And just like my washing machine eating my favourite pyjamas, December arrived with zero remorse. November in my experience is largely rubbish – cold, wet, dark and uninspiring. But this one was alright! Let’s get straight into it, shall we? It’s long, but you can skim it if you like. I won’t tell.
(If you want to read my other monthly updates stretching all the way back to January of 2024, you can find them all here).
I put up my Christmas tree
I am a big believer in saving Christmas for December (I even wrote a post about it once!), but like the massive hypocrite I am, I put up my Christmas tree weeks ago; even before my oldest’s mid-November birthday which felt pretty wrong. In my defense, it was necessary as part of a Christmas campaign (which you can see here with lots of pretty pictures).
I shared the above picture of my tree on Facebook, and along came a man called Andy, bravely announcing to the world that Tesco had ‘gone WOKE.’
Why? Unclear.
Who asked? Literally no one.
Did it make sense? Absolutely not.
If you’re wondering what on earth he was frothing about, Emma Monk’s Substack has a brilliant explanation – and is generally a great read if you like your politics served with a side of sanity.
Anyway, I thought I’d have a bit of fun and make a follow-up joke suggesting that B&M had gone woke too because they also weren’t calling Christmas trees ‘Christmas trees‘. You know; satire. Ha-ha. Light-hearted. Silly. A joke.
Except, apparently, satire died somewhere around 2018.
A frankly alarming number of people took it completely seriously. A LOT. Like… enough to make me worry for both the education system and the drinking water.
I even threw in the classic ‘I didn’t fight in two world wars for this’ line, which is a joke older than me, but still; no. Straight over their heads. Gone. Lost to the void; yeeted into the sarchasm.
I’m mainly deeply offended that anyone thinks I would actually buy a glittery dog statue. Have a word with yourselves.
Anyway, incidentally it’s been a bonanza month for Facebook monetisation.
I became a company director
I almost forgot about this one because it happened right at the start of November, but I signed my name in blood and now I am officially on the board of 42thingstodo.net; your online bucket list, inspiration portal and coaching app. It is a work in progress and I absolutely WISH I had more hours in the day to get everything done NOW – but please; join, contribute, and watch this space!
I did not one, but TWO theme parks
At the start of November, I went to Thorpe Park (again!) with my friend and her 11-year-old for a Blue Light Day event; NB apparently ’emergency services’ now includes Teaching Assistants, which is fair enough because if anyone deserves discounted rollercoasters, it’s the people dealing with Year 9 on a Friday afternoon.
Her son bravely went on everything with us… except Hyperia, and frankly, fair. That ride is so fast and so high it made me briefly wonder if my neck was about to detach itself like a Lego minifigure. I swear it wasn’t that bad in June; evidently I’ve aged exponentially in the meantime.
But we had a brilliant day, ticked off all the big rides, and even did a scare maze, which, for the record, I hated. Being chased through the dark by a zombie? No thank you. I can get that level of adrenaline simply by opening my gas bill.
At the opposite end of the theme-park spectrum, we also went to Peppa Pig World at Paultons Park to celebrate my oldest’s 12th birthday (and my sister’s 40th) This is much more my own children’s speed because, bless them, they are absolute wusses. I love them, but honestly, the level of fear they experience on a gentle ride for toddlers is impressive. I can’t imagine getting them anywhere near Swarm or Saw.
And of course, because it was November in Britain, it rained all bastard day. Thank GOD for my wannabe-Dry Robe, which is probably the best thing I’ve spent money on this year apart from my bathroom. You can buy one from Amazon through this affiliate link and look equally as stylish but – more importantly – be WARM and DRY.
The great November gig-a-thon
We also somehow managed to see a lot of live music this month, and by a lot, I mean an amount entirely inappropriate for two people in their 40s with day jobs and plantar fasciitis.
We started gently, with cover bands SlipNot and Chop Suey in Reading. I love a cover band; unlike the real deal, they always play the songs you actually know, rather than making you politely endure tracks from their upcoming album no one’s heard of. You get your 2000s bangers, your crowd-pleasers, and you get to be HOME BY MIDNIGHT. At this age, that’s the real headline act.
Then came Hed PE, Spineshank and Drowning Pool in Southampton. The Spineshank set was… fun, in a ‘we’re all doing our best’ kind of way, but let’s just say nostalgia carried that performance more than vocals did. Drowning Pool, however, were very good; annoyingly good, actually, because they made us stay awake far later than my body wanted to be awake for.
They waited until the very end to play Bodies which is frankly cruel to an audience of knackered millennials who’ve been standing for four hours straight and are trying to decide if they’ve got one more mosh left in them before the long drive home.
Also: the floors at The 1865 in Southampton? Sticky. Very sticky. Like if you stood still too long, you might become part of the building kind of sticky.
And then there was Brighton for Nonpoint and Lacuna Coil; both good bands, but by this stage we were both absolutely cooked (as my kids say). We could have used the excuse to go on a night out in Brighton – a place I haven’t been drunk in TEN YEARS despite having grown up there – but we couldn’t be arsed and got a train back to my parents’ house and went to bed instead.
I finally have a bath again
When you move into a new house, there are always things you tell yourself you’ll ‘sort eventually’, which usually means ‘never’ (or ‘before you sell it’). But what I didn’t expect was how much I would deeply, viscerally miss having a bath until suddenly… I didn’t have one. Instead I was blessed with a shower. Not even a normal shower; a dark wet room, complete with a dodgy floor.
I’d been side-eyeing that floor since the day I moved in, and of course, the second it was ripped up, the plumber confirmed what I already knew in my heart: it could have gone through at any moment. Excellent!
But here’s the miracle: instead of having to replace the entire bathroom and sell a kidney or a child to fund it, my plumber worked some kind of small-space wizardry. He removed the enormous shower screen that made the bathroom feel about the size of an airline toilet, got rid of the absurdly tiny sink you couldn’t actually wash your hands in, replaced the floor, and somehow managed to fit in a bath and a proper grown-up sink.
He kept the wall tiles and the existing shower in place, meaning the whole thing cost about a third of what a full renovation would have set me back.
And reader… I am THRILLED. Over the moon. Practically feral with joy. I’ve had that bath for two weeks and I still go in just to look at it. I might start doing all my admin from there. I might live in there.
I went to the races (and didn’t financially ruin myself)
This month also featured a day at the races with work. Not my usual thing to be fair, but as part of my job, I’d helped organise a hospitality event for almost 70 staff and our customers at Newbury Racecourse.
It all went shockingly well. We had a very decent sit-down meal, the wine flowed, the sun actually shone (a Christmas miracle in itself), and we spent the afternoon watching horses thunder past from our balcony. I even had a flutter. Won a few races. Lost a few more. Ended the day £2.70 down, which in gambling terms I consider an overwhelming financial triumph.
Honestly, seeing everyone enjoying themselves gave me a smug little hit of job satisfaction I don’t often get from writing sarcastic posts on the internet.
A few thank yous
Before I sign off, a couple of shout-outs are absolutely deserved.
First, to British Boxers, who kindly replaced the bamboo pyjamas my washing machine brutally murdered. I was genuinely gutted; those PJs were the softest thing I’ve ever owned that wasn’t alive – and they swooped in like loungewear superheroes. If my washing machine attempts another hit, I’m unplugging it and sending it to appliance jail.
And secondly, a very grateful glug-glug thank you to Calvet, who sent me some lovely bottles of wine to try; and as someone deep in the trenches of perimenopause, parenting, and general life fatigue, this is the kind of support I need more than vitamin D supplements.
Wine one: Calvet Cuvée du Cap Sauvignon Blanc (£9 at Waitrose and Ocado): It’s lively, peachy, limey and perfect for drinking after a day in the rain at Paulton’s Park. They say it’s best with a shellfish platter. I had it with microwaved leftover pasta and it still tasted sophisticated.
Wine two: Calvet Muscadet (£8.75 at Tesco): Bright, lively, with fruity, floral notes and a little whisper of mint. Officially, it’s the perfect match for oysters, which is very classy. Unofficially, I can confirm it also pairs beautifully with oven pizza (thanks, Sarah!) and telly.
Other things I wrote this month:
And that, dear reader, was November: a month that started grey and soggy and yet somehow managed to be unexpectedly brilliant. Theme parks, gigs, glittery dog-statue truthers, new bathroom joy, baffling Facebook men called Andy, and more miles on my ageing knees than I care to admit. Plus wine. Always wine.
Thanks for reading, for sticking around, and for humouring me through another month of nonsense. Onward to Christmas; may your tree stay upright, your kids stay vaguely grateful, your heating bill be merciful, and your wine glass never quite empty.
See you in the December roundup… assuming I haven’t accidentally moved into my new bath forever.
If you enjoyed this and you’re feeling generous, you can buy me a cup of tea or a glass of wine – or donate to my houseplant addiction fund – here.
You can also see my Amazon wish list here.
