Roundup Month October

October 2009

What books and/or magazines did I read this month?
I managed to read three more of the Cadfael Chronicles mysteries – books 12 to 14 (The Raven in the Foregate; The Rose Rent; and The Hermit of Eyton Forest). I really enjoy these medieval whodunits with the herbalist monk turned sleuth! They give a vivid insight into the world of the Dark Ages which is one of my special interests, as well as having an affinity for my faith and for herbs which I’m also interested in…the perfect book match for me! (You can find some of my reviews of Cadfael books here but I haven't done these last ones yet!)
I am also still doing my daily Bible-in-a-Year section and have managed, seen over a week at a time, to keep my Faithbook pages of the daily devotional verse up-to-date. You can follow them on my Faithbook Blog here.

What movies, television shows, plays, etc. did I watch this month?
We enjoyed watching the last episodes of part 3 of the “The Tudors” which we liked except for the fact that Henry has just gone through wife #4 and still looks like “the handsomest prince in Europe”… I reckon while following the historical events and personages by and large, the series is rather taking creative liberties with the details. It does, however, show the king’s spiritual dilemma of being a Catholic at heart despite all his reformative actions, which I was able to confirm from other sources. I wonder how many of his dubious decisions were really caused by the council of those close to him…
As this series closed, BBC fell back on the next part of “Merlin” which is suffering from the same problem – following the characters and main outline of the Arthur epic but playing at random with the stories. Well, after all, this one is a comedy... We find it rather enjoyable but I admit that it is only due to the flexible time of watching on iBBC on a laptop that we have got into watching these things at all – usually while having dinner…

What fun things did I do with my family and/or friends?
The main event of the month was the annual District Bellringers’ Outing. We visited eight churches and many of them were really special for their interior or their harvest flowers; foremost the” Westminster of the South” (Lingfield) and a tiny little church in Chaldon featuring a set of chiming bells, a replica of the oldest bell in England and one of the best preserved doom paintings. We also visited Outwood Windmill, the oldest working post mill in England, and were given a tour inside which was really interesting. They even swivelled the mill around while Sean and I happened to be on the top level and that was a really eerie sensation! Here is an article with photos I wrote for the Runnymede Deanery Website as part of my job!
I also spent an afternoon with my friend Eve during the half-term holiday, making two draught excluders for which I’m now knitting covers from leftover bits of wool – they’ll be really funky!

What gifts did I give and/or receive?
I received some belated birthday presents: a lovely little hand-turned vase from Emily which she had bought during a recent holiday in Devon, so it’s a really special thing (picture here); and a beginner’s lace making kit from Eve which she had found by lucky coincidence in a local charity shop (picture here)!
And I finally managed to meet up with Emily at the beginning of the month to present her with her (by now very belated) wedding present: the keepsake album I’d made for her. She was absolutely thrilled with it which of course made every minute I spent on it worthwhile! You can see some photos of this album a bit further down on this page - entry of September 09!

What special or unusual purchases did I make?
Found via Freecycle (now Freegle here in Surrey): a pair of brand new wellies; and a thick door curtain which should help keep us a bit warmer this winter.

What illnesses or health concerns did I have?
Right early on in the month I picked up a nasty flu – it first seemed to be only a really bad cold (the type that makes your nose drip so bad you have to actually block it up with tissue!) but then turned into a gastro flu type problem which persisted on and off for most of the month. Rather annoying.
I also had a call from the local clinic to come in following my recent blood tests and was told by my doctor that I was low on vitamin D, so now I’m on a daily two big chewable tablets of D+calcium.

What was going on in garden and allotment?
The last of the harvest was brought in – now the freezers are both full of beans and courgettes, blackberries, grapes and plum compote; and corn is hanging up to try for popcorn.
Autumn is well advanced and everything turned to glorious colours at the end of the month – I was out photo hunting!
Things are starting to die down now and we dug over the first beds at the allotment to receive their winter cover of manure. We are still having the last beets, radishes, carrots, chard and some lettuce in the garden.

What new recipes did I try out?
We really liked a recipe called “Iranian Tortilla” which was recommended in a real life TV series called “Economy Gastronomy” which we watched in September.
And as Emily and I dug up the first parsnip (okay, without waiting for them to get the first frost…) she recommended “Curried Parsnip Soup” which has also made its way into our favourites list.
(The two recipe names are linked to my own Joomla favourite recipes website which is a collection of recipes I want to try, or have tried and liked - collected online so I can use them on my kitchen mini laptop.)

What were my accomplishments this month?
This month my profile and artwork were featured in the Spot Light section of Club Scrap's Digi Scraprap.
I was very pleased with the sunflowers I’d planted for some colour in the garden – they were the late types and flowered from end August until now in wonderful shades of amber to brown.
I’m still keeping up with the photo a month even if I’m way behind in making the scrapbook pages for them – I have started publishing the photos themselves with short information on my 365-blog. People are getting used to my having the camera round for everything and are volunteering photo ideas, and even Sean sometimes picks up the camera for a snapshot of me in my daily or special activities…
I’m still keeping up with the no yeast/no sugar diet, appreciating the fact that now after half a year I am allowed wet cheeses (i.e. cream cheese, feta, mozzarella etc) and some fruit which was what I missed the most!
I completed part two of the Book of Me Challenge with the Club Scrap Forum – I do a page for each part for Sean and one for me to match, and each part consists of three different questions – i.e. six pages a month. You can see the October pages here - or if you want to see more go to my Crafts website.
Also managed to complete a few pages with photos from the Bellringing Outing.

What were my disappointments this month?
The external mega hard drive we have with ALL our data has started to keep crashing. So far nothing has been lost but it is very annoying as every time it happens I cannot do any work, or any scrapbooking, as all my files are on that drive and I don’t dare touch it so I have to wait for Sean to come home and fix it. Also, it worries me in case it would corrupt some data! So now Sean has bought a couple of terabyte disks for backing up and saved all the photos, and I’m going through all my digiscrap files to resort everything before a big backup that can then be synchronised on a regular basis. This is one of the most boring large projects I’ve ever undertaken! But I’m sure I’ll feel better for it once it’s done…

Anything else noteworthy to include?
Uncle John and Jenny moved to the New Forest – shame, no more beehives at Woodlands…it’s like the end of an era!