Yes, I started to read "A Long-Expected Party" and after a while switched to "Concerning Hobbits". I asked him a couple of times if he was getting bored (he was playing with his toys in bed) but he asked me to keep reading. The next day we watched a bit of the extended edition of FotR, but the Black Riders frightened him a bit too much so I think we'll shelve the film until he's a bit older. I caught him drawing a hand covered in scaly armour later, and when I asked him who it was he said "the Black Rider".
I've given him my Burger King LotR figurines: Gandalf, Legolas, Gimli and Frodo. He loves getting them out of the boxes and playing with them. I find it hilarious to hear him muttering to himself "Where's Legolas? Ah... here's Legolas" etc.
My visit to Oxford was very brief. I was going to join ArPhy's tour/mystery crime walk, thinking it would start around 3pm-ish, but they set out from the Eagle & Child a bit after 1:30, when we had just arrived; Alex and Ada needed to eat, so we had to skip the walk (and instead eat in a crowded McDonalds full of tourists
). Alex wouldn't have lasted more than 10 minutes on the walk anyway, he was much happier seeing dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum and ninjas at the Ashmolean.
So all I did with the group, really, was to meet up with Alys and The Angel (and meet their gorgeous 5-month old son, Nate) and then most of the rest of the group started coming back from the walk: Jaeniver, Satch, Pandora, truehobbit, Tosh, heliona, wilko, Gungnir and family, niniel*... We hopped on a bus to Wolvercote cemetery, and found the grave, which had lots of little mementoes that people had left: from hairbands to a CD of a band called Olorin. The best one was a drawing someone had made of Beren and Luthien lying together on their grave, it was actually a very nice piece of artwork.
Reciting Namárië seemed fitting for me, as it was the end of the moot for me (Ada was getting fractious, and Alex was by then completely museumed-out) - probably the shortest moot I've ever had! But it being the 10th anniversary, I couldn't not go. I hope to be able to attend for at least 2 days and one night, maybe next year, or the year after.
I remember reciting it en route to Arthur's Seat... or was it coming down? My brain is a sieve. It's a gorgeous poem to recite, the words roll so well, although of course it's a sad topic.