What I'm Watching - October 2019

TV and film that I've been watching this month.

I started taping the BBC drama The Capture when it started but by the time I got round to watching it I had all six episodes waiting for me. I quite like it when this happens and I can watch a new episode one night after the other instead of waiting week after week. The first episode was compelling, I didn't know where the story was taking me but I was hooked waiting to see what was unfolding. It wasn't until episode two that I understood in which direction it was going. I thought it was a great storyline and really made you think.

Once we finished The Capture, we started on Dublin Murders. I watched the first episode and wasn't sure it was for me, the second episode lost me completely, it just didn't hold my interest at all. I've decided not to watch any further but Mick's going to persevere with it.

I haven't watched The X Factor for many years now, I thought it had run its course after just a few series. This year, instead of searching amongst the public, they've cast their net amongst, so called, celebrities. How is it that an unknown who then goes on to appear on some reality show automatically turns into a celebrity? Anyway, I thought it might be fun to watch X Factor Celebrity so we watched the auditions and have watched the first live show too, but I think they're flogging a dead horse. It's time they called it a day and put this horse out to pasture. I don't think I'll watch any further.

There are a few podcasters who are doing Vlogtober this month. Basically, they record snippets of their everyday lives and upload them daily to YouTube. I'm watching Ali at Little Drops of Wonderful, Sherrie at Ollie & Bella and Gayna at Tales From Cuckoo Land. It's like a little peek to see what they get up to each day, gosh I am nosey!

Have you been watching any of these? What else have you been watching this month?

In The Making - October 2019

A roundup of the things I'm working on at the moment.

I have to say that my crafting has slowed down somewhat this month. I'm not sure why that is, I just haven't been reaching for my knitting as often as I usually do.

Strictly Come Dancing is back on our screens so, just like last year, I decided to join in with the knitalong which is being hosted by Ali on her Little Drops of Wonderful podcast. I had a look in my stash and thought this yarn I was given in a swap I took part in on Instagram would look lovely knitted up into the Cha Cha Chevron socks, the official Strictly knitalong pattern from last year. I'm very pleased with my choice so far. I only knit these socks whilst watching Strictly Come Dancing or its sister show, It Takes Two, which is shown on weekdays but I've already completed the first one and I'm down to the heel on the second.

I've added the two gorgeous mini skeins I received for my birthday from Maggie from BlackCountry Wench blog into my scrappy blanket. These are from Beaker Button, a dyer I'd never heard of before. It's such soft yarn. Maggie also gave me this beautiful needle case for my birthday, I've opened it up so that you can just peek the gorgeous fabric inside, and the cute little hedgehog stamped on the back. Thank you, Maggie, such a thoughtful gift.

My crafting enthusiasm seems to be coming and going at the moment but there's no point trying to force it, a hobby is all about enjoyment so I'll pick things up if and when the mood takes me, I'm sure my mojo will return again soon.

Stocking Up The Bookshelf

I often buy second hand books from charity shops but I'm noticing more and more places are accepting book donations and selling them for charity. There's a charity book stand in our local Tesco's and one in Wilko's too.

Our local chemist has recently set up a bookshelf for this exact purpose. The books are sold for 50p each and the money raised is donated to a local hospice.

Unfortunately, as yet, the shelves are not very well stocked so I popped back in to donate a couple of books which I've recently read. No books came home with me as there weren't any there which took my fancy, but I shall keep popping back in just in case something comes in which does.

A Local Walk For Archie

We often jump in the car and take Archie to lovely places like Lotherton or Temple Newsam, which I've posted about many times in the past, but we've also got some lovely walks on our doorstep without needing to travel in the car to get there. These are the places he walks daily so we rotate them. I'm going to show you the walk we took on Thursday.

A lot of dog walkers use this lane and it also leads to some stables, though there were no horses in the yard on Thursday, they were all tucked up indoors. A dog did come out to see Archie as we passed though and he wanted to come on our walk with us but he was very good and went home when we told him to.

The view to our right. We used to cross this field and it would take us to lower fields where we could continue on a circular walk. Unfortunately, back in 2012, sixty eight houses were built on the lower field and we're now unable to take this circular walk, we have to turn around and come back the way we came. I wrote about it in my A Sad E-State Of Affairs post.

The view to our left. This field is full of crops during the summer months but they've all been harvested now.

Archie's really good when he's off his lead, he does love a good sniff around but he doesn't stray from us very far, he runs to catch up as soon as he sees we've walked a few yards ahead.

I always try to get some good photos of Archie when we take him for walks but it's very difficult, he doesn't stand still for long so my efforts result in blurred snaps. If he does stand still he's usually eating grass!

I was expecting the lane to be rather muddy on Thursday as we'd had quite a bit of rain but it wasn't too bad, there was the odd puddle or two but we managed to avoid them.

It's not a long walk but it's long enough for one of Archie's daily walks, we don't take him as far as we used to these days. He's fine when we're out and about but it knocks him out when we get home.

I hope you enjoyed seeing one of Archie's regular walks. Perhaps I'll show you one of the others another day.

Zero Waste

A new zero waste shop opened nearby recently and at the weekend we finally managed to find time to pop in. What a lovely surprise we had.

It's such a well stocked shop, so many more products for sale than we'd imagined. There's dry food, everything from pasta to granola, many different kinds of nuts, dried fruit, all different kinds of flour, every spice you can imagine, and they also have a great range of eco friendly products too, reusable make up remover pads, bamboo toothbrushes, metal straws, reusable sanitary products, bamboo lunchboxes to name just a few.

You're able to take your own containers or use paper bags. There's also a very good selection of reusable containers for sale too.

There's a whole section of cleaning products as well as toiletries, soaps and body washes.

The shop has been opened by a local couple who are very friendly and knowledgeable about their products.

I like the idea of being able to purchase just the amount you need, it cuts down on food waste. Also, you don't have any unwanted packaging here. The prices compare very favourably with those in the local supermarkets, which is really good. It seems to be very popular already and it's somewhere I shall definitely be shopping in the future.

Yarny Advent Calendars

Following on from my last post, No Apology, about Christmas goodies coming to the shops, I just thought I'd mention that I've made my first purchase towards celebrating the big day, a yarny advent calendar. In fairness to the dyers, they have to put up the listings for these yarny advent calendars very early in the year as they have such large batches of yarn to dye so they need to know numbers well in advance and get them out to customers in plenty of time for the countdown to begin.

When I was a child I had a charming little paper advent calendar with a picture behind each window. It was very carefully opened so that when Christmas that year was over and done with, we could close up all the windows and pack it away ready for the countdown the following year. It was used over and over again. Advent calendars these days are big business, it's quite rare to see those paper versions which I had as a child, now there's chocolate calendars, candle calendars, even beauty calendars where the windows open each day to reveal a cosmetic product. I've never had an advent calendar since I was a child but I decided that I'd like to have a yarny advent calendar this year.

Many dyers offer yarny advent calendars so I shopped around a bit and finally settled on one by Hedgerow Yarns. I've had yarn from this dyer in the past and have been very pleased with it. Each little parcel is numbered one to twenty four and each one contains 10g of hand dyed yarn. There was also a little stitch marker and another couple of extras included in the box.

Some dyers offer twelve days of Christmas calendars to open from Christmas day onwards and I decided that I'd also like one of these. Again, I shopped around and settled on one by Craft House Magic for this. Again, there's 10g of hand dyed yarn in each parcel. The dyer also sent an extra mini skein in the Pumpkin Patch colourway.

I'm also taking part in an advent swap. I've been given a partner and it's turned out to be the dyer behind Down Sheepy Lane yarn. We'll be making up an advent calendar to swap with each other.

The mini skeins will be the perfect size to add to my scrappy blanket with plenty of yarn left over for other things. There's lots of patterns now which use oddments of yarn so I may take a look at those to see what I can knit.

I'm looking forward to the countdown to Christmas and the twelve days afterwards. Will you have an advent calendar this year?

No Apology

I make no apology for this post, after all, there are just 76 more sleeps until Christmas Day, and I do love Christmas!

Actually, I don't like to see Christmas in the shops too soon, the 1st of December is soon enough for me, but we popped to our local garden centre yesterday and they've just started putting out their Christmas display so I thought I'd snap a few photos to share with you.

I thought these (not so) little mice were so cute.

We've collected different Christmas decorations over the years but I'd like some new ones this year. We're going to have a proper look at what's on offer before making our choice.

We really need a new tree too but our old one will last one more year. Have you seen the price of Christmas trees? So expensive! I fancy a real one but Mick's concerned that Archie will be cocking his leg all Christmas.

We saw some good bargains in the sale at the beginning of the year so I'm hoping we can pick up something nice for half the price in January ready for next year.

It's not only the garden centres which are getting ready for Christmas, there's mince pies in the supermarkets already, along with other goodies.

So what do you think? Is it too soon for the shops to be stocked full of Christmas things or do you welcome it? Do you like to buy well in advance of the big day or are you a last minute shopper? Do tell.

Autumn

I had a lie-in yesterday. I'm usually an early riser but I've been waking in the night just recently with a bad back which is very tiring. Couple this with the darker mornings that autumn brings, I woke rather late, but decided to stay put and read my book for a while. Heavy rain was forecast for the whole day but, even though I'd heard the rain hammering against the window when I was awake in the early hours, it had stopped when I finally got out of bed. Not wanting to waste any bit of dry weather, we put Archie's lead on him and headed off to Lotherton.

There's no denying now that we're well and truly in to autumn. Leaves are turning colour and dropping from the trees and so is their bounty. We passed quite a few children collecting conkers, but there's plenty for everyone at Lotherton. The squirrels will be very happy too as there were lots of acorns underneath the oak trees.

We followed Archie's preferred walk, into the woods. Actually, you wouldn't know it was autumn looking at the trees here, still plenty of green around.

Usually, we turn around and retrace our steps through the woods because dogs can run free, off their leads here. Yesterday though, we decided to have a walk through the formal gardens. Archie was a bit put out having to go back on his lead but he did get to have another run before we headed for home.

I loved these little ferns growing out of an old wall.

There's still quite a bit of colour around, you don't have to look far.

They say that an abundance of berries is supposed to herald a harsh winter. Well, I think we should get our hats, scarves and gloves at the ready as there's lots of berries around at the moment.

We brought these little treasures home with us. Spider deterrents. Well, they're supposed to stop spiders from coming into the house if you lay them around doors and window frames but I'm not convinced they work. I still lay a few out each year though.

I'm so pleased that we got out when we did because the heavens opened when we got back into the car. It did stop again a while later only for the forecast rain to materialise later on in the day and it's here today too. I think we're going to have to get used to this soggy weather for a while now.