Blogtober 2023 : Round up

Hellooo!

I know that Blogtober is over for this year, but I wanted to do a quick round-up of last month’s posts and photos – I did this last year and I really enjoyed looking back through the photos to pull out a selection to create some collages.

It’s been brilliant chatting to you every day, and I am really glad that I didn’t bore you with my everyday that wasn’t always that extraordinary – and thank you for your lovely words about doing it all again next year!  You’ve got a whole twelve months to recover and then I’ll be back with more daily ramblings … but first, the promised catch-up from this year and then I’ll leave you in peace for a bit!

 

I started the month thinking that I would just finish knitting my stripy Yarn Badger socks and that felt like a very achievable goal for the month – but then West Yorkshire Spinners launched their Future Dreams yarn supporting the Future Dreams breast cancer charity, and I found myself knitting socks for a charity photo shoot.  Not one but TWO pairs of socks, one of which became a brand new pattern – the baby Hope Socks.  The pattern raised £93 for Future Dreams in the week or so that remained of Breast Cancer Awareness Month since the pattern was released, and I am so grateful to everyone who bought a copy.  I’m donating £1 per pattern to Future Dreams as a permanent donation, but I thought it would be nice to share how it had done in October.  Thank you so much, that’s an AMAZING amount of money to be able to donate in such a short space of time!

A collage of four photos of hand knitted socks

I still haven’t finished the stripy socks! 🙂

The dog and I have seen ALL the weather this month apart from snow, but that’s probably not a surprise in the UK just yet.  It has rained and rained and RAINED, but we did have some sunny days too which were a joy to be out in.

A collage of photos of autumn skies from clear and blue to cloudy

The leaves are still turning their autumn colours and I hope they will stay on the trees for a while yet and not just drop without a blazing finale.

We had our first frost this month, but only one and it didn’t seem to damage any of the plants.  There have been so many berries this year!  I don’t know if that really is a harbinger of a hard winter to come, but I guess we’ll find out at some point!  It’s good news for the animals and birds that rely on the berries to see them through the winter, and I’ve already started finding holes in the grass where squirrels are burying nuts and seeds for later.

A collage of autumn leaves on various plants

Our dog and the cats featured quite heavily in this month’s posts.  Partly because of all the knitting I ended up doing and partly because of the terrible weather, I wasn’t out and about as much as I was last year for Blogtober so you got plenty of posts about what our pets were doing!

A collage of three photos of two cats and a dog

They all seem to be rolling about in these photos! 🙂

You also got to see the world premiere of a new photographic exhibition entitled “Cat in …” featuring Astrid the tabby who found a variety of places to sit …

A college of three photos of a tabby and white cat in boxes

and then there was an eclectic mix of goings-on – my first taste of a Chinese Moon Cake, an International Guide celebration, planting a hyacinth bulb in a proper bulb jar and more photos of my lunch than you ever needed to see!

A collage of food and outdoor photos

I did worry this month that I wasn’t going to be writing enough about “the extraordinary in the everyday”, but actually, I have appreciated every day.  There’s always been something to write about and it may not have been a new adventure every day, but life isn’t really like that, is it?  Writing a blog post each day has made me stop and think about what I have done or seen instead of letting the day slide past, and there’s joy to be found in even the most ordinary of things.

Thank you for sharing the days with me xx

 

 

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8 Responses

  1. Steffi says:

    Thank you so much for Blogtober! I enjoyed every day and it was never boring to read what happened. Also the beautiful photos of the landscape around your home!
    I’m really looking forward to next October! 😊

  2. Jayne says:

    lovely to read your musings Christine. I’m not far away from where you live so I’m with you on all the rain we’ve had lately !
    I was glad to be able to knit my 2nd ever pair of socks !
    My mum was delighted to receive them as a gift.
    If its any consolation, the squirrels have all but dug up my lawn with their plantings 😍

  3. Paula Middleton says:

    I’ve really enjoyed your blogtober, it’s nice to see what’s going on elsewhere

  4. ChrisG says:

    Dear Christine, I’ve loved your daily posts all month about the ordinary and the extraordinary in every day! And the round up is a lovely way to celebrate all that gratitude 😊 I’ve never been good at consistently journaling, but as I reflect (& read the entries I did make) I am setting my intention to allow the time to notice, recall and record those small details that often turn out to be the significant details of my days. Thank you 🙏🏼

  5. Chris Hailebaxter says:

    I really liked your posts, particularly because I live in Sussex on the coast so don’t have the country walks. You have to get in the car to find woodland. Also my husband has been ill for 18 months so we don’t get out the way we used to. We have a face to face (wow) with a doctor a week tomorrow so hoping for better news. Take care. 😊

  6. Karen Nash says:

    I have really enjoyed catching up with the blog each day. I purchased a hope socks pattern and can’t wait to make some socks for little feet. Please do blogtober again next year, the next week or so are going to feel strange without a daily catch up

  7. Helen says:

    I enjoyed each day and love how the pics look gathered together. They remind me of Instagram – well, before people started adding videos.

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