Blogtober 2024 : Round up

Well, hello there!  I have finally caught up with myself and no, you are not mistaken, it really is November but here’s my Blogtober round up post as promised.

At the end of the first full week of November, I must be honest and say that October now feels like a bit of a distant memory, but it has been lovely to go back and look at the photos of the month.  I decided that I would pick my three favourites for my favourite moments, and here they are!

I saw my first full-sky, wonderful aurora right outside our own door …

Oh my goodness, we’ve been up to the top of the world to the snow and ice and didn’t see an aurora so pink and beautiful.  I was beside myself with excitement!  That particular night, the aurora was visible across a lot of the UK and I spent the next couple of days admiring many many photos online of the aurora in other places – I was a very happy bunny!

Quite a lot of October was grey and damp but in the few bright days that we did have, the autumn leaves were a source of joy.  They seemed to be late in changing colour in the garden, but I think that every year and then when I look back on the blog, it’s about the same.  Nature obviously knows what she’s doing, it’s my memory that’s not quite up to speed!

There were some fabulous colours out and about, too.  These photos are from Knutsford and Hemel Hempstead towards the end of the month.  I so appreciated the chance to be out and about to see them.

I also had a lovely time trying out new recipes (flatbreads and hummus) and going back to old favourites (leek and potato soup) – it was definitely that time of year when the cosy comfort food recipes of soup and casseroles were the order of the day.

I didn’t get quite as much knitting done this Blogtober as I expected to, partly because I hurt my back at the end of September and it took me a good four weeks to be feeling like myself again.  I was very diligent with the exercises the chiropractor gave me (although I’ve noticed that I am not quite so diligent now that I am feeling better and I really must not let myself do that) and they definitely helped me to recover more quickly, but I found that sitting down for extended periods to knit was quite uncomfortable.  I was working on the pattern for the Winter Haven KAL (knitalong) for next year and I’m very pleased to tell you that it’s all come together very nicely and I am ready to get it written up and sent to my tech editor for checking so that it will be out on the blog in January.

I also didn’t have as many photos of the cats and the dog this year, but they are older now and Hattie is often out (although as you can see, she’s showing me how to do my exercises in this photo – or she would be, if “sleeping cat” was one of them!).  Astrid took her role of Pattern Supervisor very seriously and made sure that I couldn’t keep being distracted by other things by sitting on me (which was great until my back told me that it wasn’t!).

And here’s the dog.  A distant black dot in the photo.  Sounds about right! 🤣

I feel like it’s been a very quick round up this year, but we’re in November now and there are new things to see and write about!  What I did enjoy about Blogtober this year was the reminder to look around me, to make sure that I took plenty of photos and just having to think of something to write about every day – it can be very easy to let the days slide by without necessarily noticing what’s been going on, especially when the weather isn’t so good and now that the nights are darker, but Blogtober reminds me every year how much I love blogging, and that alone makes it worthwhile.

Add in the conversations that I can have with you too, and October becomes a very special month.  Thank you for your company again this year! xx