We had Risengrød for dinner today, which is my favourite! Love the fact that they eat from flat dinner plates to make room for more cinnamon sugar on top! My inner child is very happy. 
Speaking of child, it is Lasse's niece's birthday soon, so Lasse's mum and I sat online today ordering heaps of presents for her, and we ordered a few things from IKEA to ourselves as well. 
We also spent a bit of time this afternoon measuring my body to keep track of weight loss and I bought a bathroom scale - so that I am excited about as well.  

 

And here is another picture of Mercedes because she is sooo cute! And she behaved really well today while my physiotherapist was here (last time she barked). Physio went well; we agreed to increase my exercises a bit and add some floor exercise next week that will help strengthen my back and abdomen. Today was a really good day ♡  

 

 

 My package from Matas.dk came today! I want to start doing a daily face routine; never tried that before, and my research has led me to this combination. Excited to see if I can tell the difference in my face, after a little while. 
Another of my new projects is that I have started knitting a bit, which should end in me getting a scarf within the next three to five years! 

 Today we also had Lasse's little 9 month old nephew on a visit for the day which was loads of fun. He is so adorable! And Lasse was at work. I also did my physio exercises and showered. 

A really good day ❤︎

 And here is Mercedes keeping me company while I blog ♡

 

 

Today was very productive. Had a doctor's appointment at 10.30 for a general check and a B12 injection - which was long overdue! Went to the chemist to pick up my medication. Then at 14.00 I had an online meeting with the mentor at Din Indgang, which went really well. We talked a bit about my progress with our goals and about an upcoming meeting I have with her, my caseworker and possibly my physiotherapist - which brings me to her being back from holiday, so we are back on track starting next week and she is going to look into getting me a walker so I can get around better. It will be nice if I can walk longer so I can go grocery shopping and attend more meetings in person - rather than online. 

 

 

What Actually Is the Plan?

Overall, the plan is for me to get better physically and mentally. Right now, I live with Lasse and his parents until my health improves enough for me to live on my own.  I’ve mentioned pieces of the plan here and there, but I wanted to put them together in one place.

Step 1: Build My Strength Back
My physiotherapist comes to the house every Wednesday, and I do my exercises on my own between visits. We started with four exercises and added three more after a couple of weeks. Some of them look small on paper, but they’re helping me work towards everyday things I want to do more easily and safely.

Step 2: Make Daily Life More Manageable 
I’m working on routines for eating, showering, getting dressed, moving around and keeping my space reasonably tidy. I’m also getting help from a dietitian. The aim isn’t to suddenly do everything perfectly; it’s to find ways of looking after myself that I can keep doing.

Step 3: Keep Working On My Mental Health
My OCD and anxiety affect ordinary parts of life, so physical progress is only one part of this. I need to keep using the support I have, be honest when things are difficult and practise doing more without pushing myself so hard that I end up back at the beginning.

Step 4: Get the Practical Things in Place
Before I move, I need to know what I can afford and what help I’ll need with everyday life. That means making a realistic budget, working out the costs of a new home and talking through any support I might need. I want to feel prepared, rather than trying to figure everything out after I’ve moved.

Step 5: Find a Home When I’m Ready.
I do want a place of my own. Lasse would still be part of my life and help me, but the goal is for me to be able to manage my home and my days. I’ll start seriously looking when I’ve made enough progress to feel that moving is a step forward, rather than more than I can cope with.

I don’t know exactly how long any of this will take. There will probably be good weeks and difficult ones. But that’s the plan as it stands: work on my health, build a life I can manage, and eventually have a home of my own.

Cauldron Cakes & Butterbeer Latte

 

I remembered I once tried this old Tumblr recipe for cauldron cakes back in 2013, so I figured, why not try to recreate and possibly improve them? I never tried the pastry bit in them, so this was my first. They turned out absolutely horrendous, but tasted really good! And of course, they were served with Butterbeer Latte. 

Warner Bros. Studio Tour London - The Making of Harry Potter ϟ Throwback

 

Inside Gryffindor Tower

After spending yesterday down in the cold, dark dungeons for Potions, today we're heading somewhere considerably warmer: Gryffindor Tower.

This was another part of the Studio Tour that felt instantly familiar.

The Gryffindor common room is one of those Hogwarts sets we've seen so many times throughout the films that it almost feels like somewhere we already know. It's where Harry, Ron and Hermione spend countless evenings doing homework, talking by the fire, celebrating Quidditch victories, arguing, plotting and occasionally making some fairly questionable decisions.

Seeing the actual set in person was wonderful.

Everything about it feels warm and lived-in. There are mismatched armchairs, worn rugs, old wooden furniture and deep reds everywhere. Nothing looks particularly perfect or polished, which is exactly why I love it. It looks like generations of Gryffindor students have actually been using the room.

The costumes make it even easier to imagine the characters there.

Harry, Ron and Hermione's clothes stand in the middle of the common room, surrounded by the furniture and props we saw around them throughout the films. It's strange how immediately recognisable their everyday clothes are. You don't necessarily think of a jumper or hoodie as an important Harry Potter costume, but seeing them here brings back specific moments from the films.

And then there's the furniture.

I love that it doesn't match.

The chairs look as though they've been collected over decades rather than bought as one perfect set, and everything is slightly worn and cosy. There are books and little objects scattered around, and the whole room has that wonderfully cluttered Hogwarts feeling.

It genuinely looks like somewhere I'd want to curl up in an armchair for the evening.

Just beyond the common room is the Gryffindor boys' dormitory, which might be even cosier.

The four-poster beds are surrounded by those beautiful dark red curtains, with clothes, slippers and personal belongings left around them. Again, it's the tiny details that make the set so convincing.

You can even spot the students' initials on their trunks.

HP for Harry Potter.

And RW for Ron Weasley.

I don't know why I love details like that as much as I do, but I really do. 😂

They're such ordinary things. Of course Hogwarts students would have trunks. Of course they'd have their initials painted onto them. But seeing the actual props sitting underneath the beds makes the dormitory feel less like a film set and more like you've somehow wandered into their bedroom while everyone is downstairs.

The dormitory also shows something rather funny about filming a series over ten years: the beds didn't grow along with the actors.

They were designed when Harry and his classmates were still children, so as the cast grew taller, filming had to work around the increasingly small beds. By the later films, clever camera angles helped hide the fact that the actors no longer really fitted them.

I think that's part of what makes seeing these sets so interesting. On screen, Hogwarts feels enormous and completely real. Here, you get to see both sides of it at once.

You can see the tricks.

You can see where the set ends.

You can see that Harry Potter's trunk is just sitting underneath a wooden bed.

And yet somehow, when you're standing there looking into the Gryffindor dormitory, there's still a tiny part of your brain thinking:

Harry's bed. That's actually Harry's bed.

Warner Bros. Studio Tour London - The Making of Harry Potter ϟ Throwback

 

Potions Class at Hogwarts

There are some Hogwarts classrooms that you recognise immediately, and the Potions classroom is definitely one of them.

Hidden away in the dungeons, it's dark, slightly creepy and absolutely packed with things. Cauldrons cover the workbenches, shelves disappear beneath hundreds of bottles and jars, and almost every available surface seems to contain some mysterious ingredient or piece of equipment.

Basically, exactly what you would expect from a Hogwarts Potions lesson.

Seeing the actual set at the Warner Bros. Studio Tour was one of those moments where I wanted to stop and look at everything. There is so much going on that it's almost impossible to take it all in at once.

And, of course, you can't really look at the Potions classroom without immediately thinking of Professor Snape.

The black robes standing amongst all those bottles and cauldrons are instantly recognisable. Even without Alan Rickman actually standing there looking disappointed in everyone, the classroom still has that wonderfully intimidating Snape atmosphere.

The set also includes Professor Slughorn's costume, which makes such a contrast beside Snape's. It's another little reminder of just how much this particular classroom changed depending on who was standing at the front of it.

What I really loved, though, were all the tiny details.

The shelves are filled with bottle after bottle of potion ingredients. Some contain liquids, while others are packed with strange plants, roots and other things that I probably wouldn't want to identify too closely before lunch. From a distance they simply create the cluttered appearance of the classroom, but when you start looking at them individually, you realise just how many props were needed to fill the set.

Then there are the students' workbenches.

Cauldrons, scales, glass bottles, mortars and pestles, books and all the little pieces of equipment are laid out as though somebody has simply stepped away in the middle of a lesson. I especially loved being able to photograph some of these details up close. They are exactly the sort of things that disappear into the background when you're watching the films but make the set feel completely believable.

There was even an open copy of Advanced Potion-Making.

Of course, that immediately made me think of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Harry's suspiciously brilliant year in Potions thanks to a certain heavily annotated textbook.

Seeing things like this is probably my favourite part of the Studio Tour. The huge sets are incredible, but I'm equally fascinated by the things somebody could easily have decided didn't matter. A textbook still needed pages. Bottles still needed labels. Shelves still needed ingredients. A student's desk still needed to look as though somebody actually used it.

All those tiny details add up.

Standing in front of the Potions classroom, it doesn't look like somebody simply assembled a backdrop for a film.

It looks like generations of Hogwarts students have been sitting at those tables, chopping ingredients, stirring cauldrons and desperately hoping Professor Snape doesn't decide to inspect their potion next.

Although, having now seen the classroom in person, I think I've reached an important conclusion:

I'd absolutely want to study Potions at Hogwarts.

I just wouldn't particularly want Snape grading me.