When joining Lucy for Awesome Autumn, my goals were few and simple.

Forage for sloes and make some gin
I found the sloes, I found the recipe, I found a demijohn (albeit dusty and covered in cobwebs). This happened people, this totally happened. I've since been told that the finished product is much nicer if left for a year, and I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I'm going to be patient and wait...

Go to the beach
This didn't happen. I'm not sure where the time went.

Decorate the side entrance and hallway
Done! Almost. I still have the woodwork to sand and gloss, but as we're so close to Christmas, and I'm hoping for an electric sander, I'm going to wait and see what Santa brings.


Carve a pumpkin or two
Fail. Halloween seemed to completely pass me by, honestly it came and went before I realised the pumpkins were on sale.

Watch a creepy film on Halloween
Fail, see above. However I did watch my favourite Christmas film - The Holiday. Twice.

Bake something
I've got three apple crumbles under my belt (literally!) and this cherry cake. The recipe comes from Bessie's Veggie Kitchen. I've cooked recipes from this blog before - here and here - and it turns out that the blogger behind it is a friend of mine. Someone I've known since I was 14. I'd been following her Pinterest boards for ages without even realising. Small world.



Resist the urge to buy new scarves and wear all the ones I own!
Loved this mini challenge and succeeded in not buying any new ones. Scarves are something I wear all year round but they feature heavily at this time of year. I wore almost all of my collection and selected a few to go to chairty. I received three for my birthday at the end of August, one of which was awesome (and huge), but, I'm told, not as big as one Lenny Kravitz has.


Read 3 books
To help towards my goal of 12 before my next birthday. I read A Cup of Tea by Amy Ephron, which is my chosen book for Alex's A Blogging Good Read. And then I started The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness, which is where it all started to go wrong.

Something happened in the book, something that I didn't want to happen. It was awful, I saw it coming but still hoped that it wouldn't actually happen. It did. And when it did, I threw the book across the room and there it still sits. I sobbed and I haven't picked another book since.

The book was recommended to me by my best friend. When she read the awful thing, she was on a plane and sobbed just like I did. But she read on and tells me I should do the same, but I need to make my peace with it first. Despite this I'm impressed that a book can make me react in such a forceful manner - if nothing else that's pretty spectacular writing.

Walk in the woods
I live a two minute walk away from woods and yet didn't make it there for an autumnal stroll. Shame. On . Me.

Meet friends for coffee
This was really about just seeing more of my favourite people. And I'm pleased to say that I did. Time spent with friends is always a pleasure, even if it's for a quick lunchtime coffee. This is something I'm definitely going to keep up, it's all to easy to let time go by.


I'll be taking part in Lucy's Wonderful Winter too, hopefully I'll do better.

How was your Autumn? What are you looking forward to this winter?

Love