Last But Not Least: Day Twenty-Two

Our last day. I was wearing my favourite dress today, and it’s now damp and rumpled; a bit like we are. A bit tired and a bit ready to go home, and a bit sad-looking because we’re not ready to say good-bye. Not to those red doubledecker buses, not to the tea, not to the bookshops. Not to each other.

But, my friend, I have loved being on an adventure with you, loved it so much I wished it would never end. But I think you’re fast asleep, and it’s only another three minutes until tomorrow, and this diary is all that’s left of today. A bunch of words that fail to describe a feeling. Like trying to catch a beam of sunlight.

But, friend, I think we caught it.

So let’s just start again.

(Quote: John Green)

Here’s to all the places we went:

Day One: London

Day Two: London

Day Three: London

Day Four: Winchester

Day Five: Brighton

Day Six: Stonehenge

Day Seven: Oxford

Day Eight: Stratford-Upon-Avon

Day Nine: Bath

Day Ten: Cardiff

Day Eleven: Bristol

Day Twelve: Cambridge

Day Thirteen: Cambridge

Day Fourteen: Norwich

Day Fifteen: York

Day Sixteen: Lincoln

Day Seventeen: Durham

Day Eighteen: Edinburgh

Day Nineteen: Loch Ness

Day Twenty: Glasgow

Day Twenty-One: St. Andrews

Day Twenty-Two: London

Last But Not Least: Day Twenty-One

So here is where the fairytale happened. Once upon a time (but really, like, ten years ago) an ordinary London girl (or wherever she was from) met a young and handsome prince (handsome-ish, anyway). They went for long strolls along the beach, they had secret rendez-vous’ on the pier, they went book-shopping at the Waterstone’s store on the main road – and he made her laugh so that she would fall in love with him, but everytime she laughed it was him that fell in love.

I like to believe that’s how it went. That it wasn’t just a pretty girl in her underwear that caught his eye, and that it wasn’t just the prospect of a castle that made him attractive. I like to believe that it was this place that made them right for each other.

I like to believe that today we went somewhere where fairytales are still possible.

(Quote: Maggie Stiefvater)

Last But Not Least: Day Twenty

All the people that we watched from the inside today;
Where were they headed? Where do they live? What did they think of the weather, ever changing, ever so unreliable?

All the people that walked past us this afternoon;
Do they think happy thoughts? Have they ever read a story by Dr. Seuss? Have they laughed today?

All those people that we saw and that will never know they were seen;
Maybe a friend walked past, one which I haven’t yet met. Maybe the tired-looking woman with the groceries knows the secret of life; but now she’ll never tell. Maybe the school children would have listened to my stories; now they won’t care.

And it makes me think of all those chances that we miss
By not talking to the people that pass us by.

(Quote: Mike Rosenberg)

Last But Not Least: Day Nineteen

It’s the Highlands. They make you think there might just be a monster lurking somewhere. They make you think all sorts of things beyond reason. The names of the towns we pass sound like magic spells. It’s wonderful.

Last But Not Least: Day Eighteen

You’d think The Elephant House were holding more magic.
But apparently the magician was finished with her spells and took her wand and wonders with her when she left. Not even the faintest trace of pixie dust stayed on the old wooden floors, and even if there had – it would be gone now. Stamped down by Japanese pilgrims, by hordes of noisy tourists, by trompeting Potterheads, all in search for something, anything to prove that magic has been created here.

We didn’t see any of it there. I think we found it an hour later at a small bookshop called The Edinburgh Bookshop. Magic needs the quiet, I think. It needs the pages of a book to come to life.

(Quote: Lucy Maud Montgomery)

Last But Not Least: Day Seventeen

There once was a boy named Harry destined for greatness.

There once was a girl named Inga trying to see the light.

There once was a girl named Noemí desperate to find the magic.

There once were oh so many spells and books and forests filled with magic and wonder, and there once were castles full of stories, and there once were fortresses full of mysteries.

There once were. There are. All the children loving fairie tales and yearning for the pixie dust to take them.

There once was a boy named Harry and he spread light and he promised magic, and it was that which made him not a hero, but a friend who would always be waiting.

(Quote: J.K. Rowling)

Last But Not Least: Day Sixteen

Today there was a steep hill and a castle. There was a shop that sold dust from space and Berty Bott’s All Flavoured Beans. There was a girl from a Spanish beach, and there were stories. Today was made up of Once Upon a Times, of things that happened a long time ago and have stopped happening, and some things that are still happening. Memories becoming dreams and dreams becoming memories, and a reality interwoven with stories and histories.

(Quote: Maggie Stiefvater)

Last But Not Least: Day Thirteen

Everything is a little out of place here. The shops, the advertisements, the tourists, me. The streets probably haven’t changed since the middle ages, and it startles me to think that some things still remain after everything that has happened. You would think the world should have gone up in smoke by now, but there are ancient buildings that some architect came up with eight hundred years ago, and no one has ever dared touch them. I don’t think we are quite capable of not caring about art and beauty, and maybe that’s why we can never be fully destroyed. Because there will always be that one street that stays, unnoticed maybe, but filled to the brim with memories and heart.

(Quote: Maggie Stiefvater)

Last But Not Least: Day Eleven

I never knew I liked cider. Until today.
It’s only cider, but it puts my life upside down. Well, maybe not exactly upside down. Maybe it just shook the ground I built my life on a little bit. Like a tiny, drunk earthquake. What if cider is not the only thing I thought tasted awful but actually turns out tob e rather delicious? Didn’t I have the same epiphany with ginger ale in Matamata two summers ago? What about all the books I promised myself never to read? It scares me that some day in boredom I might pick up a copy of Shades of Grey and like it!

It’s really weird to love something I swore to hate. It makes me want to raise my glass to changes of the heart, to second impressions and to my mind doing its best not to be set on one opinion. Cheers to the earthquakes that make me think.

Last But Not Least: Day Ten

The best part about today, I think, was the sun. To be looking up and having to close my eyes because all the light is blinding me. To sit at Cardiff Harbour and eating pizza and seeing the sea glitter like a million little crystals stretchin out into the horizon. To catch a glimpse of the Tardis in the distance as if ready for take-off.

Cardfiff felt like going back in time just a bit. The castle and the streets and the language, and it all was bathed in golden sunlight and our giggles. And I wrapped the story up so that time could not hurt it and so that rain would never chase the sun from that day.

(Quote: Steven Moffat)