Scrumping Branson's Blackberries: zorac

Scrumping Branson's Blackberries

Every year, Sir Richard Branson (he of Virgin fame) has an open garden in aid of charity. Every year, I mean to go along as his house is about fifteen minutes walk from my flat and I'm, well, curious. Every year, I forget, so this time I made an extra-special effort.

So, yesterday morning, I caught the bus up the road and paid my four pounds to the British Red Cross to get in and have a look around. Descriptions of the Branson home as a mansion are misnomers - it's a big house, but no more than that. The grounds, however, are extensive - swimming pool, tennis court, cricket pitch, etc - and the gardens feature a large lake and plenty of waterways. Round the back of the lake I came across a bramble patch - and who am I to resist ripe blackberries? I'm sure the multi-billionaire won't miss a couple. Coming back towards the marquee, I noticed a something attached to a tree-stump:

Dear Harry,
We have to figure out how to rescue Hermione, and quick! Meet me at 3 o'clock this afternoon outside Hagrid's House.
Ron

Needless to say, I was somewhat "Huh?", but on browsing the stalls, I soon discovered that this must be part of the Harry Potter-themed treasure hunt. Needless to say, t00b that I am, I promptly paid up the entry fee, slapped on a name badge and set of with pen and paper to beat those darned kids to complete the hunt first. Mostly it was just a case of following the simple clues to find a picture, sometimes with an extra question (e.g. How many brothers and sisters does Ron have?). The weirdest bit was the question about which friend Harry goes skateboarding with. Attached to the half-pipe, I found a picture of a certain house elf. (Challenge: Write a Harry/Dobby Sk8r Boi fic)

But wait! The Potterification of my day was not yet over. Later on in the afternoon, I come out of the Westgate shopping centre in Oxford to be confronted by a bunch of owls! It seems a local owl sanctuary was soliciting for donations. Sadly, there was no Hedwig, but they did have a convincing Pigwidgeon. After that, it was off to Office World to find a replacement for my disintegrating desk chair. This time, they did have the one I wanted in stock, so had a nice heavy box to lug home. Last time, I got an end-of-line one, so it was the display model that I took home, fully assembled - this made it rather easier do wheel down the road, onto the bus and into the wheelchair spot for the ride home.

Update: Read more about the treasure hunt at The Leaky Cauldron.

Tags: hp

lasultrix

August 24 2003, 03:41:54 UTC 17 years ago

New comment

Sounds fantastic. :)

heidi8

August 24 2003, 05:12:23 UTC 17 years ago

Mark, would you do a full writeup of thr treasure hunt for us to post at the leaky cauldron?

zorac

August 27 2003, 05:24:30 UTC 17 years ago

Sorry about the delayed response - other stuff kinda distracted me from replying to LJ comments the last few days.

As regards th hunt, there's sadly not much more to tell - it was only 8 clues long (and while they were done nicely is rhyming couplets, I didn't get to keep the sheet, so I don't have copies of them). I'd be happy to try to write something up this evening if you're still interested.

August 27 2003, 06:01:19 UTC 17 years ago

I do, thanks! Can you email it to heidi@the*leaky*cauldron.org, where the *'s are - ?

August 27 2003, 12:24:28 UTC 17 years ago

OK, I've emailed that off to you!

addedentry

August 24 2003, 05:13:35 UTC 17 years ago

Splendid story - and thank you for confirming that Branson lives in Kidlington. I once cycled round to Mill End but decided that, while pretty, it didn't look like a squillionaire's neighbourhood - as if I knew what one would look like.

You should have ridden the chair all the way home (-: