Friday's Fave Five - 24/10/25

It's Friday so time to take a pause and look back on the good things from the past week.  Susanne reminds us to do this each week and we link up here.

1)  Sunshine today!  We've had a lot of wind and rain over this past week but today the sun was shining.  Always a lift to the spirits.

2)  An evening out with Hubby last Saturday - we went to a concert with The John Ongom Big Band at the local church which was really good and it was to raise funds for our Foodbank.

3)  My daughter and her family are safely back from their holiday in the United Arab Emirates.  A good friend of theirs and his wife are currently living and working in Abu Dhabi so they visited them and also Dubai.  Not the best place for a gay couple with children to visit but they were celebrating with their friends who recently got married.  Judging by the photos they all had a great time.

4)  I've finally read Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen.  It's been on my TBR list for a while and now it's done!  It took me a while as I have a hardback copy of the complete works of Austen so it's a big heavy book with very small print - difficult to read in bed.

5)  A brief visit with my son and his family tonight - they are driving to us and staying overnight as they're off on holiday tomorrow.  They're leaving their car here and I will be driving them to Stansted airport in the morning.  

And a bonus - we get an extra hour of sleep on Saturday night as our clocks go back.  Sadly it will be mean it gets dark even earlier! 

Have a good weekend all.

Start here

A Challenge too Far? 23/10/25

I've blogged in the past about how I'm trying to do the 52 Book Club Challenge again this year.

Well this week I sat down and worked out what I needed to read before the end of the year:

Prompt 5 Plot includes a Heist - Woman on Fire by Lisa Barr currently reserved at the library.

Prompt 18 A Character who can fly - The Flight Girls by Noelle Salazar currently in transit to my library

Prompt 20 A Fairy Tale retelling - The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey currently in transit to my library

Prompt 27 Features a Magician - The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern currently in transit to my library

Prompt 30 In the Public Domain - Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen I'm currently about half way through this

Prompt 31 Audiobook has multiple narrators - Mansfield Park by Jane Austen - I have the complete works so I'll be reading this one.

Prompt 31 Includes a Diary entry - Homecoming by Kate Morton I picked this up from the library yesterday.

6 and 1/2 books by the end of the year sounds doable right?

But there's also:

The Beginner's Goodbye by Anne Tyler and

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid 

to be read for the book clubs!  Wish me luck!

(And another library loan to pick up just for fun.)

I'm off to read a bit more of Sense and Sensibility.  I'd forgotten how flowery Austen's writing was.  And it's hard to read in bed as I have the complete works of Austen so it's a big heavy book and the print is small.

Wednesday Hodgepodge - 22/10/25

Joyce provides the questions each week (thank you Joyce), we prepare our answers and then we share here.

1. What do you like most about your family?  

Well I have 2 brothers that I'm not particularly close to - there are quite big age gaps between us - so often when I talk about family it's the family I married in to and what I love about them is that I've never been made to feel like an "in-law"  I'm just part of the family, same as anyone else.

2. What's something nice that's happened to you recently? 

Being appreciated.  I had some nice feedback from people about my efforts at the Foodbank.

3. Do you like the colour orange? Besides a pumpkin and an actual orange, what's something orange you love?

It's definitely not my favourite colour.  And I'm not a fan of pumpkin or oranges.  I do have some orange cushions on our sofas which I think complement the brown leather but I don't actually find them comfortable so I never sit with one behind me.

Something I did love recently was the carrot soup I made with the carrots I got from the Foodbank - we had so many carrots, volunteers were encouraged to take some home.

4.  What's something you have now you couldn't have imagined having five years ago? How does that make you feel? What's possible now because of it? 

6 grandchildren!  It feels wonderful. We actually had none at the start of 2017 and had 6 by November 2020.

5. Let's wrap this one up with an October this or that...

• pumpkin bread or apple cider donut   DONUT
• cozy sweater or cozy hoodie    HOODIE 
• apple picking or pumpkin picking  APPLE
• scary movie or Hallmark movie  HALLMARK
• hay ride or corn maze  HAY RIDE - I love puzzles but think a maze might get claustrophobic.
• twinkle lights or candles  BOTH 
• autumn hike or autumn bonfire HIKE

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

We've had some much needed rain in the last few days but it hasn't put a damper on the start of firework season.  It was Diwali at the weekend so we've had lots of fireworks over the last few nights and of course soon it will be Halloween and then Bonfire night itself.  They don't particularly bother me but I know for people with pets it can be a difficult time.

Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon - 19/10/25

Yes today has definitely been a lazy day!  I needed one after the last few days.

A big chunk of Thursday was spent at the Foodbank - we had a huge delivery of lots of fresh food in from our regular supplier plus a lot of other items which all had to be taken in and then organised and distributed.  It was hard going as I was the only person in the back storeroom this week.  Then the church had to be cleared of all the food and set up ready for a weekend concert.

Friday I caught up on a lot of household chores and laundry.

Then yesterday I was back at the Foodbank to take in another delivery.  Thankfully my fellow volunteer Sally was there to help with that because this is the picture I took after we'd been sorting the contents of bags for almost an hour.

Every Saturday we get a delivery from people who attend a church in nearby Woodford Wells.  They put a donation bag outside their houses, volunteers collect them and bring them to us.  This week we also had a big collection from a nearby school that had been brought in on Friday to deal with. There were bags everywhere and they needed to be moved as we have to be able to walk through the store room as it's a Fire Exit route.

Sally and I spent about 2 hours opening up all the bags and grouping things together in crates.  Usually we would try and write dates on the items and put them in their proper storage area but there was no way we could do that on Saturday.  I didn't get an after photo as I actually did a video to send to the Manager showing her what we had done.  Most of the things were stored in the green crates you can see in the picture but we had to leave a lot of cereal boxes on the work table.

Hopefully the team that come in on Mondays to set up the Church ready for the Tuesday session of the Foodbank will be able to make some more progress.  It's a good problem to have though.  We're always grateful for donations.

When we'd done as much as we could I made my way round to Tesco's where Hubby was doing our shopping - in my rush to get to the Foodbank in the morning I'd come out without my door keys!

Saturday evening I was back at the Church but this time for entertainment - 

This band have for the last few years done a concert at the Church with proceeds going to the Foodbank.

The band was formed by John Ongom back in 2002.  John was originally from Uganda but came to England to study and stayed.  When he tried to find a band to join he couldn't find what he was looking for so he just set up his own.  Sadly John died in 2018 but the band continues under the musical director Angus Moncrieff who was born in Highams Park.

It was a really good concert and well attended so hopefully it will help our fundraising efforts.  And it was nice to be out with Hubby for the evening.

But all that is why today has been a very lazy, quiet day.  It's also been raining so that was another excuse for not getting out for a walk.

I've read the paper, caught up on some book reviews and last night's episode of Strictly Come Dancing.

Now I'm off to bed to do some reading while Hubby catches up on the weekend's football on TV.  I've just started Sense and Sensibility.  It may take me a while.