The Last Station

Anyone up for a small get-together Friday afternoon? The weather's nice enough that Izzy and I think we can hold a garden party out by the backyard. Cupcakes from her, some grilled food from me, and drinks, of course. Feel free to bring food and drinks to share, too. Would love to see everyone outside of the pick-up games.

Is anyone interested in being back-ups for the pick-up teams? Depending on how many express interest we can have the back-ups on a rotating basis, or designate a back-up per team.

Let me know here so I know who'd be able. If you're already playing for the Hydras, I don't think you can play-- something about contracts, but also, probably wouldn't be fair for the rest of us-- but we're also looking for back-up referees.

First Easter with the Moons went pretty well, I think. Izzy's sisters found almost all the eggs we hid, and Linney even set one of them aside for Lyla. I don't know if Lyla's old enough for egg hunting next year-- I don't think she is-- but maybe she'll appreciate it more then, too.

In other news, it looks like we're going to need reserve players for pick-up Quidditch matches. If anyone's interested in playing, let me know.

Full house today. Both Smiths and Moons were in the house all afternoon in preparation for Easter tomorrow. It's a shame Lyla's too young to enjoy it, but her aunts sure would.



Those are the eggs Lindy and Linney made. I wonder how Lyla would do hers.

I was already a pretty heavy coffee drinker but I think I took it up a notch the last few weeks. I quite like it black, I think. It's much stronger pure.

At 6:31 am this morning, we welcomed Lyla Penelope Smith into the world. Mum and Pea are both healthy, although they will be staying at St. Mungo's for a few days since Pea came a little earlier than expected. She was twenty-one inches long and weighed five pounds, three ounces.

Thanks everyone for your well wishes last night. We couldn't be happier.

Pea's coming. Today. Or tomorrow morning, I don't know but she's coming before she's supposed to. She tried to arrive yesterday and the Healers all said not yet, and we said not yet, and mummy came home after but I guess Pea's just going to come anyway.

Today.

Or tomorrow morning.

Izzy's in labour and I'm going to be a father and the nursery's not half-done. Well. It's mostly done. It's fine, it'll be ready when Pea comes home. Which is soon. Five weeks before she was supposed to.

Added later: Ward to Sebastien

I forgot about Quaffle! Can you take care of him? Also, I didn't have time to find Izzy a push present. Can you look for one for me? I can't leave her here. I'll do whatever you want to return the favour.

Thanks to the generous contributions of Foxglove Cupcakery, Fromage, Gladrags Wizardwear, and Qualitea, the team uniforms for pick-up Quidditch are ready for pick-up. Please drop by Spintwitches to do so. Numbers are blank for now; Spintwitches staff will sew on the number you want for you, as long as it does not conflict with a number already claimed by a teammate.

Speaking of teams, the captains and I have gotten together to put the teams together.

( To find out which team you're playing for, tap the journal with a Revelio charm. )

Roger Davies will be the referee at all matches.

The first games will be this Sunday. At 10am, Foxglove Flitterbies will face off against the Fromage Fwoopers. Later, at 2pm, it'll be Gladrags Glumbumbles against Qualitea Quintapeds. All games will last 2hours, or until the snitch is caught, whichever comes first.

If you missed the window of signing up for a team, we're looking for back-up players and back-up referees, especially the latter. I'm sure Davies will be grateful to get a break now and then.

The full schedule has been posted at Spintwitches in case you're interested in viewing it.

Quidditch teams are full, we've got four sponsors for the teams, and also four captains. I'll be talking to Spintwitches later today to get the uniforms for everyone and posting the final teams and schedule before Sunday this week.

Warded to the captains: Angelina, Cormac, Draco, and James

Hey everyone, thanks for stepping up to be captains for your teams. First thing's first is to pick which teams you want to do. I drew straws and this is the order we'll be picking:

1. Cormac - Qualitea Quintapeds
2. James - Fromage Fwoopers
3. Draco - Foxglove Flitterbies
4. Angelina - Gladrags Glumbumbles

The teams to pick are: Gladrags Glumbumbles, Fromage Fwoopers, Foxglove Flitterbies, and Qualitea Quintapeds.

If you want, go ahead and list your preferred teams. We'll just give first priority to Cormac.

Next you guys can take turns picking the players on your team. Pulled straws again and here's the order we're picking:

1. Cormac
2. Angelina
3. Draco
4. James

Rules are simple -- Cormac, you start first. Pick a player from any position, up to you how you want to do that. Then Angelina picks, then Draco, then James. Then James can pick, then Draco, then Angelina, then Cormac. And then back to Cormac. This way James doesn't keep picking last.

Here are the players available per position. Just note that Ritchie and Jimmy want to play together, if you guys can make that happen it would be really great. Obviously make sure that there are only three chasers, two beaters, one seeker and one keeper per team.

Chasers:
Adrian - Qualitea
Alicia - Gladrags
Angelina - Gladrags
Blaise - Qualitea
James - Fromage
Lavender - Fromage
Megan - Fromage
Michael - Qualitea
Millicent - Foxglove
Terry - Gladrags
Theodore - Foxglove
Zacharias - Foxglove


Beaters:
Dan - Fromage
Finbar - Qualitea
Jack - Gladrags
Jimmy - Foxglove
Julian - Qualitea
Kevin - Gladrags
Maxwell - Fromage
Ritchie - Foxglove


Keepers:
Cormac - Qualitea
Morag - Gladrags
Orla - Foxglove
Victoria - Fromage


Seekers:
Aidan - Fromage
Draco - Foxglove
Harry - Gladrags
Marietta - Qualitea

Some of you might've seen the Quidditch sign-up sheets going around town and if you haven't yet, now would be a good time to sign yourself up, because we're almost close to filling up all open spots. I reckon it's warm enough to start playing again and with more people moving to Hogsmeade, we could do a four-team league here, starting next Sunday, the 23rd.

We're looking for two more seekers, three more beaters, and maybe an extra referee. Keeper and chaser spots are all filled but I can always switch positions.

I'm not sure how to pick teams yet-- you lot didn't seem to mind who you wanted to play with, for the most part-- but I think maybe now's a good time to open up the spot for Captains. If you're interested in captaining a squad, let me know, because it's gonna be a lot of work keeping up with everyone from all four teams and I could really use help. Let me know here if you're interested.

Finally-- we're looking for local businesses who would like to sponsor these four teams. I'll be working it out with Spintwitches but they can provide kits for players, so I thought maybe if a local business here helped shoulder some or all of the cost for that, the league fees would be minimal, or completely covered. For 100 galleons you can sponsor a team and get naming rights for them. If interested, let me know here too.

Private to Orla

Hey, first off: happy birthday! Secondly, saw you signed up-- that's great! Let me know if you want to get a couple practice flies.

Izzy helped me make my first Christmas cake today. (She iced it though.) Just doing a taste test now, and it was pretty good too. Not sure I can do it myself next time, but maybe it's possible.

So... if anyone ever spots the snitch, please try to grab it and return it to me as soon as possible. Thanks.

Good game, everyone.

Looks like switching Weasley to Seeker paid off for the Hydras; congratulations to the team. It makes postgame articles much easier to write, for sure.

Private to Orla: Speaking of, I hope you enjoyed the Hydras/Arrows game. Would you like to come with me to another one? There are a few coming up that I could get tickets to.

Private to Izzy: Mother would like us to drop by sometime this weekend. She was thinking brunch on Sunday. We don't have to, though.

Sometimes days between games is terrible because it means I've got to write human interest stories, but sometimes the break is good because it means I've just taught Quaffle how to shake hands.

Private to Isabel

How did the new shopboy go?

Are you doing anything this weekend?

Private to Isabel: Sure you're okay? You'll let me know if you're not feeling any better, right? And you'll go home? I know Megan; she's capable. You can leave her with the shop.

Private to Susan

We missed you today; hope everything's well with you. I need a favo


Private to Sebastien and Ernie

I asked Izzy to marry me.

Just owled my article in for the Wanderers/Tornadoes match. That was a quick one -- the Tornadoes had only been up 3 goals when the Wanderers caught the snitch. If only more games went like this. A pity about the Hydras' first match though. Could have very easily gone our way.

Private to Sebastien: Hey, if you're still beating yourself up over it, don't.

Private to Hufflepuffs: I think we're due another get-together. What about after the pick-up game this Sunday?

Private to Isabel: Arrows @ Wasps tomorrow. I have tickets. Did you still want to make that wager?

Rather glad for the next two weeks' break before Quidditch season picks up, because it's going to be really busy then. I don't much care for the twelve different ways I'm expected to preview the coming season. There's only so much I can write that says "this is how they look on parchment, but once the season starts there's no telling what will happen" but every paper in the country is doing predictions so I should be doing my own.

Predictions are words you eat at the end of the season.

Private to Hufflepuffs:

Hate to do this with such short notice, but are any of you free tonight? I was thinking of going to see the London eye why do Muggles ride on eyes it doesn't make sense and company might be nice.

Private to Justin

Hey, have you been to a Muggle movie before? I wanted to go to one next week but I've never been. I'm not sure how it works.

Preseason Quidditch is really hit or miss, but it'll be a good gauge of how well the Hydras have been training. I don't know what strings management was able to pull, swinging Ginny Weasley for a sack of Quaffles and, if I'm hearing correctly, a whole lot of galleons, but now they're looking a lot better than when they had Greenberg flanking Flint and Levski.

Tomorrow's preseason match with Pride of Portree ought to be a good test of that.

[Private to the Hufflepuff blokes and Orla]

Hey, any of you in need of an extra ticket to go? It's 7p at Portree's stadium. First come first serve.

[/Private]

[Private to Susan]

I feel like I haven't seen you in a while, which is a shame because we live in the same place. I was wondering if I could talk to you about something you might be able to help me with. It's about Is

[/Private]