October has been and gone and now – without wanting to sound too negative – we’re being launched headfirst into the worst months of the year. It’s cold, it’s miserable, it’s too dark to do anything after 4pm apart from get ready for bed, and every other bastard you come across is trying to kill you by coughing a new strain of flu directly into your eyeballs.
Bliss.
Anyway, October. Here it was:
(If you want to read my other monthly updates stretching all the way back to January of 2024, you can find them all here).
We went on a family day trip to London
Earlier this month, we took a fun little jaunt into London because my son and his cousin had tickets for a Bunny vs Monkey draw-along with the author Jamie Smart. If you’re not deep in the world of children’s graphic novels, Jamie Smart is basically the Beyoncé of the Beano generation, only instead of selling out stadiums, he’s selling out rooms full of very excitable children armed with marker pens.
Sadly, I cannot draw (unless you count a rude doodle during a Teams meeting) so I was discharged from duty. My son and nephew went in with my brother-in-law while my sister, my daughter and I lived our best lives by eating a massive croissant and browsing the vastly overpriced charity shops of Islington High Street.
When we all reunited post-workshop, we were greeted by a sea of children vibrating with sugar and fandom energy. One kid had fully dressed up as Jamie Smart. Impressive, and also vaguely creepy.
We rounded things off with lunch and a mooch around the British Museum where we did the classic slow walk-past of priceless artefacts while saying things like ‘wow, that’s really old’ and ‘don’t touch that’.
We laughed at some people
First up, we went to see Jimmy Carr. I know he’s not everyone’s cup of spiced chai latte (or even builder’s tea) but I do enjoy a well-timed inappropriate gag and I’d still rather spend an evening watching comedy than most other things. Honestly, the highlight wasn’t even Jimmy; it was a woman so drunk she had to be escorted out mid-set because she couldn’t stop heckling, even when asked nicely to shut the fuck up. Worth the ticket price alone.
Then it was my birthday, which, at this point in life, feels less like a celebration and more like a reminder that time is a flat circle and I need to pay more into my pension. For the nosey among you, I turned 42 – which is the meaning of life, although it hasn’t necessarily made itself evident quite yet.
But this year did have one saving grace: I finally got to cash in on the tickets I bought almost an entire year ago to see Elis and John (and, of course, Dave) live in Reading.
If you’ve never listened to the Elis and John podcast, imagine a radio show crossed with a support group, Wordle chat, a bit too much about credit scores and the sort of tangents that make you wonder if you, too, should have your own public breakdown podcast. My boyfriend had never heard it before and genuinely thought he’d wandered into a cult.
Fair enough, but it’s a cult I’m very happy to be inducted into.
I did a whole standing gig like a young person
And finally, a night out that transported me straight back to the glory days of Kerrang! TV and unnecessarily studded belts: we went to see Disturbed. Yes, the same Disturbed you probably moshed to in your teens while harbouring deep emotional feelings for someone in a Limp Bizkit hoodie.
For absolute clarity, I was there purely for the nostalgia and the one iconic ooh-wah-ah-ah-ah moment and not because I fancy their lead singer’s politics (which I only found out about after agreeing to go, and immediately wished I could un-Google). Let’s just say: the music is still catchy as fuck, but the vibe is somewhat… awkward when the person singing them has opinions that make Piers Morgan seem like a reasonable dinner party guest.
Anyway; I sang along, relived 2003 for a solid 90 minutes and failed to get back home before midnight, but only just.
We left the house on Halloween
On Halloween, in a bold attempt to prove we’re still vaguely fun (and avoid the stream of Trick or Treaters at the front door), we decided to go out – and after dinner and cocktails ended up back to the scene of our first date, the legendary Purple Turtle in Reading. If you don’t know it, imagine the kind of place where the floors are sticky, the decor is goth-adjacent, and the drinks are pretty disgusting and vastly overpriced. Perfect for a sentimental night out, right?
Except somehow, on special holidays, the Purple Turtle is exclusively populated by people who were born after the first Shrek movie came out, and let me tell you, kids these days, they just can’t handle their booze.
We held on until just after midnight – which once upon a time was when the night finally got started – but then the reality hit: we didn’t want shots, we wanted bed. So we did the only sane thing two people in their 40s can do at that point. We left the Gen Zs to it and went home.
Meet Norman: My New (Very Leafy) Lodger
If you’ve ever doubted the power of a local Buy Nothing Facebook group, allow me to present Exhibit A: Norman.
Norman is a six-plus foot Monstera deliciosa; yes, that kind of big, Instagrammable ‘plant influencer’* jungle leaf beast, who I managed to nab for the grand total of zero pounds.
He now lives in my already overgrown collection of houseplants like he owns the place, casting dramatic shadows and intimidating the other monsteras (of which I have three, including a beautiful Thai constellation, already – but nothing approaching Norman’s size…). Izzy, meanwhile, remains deeply suspicious. She circles him like he’s a slightly-too-quiet intruder, waiting to see if he’s going to fight back.
He hasn’t. Yet.
But I’m keeping my eye on him. Mostly to check if he’s grown another foot overnight.
*This is a thing and I wish I could be bothered to become one because I have a serious problem and could probably do with monetising it.
And finally
I bought myself a new vacuum cleaner. Happy birthday to me.
I only tested it in the hall, which I did already this morning with the cordless vacuum.
If anyone is considering getting a Labrador, ensure you take this on board.
Other things I wrote this month:
Fuck all, I’ve been really busy. Sorry. You can read my review of pyjamas, if you like?
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.