rather disappointed with what the television box had to offer – Jools Holland or Gray Barlow or something which was called something like ‘Mandy’s secret boob diary’, I think I’d gone a bit too far down the guide and did not enquire further.
But then there were fireworks and it did, for a little while, feel like this wasn’t just a nice night in. It felt like a New Year.
I don’t mean to be a grump. I do like celebrations. But I thought it might be refreshing to present a less dramatic celebration of the New Year.
The next morning, we had a fantastic brunch and, although it did rain very greyly all day, I felt contented – I almost felt like I was becoming a New Year’s Eve.
Great post. I have the Harry Potter Quidditch game at home somewhere. I’m intrigued by extending its usefulness with HPBS!