Wit beyond measure

The Harry Potter costume reached its cymbal-crashing climax on Friday night, helped along in no small part by the enthusiasm arms race of the previous few days. It went from "sorting out our costumes" to "dinner and sorting out our costumes" and then kind of escalated from there.
"You have an oven?" said Len. "I'll bring cake." I can't think of too many things he didn't bring.

We actually ended up starting quite late on Thursday night; Len had to make a brief side-trip to 'the wilderness' on his way over to our place. The wands were just about done but he wasn't happy with one of them and wanted the luxury of another option - costumes are serious business. While he macheted his way through vines and blowgun-wielding natives, we set about cooking up dinner. It ended up being chicken parmigiana and macaroni gratin, which Len described as 'just completely beyond his level'. I can confidently say noone in the world was doing what we were doing at that point - me blacking out the white patterns our robes with nail polish, Lis fastening Hogwarts patches with double sided tape and Len whittling sticks into a shoebox to give them a 'sandpaper finish'.
"We need to seal these with wax," he said suddenly, producing a tea candle from nowhere, just as Lis managed to find a colossal foil roasting tray that would work well for cake. So then Lisa and I were making a 'pudding cake' and Len was melting a tea candle balanced precariously on a spatula; I still think we were in the minority.

Remarkably, neither party burned the house down - the wands were sealed painlessly and the cake went into the oven without incident. I was sure it wouldn't fill the tray but being an American cake mix, it made approximately sixteen litres of batter and ended up the size of a kickboard once cooked. In the meantime, the replacement wand had turned out to be the better part of an ant nest, so the little buggers were now marching all over our tatami. We put the wands in the freezer to try and stamp out the invasion, but we're still finding them every now and again (hopefully not in the frozen vegetables as well). We made ganache and iced the cake, then cut it into halves and stacked them on top of one another. It ended up being about 20cm tall, a big yellow and brown up-yours to thin people everywhere - I wasn't sure whether to eat it or start saving my rupees for another shield. Len seemed on the verge of tears as he asked for a second slice; it was probably the sprinkles on top that did it. The emotion continued for the dress-rehearsal, as I showed them my best "ratty schoolboy tie knot". The costumes were done, all was right with the world.

The big night was Friday - I shaved off my beard as promised and headed into work that morning half in costume. Lis met me at the train station weighed down by hundreds of robes and wands and we booked it out to Himeji. There ended up being about 100 people there by my reckoning, including an impostor Harry Potter who needed to be dealt with in the most half-hearted wizard duel ever recorded. Len had his camera set up at the door to take portraits of everyone as they walked in - our only true competition for the "group costume" prize seemed to be the Ghostbusters, who had made proton packs out of who-knows-what. They had nailed the exact peak of "awesome homemade costume" without going over into "totally just bought/rented it" territory; Len theorises that their ultimate victory was because our costumes were too seamless and just looked like we had shelled out for real ones. That's our story and we're sticking to it. Despite our disgraceful defeat, everyone was in good spirits and we got a pleasing number of photo requests; you can see the results on my Flickr (and hopefully everyone else's photos will trickle in over the next few days). As expected, our plans to go home on the last train were thwarted by excessive good times and we found ourselves teleporting between a series of bars and karaoke places. I stole the Ghostbusters' skull prize in a moment of drunken audacity and they've tersely asked for it back; they'll have to wizard duel me for it.

Saturday night was our long-awaited dinner party, which went off without a hitch - a beautifully conducted symphony of bread, wine, cheese and ham. Lis had cooked up curries during the week and we made the naan and jasmine rice on the night; we finished off with the chocolate mousse that I had made, each one containing more chocolate than should have physically fit in the cup. We talked about cooking, travel and next year - we're in Japan again for 2011 which everyone seems to be flatteringly happy about. "We'll have another round of dinner parties next year," they said as they bid us farewell at the end of the evening. I have no problem with this whatsoever.

Sunday was spent only moving as far as the kettle, more blankets and leftover curry, which I feel was a perfect way to finish off a very busy weekend. The Harry Potter costumes have been stowed, but there are rumblings about them coming out again for the premiere of the movie later in the month. Sometimes I wonder what my legacy will look like, with the photos of what I've done here; I can only imagine that future generations will look back and conclude I was a "crazy old bastard".