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Lunch with Orlando Bloom

Welcome to Wellywood, home to Sir Peter Jackson and in turn Weta Workshop and Wingnut Interactive.  This is great for the fair city of Wellington and New Zealand as Sir Peter likes to work from NZ  thus bringing excitement as the stars arrive to work with Sir Pete, currently, on The Hobbit.

Sitting in the iconic Maranui Café in Lyall Bay having lunch with the Kiwi, I noticed a rather handsome man who I recognised instantly. I turned to the Kiwi: “HOBBIT ALERT!  Richard Armitage, aka Lucas from [BBC Show] Spooks [and to be Dwarf Thorin in the Hobbit] is sitting at that table behind me!”
Kiwi casually looks past me…”Hmm, so it is… he looks taller than I thought he would”.
In my head I am thinking “SCHAAA HA he does! Looks more handsome too, despite the beard” 🙂 *Surreptitiously look over my shoulder at regular intervals to check him out whilst trying to avoid him noticing*
A few mins later I notice the waiting staff all getting flustered and I say to the Kiwi “Oh, think the girls have just clocked who he is”.  Kiwi looks past me, turns to me with big eyes and replies “NO, I think they have just noticed Orlando Bloom has just joined Richard for lunch!”
O. M. G!  Turn round and there, not even two tables away is ORLANDO!! Lovely Legolas himself!
Of course, being the cool cat that I am *ahem* I left them to enjoy their lunch in peace, as did the rest of the customers in the Cafe, but sneaked peeks at regular intervals.  Frankly, I think it would have been rude to interrupt their lunch to ask for a photo.  (Have since gone out to buy super dooper smartphone so next time I can sneak a pic with my 8megapixel camera, paparazzi style!)
I was so ridiculously excited, I text friends, I got phonecalls from girlfriends squealing with delight, on Monday I ran around the office telling my tale – but why?  So, I saw some people.  I frequent cafes and see people all the time but it doesn’t cause me to run around telling people. I see good looking people too, again without the need to be so excited.  I don’t know Richard Armitage or Orlando Bloom personally, I didn’t even talk to them.  I don’t even know for sure if they are even nice people – in interviews they seem to be, but I don’t know.  So why is it so thrilling?
I still haven’t figured it out.  But it was! 🙂
Interestingly, my tweet about said encounter got a lot of interest from Richard Armitage fans.  Who knew? He has quite a following of devoted fans. No one asked about Orlando!
By the way, lunch at Maranui was fab as always.  All the sweeter on this visit, though.

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One Response

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  1. Kap says

    Thank you so much for this! Next time don’t be so polite – I’m sure they are both used to being recognised by now.

    From another Richard Armitage fan (IMHO he’s much more interesting than OB)