Winter is Magic

Winter is upon us. The most beautiful time of year. The season of cosy jumpers, hot chocolate, and watching sunrises on the train. The scarves are out, the Christmas markets are set up, and the Starbucks red cups are officially gracing our Instagram feeds. Mince pies, cliched Xmas soundtracks flooding shopping centres, and the John Lewis Christmas ad has been released. Yep, the festive spirit is well and truly swallowing us whole. And I love it.

Last year, me and my friends did a "winter tea party" and it was bloody awesome to just stay in with the lights dimmed, candles lit, having a long-needed catch up whilst relishing warm mugs of hot chocolate with winter delights...it was a treat. Similarly, this year, me and my two closest friends did a "cosy night in" because sometimes you just need the company and time to wind down and do nothing. Which we did. Expertly so. And it was the best Saturday I've had in a long time. We had the cosy setting, Chinese food, apple pies and custard, and we watched the 5th November bonfire display...it was perfect.

But I'm also a sucker for winter walks and absorbing the Christmas atmosphere so when my uni friend told me she was down from London for a few days, I kinda stole the opportunity to drag her to the German markets that are currently lighting up Birmingham's New Street (I have been dying to visit them ever since I set my eyes on them). We wandered Bull Ring and roamed Selfridges that is beautifully set up with their Christmas gifts and expensive chocolates and delicious sweet stands that only our eyes can feast on. And then in the evening when the lights came on, I dragged her down to New Street and took pictures of the prettily decorated Christmas trees and little huts embellished with gingerbread men and candyfloss and candy canes. I can't explain the warmth of the festive atmosphere, nor my obsession with it, but it was a wonderful day (and she didn't complain for a second although I think I somewhat baffled her with my obsession with Christmas time...).

Winter also means sitting in bed with the laptop and binge-watching my favourite shows. Remember when I binge-watched Ugly Betty and Melissa & Joey last Christmas? After that, I vowed to not start another show because I'm already watching Suits/How To Get Away With Murder/The Vampire Diaries/The Originals and it's too much to keep up with. But then I was off uni for a week and one thing led to another and I became totally and utterly obsessed with Mr Robot.

It's about Elliot, a young computer programmer who suffers from social anxiety disorder and his only way of connecting with humans is through hacking. Cyber security tech by day, hacker by night. But he believes we live in a messed up society, a world ruled by the top 1% of the top 1% that have enslaved mankind by controlling money, by making it the central point about which their world spins. He hates that the big guys at the top control the lives of those at the bottom, and he gets his wish of being the one to change that when he is recruited by a highly secret hacking group who call themselves "f society". His first project is to take down the corporation that he is employed to protect to set in motion a chain of events that could be the revolution that will change the world.

It. Is. Addictive. The premise is so unique, so utterly, brilliantly mesmerising, and every episode delivers. The suspense, the paranoia, the flitting between Elliot's delusions and present life...man, this show is intense. I haven't been this hooked to a show in forever. And Rami Malek's acting is phenomenal. He is magnetic on screen, and his style is pure genius. He portrays a character whose mind is frayed at the edges and is slowly coming undone piece by piece until he totally loses his mind...and my God is it powerful. It is out-of-this-world. I mean, someone give this guy an Emmy because he is masterful at playing the game that he does.

This show is insane. Go ahead and watch the trailer, then go on to watch the pilot episode, then tell me I'm wrong.

And lastly, winter always screams "HARRY POTTER!" to me. When ITV play all eight movies over eight consecutive evenings and I sit there in my Harry Potter hoodie casually eating my way through a box of After Eight - don't judge me, they're amazing and addictive - whilst watching the movies I have watched over ten times, based on books I have read over thirty times.

Then I heard that illustrated editions of Harry Potter are being released, one a year for the next seven years. And I became obsessed. I remember seeing pictures online of Jim Kay's wonderful illustrations that capture the magic of the wizarding world that defines my childhood, and all I could think was I need to get my hands on a copy. And then, about three weeks ago, I was at my friend's house and we were discussing it and after that it simply wouldn't stop playing on my mind. I had to tell the mother about it and ask her, no tell her, that I was buying it. Because, well, because I had to own it. And she caves to let me own anything Harry Potter related because she knows how deep that love runs.

That night I hyper-excitedly told her about the re-releases of the timeless classic that is my favourite book of all time, for all time, and she (understandably) reeled back in horror at the thought of re-living my Harry Potter craze for another seven years. Tough luck mum. I'm getting that book. (I kid by the way - she was kinda, almost, nearly as excited as I was). So the following day I had my laptop in her room with various tabs open as I proved to her just how amazing this book is - the Bloomsbury website, a tumblr page that had some snapshots of the book's pages, and Amazon because obviously, I was about to buy it - when the doorbell rang. My cousin had come with a gift that'd been sent from Bolton and when the mother came upstairs with it, I was honest to God, literally about to buy it. My hand was hovering over the "proceed to checkout" link. And then curiosity got the better of me and I thought oh what the heck, let me open this first. So I unwrapped it. And out came Harry Potter. The beautiful, illustrated hardback edition. I was holding the illustrated edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone that I was seconds away from buying.

Call it what you will but ohmygod the sheer coincidence of this moment was too much to bear. I couldn't breathe. I was so excited, it's unreal. Can we please just take a moment to appreciate that timing? Because I could have bought that book at any time, I could have already bought it, I could have received that gift earlier because my aunty had forgotten to bring it to me the night before, but it all collided at this one pivotal moment in the sheer nick of time. Madness.

It made my day, heck, my year. My mum had this huge grin because she could just see, hell my face must have spoken volumes of the excitement that was flooding my veins. And so, after telling you the wonderfully ludicrous story that underlies its existence in my home, I can tell you with an overwhelmingly happy heart that I own this stunningly beautiful book. Seriously though, every Harry Potter fan has to own this copy. If being a fan isn't enough of a reason, then the pictures...God the pictures.

If even these can't tempt you, then I mean, something is very wrong with you. Being able to experience Harry Potter again, being able to experience it with a whole new dimension - any fan would snatch that up in a heartbeat. GO BUY IT. Please. I promise you, hand over heart, it will be the best book that you will ever buy and ever own.

Okay and you know about the play right? I mean, you have to know about the play. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - a sort-of sequel to that epilogue we read at the end of Deathly Hallows - is about thirty year old Harry and his son, and it's being performed in London next summer. Tickets were released in the last week of October and when I went to purchase mine, they were all sold out. And the next available date was in 2017. 20-freaking-17. I hesitated for a fraction of a millisecond before deciding that I was still going to go. And I am! I'm booked to watch it in 2017 after paying £130 but I mean c'mon, it is bloody worth it.

Oh dear, I have fan-girled (hard) over Harry Potter and a tv show and a freaking season but you know what? There's a lot of beauty in ordinary things.