My Voldemort has no nose

"My Voldemort has no nose" "How does he smell?" "Terrible!" * This was James' witty comment on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, which we saw in 3D at Springfield Quay. He definitely wasn't taking it seriously! I thought the eighth and final film was very good; true to the book and a fitting end to the series. I am quite attached to Harry Potter because the books and then the films have coincided with our boys' childhoods, and they have all enjoyed them. Jamie in particular was exactly the right age to read each book as it came out; the first one was published in 1997 when he was seven years old. When the "Chamber of Secrets" came out the next year Jamie persuaded me to go into Borders with him at 7 a.m. on the day that it was published for a special Harry Potter breakfast, and he took great pride that he had bought the book only seven hours after its release. We got a breakfast of pancakes as I recall, and there was a Borders employee dressed as a wizard wandering around to greet all the fans! Ally and Davie soon became fans too, initially by listening to the audiobooks on car journeys, and then the books as their reading skills improved. Every time a new book came out the boys rushed to buy it and there was great anguish in July 2007 when we were in Jasper, Canada and were unable to source the final book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" until we got to Kamloops a couple of days later. The amazing thing is that the boys have not "grown out of" Harry Potter, because Harry has grown up with them.
My first Harry Potter boy is currently on a train on the way from Darwin to Adelaide; he has been on the train for two full days and will arrive in a few hours. He has been keeping in touch by text and told me that The Ghan is massive and also fairly quiet so he has plenty of room. He met a "crazy train guy" who told him that the train is about 710 metres long and weighs 1300 tons. He has been able to have showers on the train, has a reclining seat and has met some nice people. There have been several stops of three or four hours so I presume that he has been able to nip off the train to find food. He also mentioned that he has been finding it cold; he is travelling from tropical Darwin to wintery Adelaide so that's not surprising!

* Actually, he does, but it's a tiny, misshapen nose!