Hello October.
You came in cold, a bit grey, and holding a letter from school about harvest festival that I definitely read on Sunday night at 10pm.
Monday started with a cupboard audit.
The letter said "a tin or packet for the harvest collection". Simple. Except our cupboard had one tin of chickpeas, a jar of something Greek I bought in a moment of ambition, and a lot of pasta shapes the kids refuse to eat now.
Indie chose the chickpeas. Then changed her mind at the school gate and wanted to donate a rice cake from her own snack bag. We compromised on both. The harvest table will be very balanced this year.
Tuesday brought the first serious heating conversation of the season.
John believes the heating should go on when there is frost on the car. I believe it should go on when I can see my breath in the kitchen whilst making porridge.
We reached a peace deal. It is on for one hour in the morning, and I am allowed a hot water bottle at my desk without any comments about it looking like I'm eighty.
There were comments. Obviously.
Midweek was a proper Storme Diaries stretch.
Recording notes, guest emails, a very long voice note to myself in the car that mostly says "remember this bit" and then nothing useful. The glamour never stops.
I do love this part though. The quiet building. Sitting with a cuppa and a half-written idea and feeling it slowly turn into something real.
The other one decided Wednesday was the day to learn how to open the fridge alone. So that part of the afternoon was less "creative flow" and more "why is there yoghurt on the floor".
Thursday I finally rang the dentist about the check-ups I've been meaning to book since August.
Hold music, nine minutes. Appointment secured. I celebrated with a biscuit and a small, private sense of victory that nobody else in the house will ever understand.
Saturday was World Mental Health Day, and it landed on me more than I expected.
I've talked a lot on the podcast about looking after ourselves, and this week I realised I'd been saying it more than doing it. Late nights, cold tea, the usual.
So I did one small thing. I went for a walk on my own for forty minutes. No podcast in my ears. No list. Just the lanes, the hedges going gold, and my own thoughts for once.
I came home calmer and a bit teary, in a good way. If you've been running on empty, this is your nudge to do one small thing for yourself too.
Then came the pumpkin patch pilgrimage.
Every Essex mum knows the one. Muddy field, straw bales, a hot chocolate that costs more than a tank of petrol, and a hundred families all trying to get the same photo.
We went early to beat the crowds. So did everyone else.
Indie wanted the biggest pumpkin in the field. The other one wanted the tiniest. John wanted to go home before either of them was chosen.
We left with one enormous pumpkin, one tiny one, two very muddy children, and a wheelbarrow I was briefly convinced we'd have to buy.
Sunday we carved nothing, because pumpkins need to last until the end of the month and I've learned that lesson the hard way. Instead they're sat on the doorstep looking smug.
So that was the week.
Harvest tins. Heating treaties. Fridge-door independence. One dentist booked. One walk that was just for me. Two pumpkins, one enormous and one tiny, and a car boot that will never be the same.
Here's to October, and to looking after ourselves as well as everyone else. 🎃🤍