The Ultimate Autumn Bucket List

Autumn is my favourite season. It’s all about cosy jumpers, roaring fires, long walks kicking through the fallen leaves and everything pumpkin. It’s a season packed with fun things; from Halloween to Bonfire night and conker season to pumpkin picking. There’s a lot going on, so I’ve created this awesome Autumn bucket list of things to do this season so we don’t miss a thing.

My Ultimate Autumn Bucket List

Go apple picking

Bake an apple pie with your family

Go bat watching at dusk

Make clay tree faces

Collect some conkers – apparently putting conkers in your house keeps spiders away, I’m not entirely convinced this works.

Have a game of conkers

Dress up for Halloween

Gather seeds to plant next spring

Go for an autumn walk and kick through the leaves

Go stargazing in your garden, wrap yourselves up in blankets and drink hot chocolate whilst gazing at the stars.

Decorate the house for Halloween

Put together a hot chocolate station, marshmallows, squirty cream, your favourite chocolate toppings and sprinkles, go for it!

Make some Halloween chocolate bark

Do some leaf crafts with the family

Autumn Leaf Crafts: Simple Autumn Leaf Faces

Have a go at leaf printing or leaf rubbing

Make a bug hotel in the garden and give your garden critters somewhere cosy to spend the winter

Collect some leaves and make autumn leaf crowns

Make hot apple juice

Bake a pumpkin pie with your family

Visit a pumpkin patch and pick some pumpkins

Carve some spooky pumpkins

Go out for pumpkin spice lattes

Toast marshmallows or make smores

Play with torches to create spooky shadows

Go for a torchlight walk

Make a batch of treacle toffee

Visit a farm and watch a combine harvester at work

Watch Hocus Pocus on Halloween

What are you up to this autumn? We’ve got lots of plans for pumpkin picking, leaf crafts, long walks and so much hot chocolate. The bat watching season is in full swing and we even spotted some in our garden last night. What’s on your autumn bucket list?

The Ultimate Autumn Bucket List

My all new improved Bucket List

On my 37th birthday, way back in September 2013 I wrote a blog detailing my bucket list. It had been a traumatic year and at times things had been a bit life and death. A little brush with mortality made me evaluate things, boil down my priorities into a to do list. But nearly two years on I’m still here, but how have I got on with my bucket list?

1. To see my son grow up strong, happy and confident
So far, so good. He’s happy and thriving and the glittering star in my existence.
2. To see the Northern Lights
This hasn’t happened, I remain in hope but I think I might have to actually go to Norway rather than just staring balefully out of my bedroom window.
3. To return to Gothenburg, Sweden and enjoy the city where we honeymooned
This hasn’t happened yet either, though it is our 15th Wedding Anniversary this year *coughs and looks at hubs*
4. To get a tattoo
Oh dear, I’m not doing very well here am I? I know what I want and where I want it, but I need to nod from hubs and a dose of bravery. I’d like a white feather to cover a self-harm scar on my hand.
5. To see The Wonder Stuff live
YES! Well no, I’m actually going to see them on Sunday, so barring disaster, that’s one off my list!
6. To get half decent at photography. I love it.
Still dabbling, but occasionally I take a picture which blows my socks off. I need a more advanced fancy-pants camera really.
7. Be a passenger in an Aston Martin DB9 going flat out round the Nurburgring
Still a big dream of mine. I doubt it will happen, being thrown about in a luxury car will probably be the thing which will finally paralyse me.
8. Have a go at some wild swimming
Still looking at it, still trying to pluck up the courage. It just needs an unbearable hot day, a swimming costume and a body of water not filled with shopping trolleys!
9. To go for (another) meal at River Cottage HQ. Yum.
YES! Well sort of. I’m booked to go on an amazing blogcamp at River Cottage this September. So I’m counting that as a yes
10. Spend at least a year living in North Devon
I strongly suspect this will not happen. The small boy is starting school in September and I don’t think I can be too far from my neurosurgeon just in case. It’s not all bad, there are worse places to be than sunny Didsbury.

Would I add anything? Probably.

I’d like to write something, a book or a series of short stories, something that I can hold in my hand and say “I wrote that” and have my family and people I love be proud of me.

I’d like to see my other “bucket list band” Shed Seven – which I will do in December.

I’d like my kitchen ceiling painted. No really, it’s needed to be done for 3 years now, it’s going on my bucket list. If I die and it’s not been painted I’m coming back and haunting someone.

I’d like to not be in chronic pain, but that’s something I can’t change. Maybe I just need to adjust my thinking and see the upsides to being a bit broken.

I’ll keep my thinking cap on and add to this list as I go on. My bucket list is always changing, which is how it should be, because so am I.

My Toddler Boys Winter Bucket List

Being an avid reader and lover of blogs I stumbled across this little cracker. Primarily the blog is about making sure your little nipper gets enough Vitamin D during the long, dark, cold winter months; but the bit that grabbed my attention was the “Winter Potty List” which is basically a mini winter bucket list of fun things to do over the winter for kids.

winter bucket list

I actually love this, I sometimes really struggle to be creative and think of fun things to do with the lad. I’m going to print the graphic out, stick it on the fridge and see how many we can tick off before the trees go into blossom next spring.

The ones I’m most looking forward to trying are –

Salt dough hand prints which we can decorate and give to Grandma for Christmas
Making messy fruit scones and gobbling them down still warm from the oven
Teddy bears picnic for him and a couple of his little chums
Making naughty hot chocolate and snuggling under a blanket watching a Christmas film

I think he’ll love this and enjoy helping me plan what we’ll do and then ticking them off. Hope you like this too, thought it’d be rude not to share!

25 Things About Me

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I was rooting through some old stuff and I found this. I wrote it for something-or-other when I was 32. I’m 37 now and it’s funny to to to see how I’ve changed, or how little I’ve changed over those years. I did a 37 Things for my 37th Birthday post in September which was sort of along these lines. I think it makes for an interesting comparison.

1. I am 32 and still haven’t found a job I enjoy.
2. I like making jam and am quite good at it.
3. I actually do have the best husband in the world.
4. I can’t drive and I’d like to keep it that way.
5. I hardly ever drink but when I do can be quite terrifying.
6. My favourite place in the world is North Devon.
7. My favourite thing in the world is seeing my dog Sam run in big happy circles on Westward Ho! beach.
8. I like fascinating facts such as Westward Ho! is the only place in England to have an exclaimation mark as part of it’s name.
9. I’ve got a snow phobia but I’m getting over it.
10. My keyboard is missing the y key and is soon to lose the b I think.
11. Would like to find a job that didn’t make me puke every winter (God bless the NHS).
12. I hate mobile phones.
13. I have worn Pele’s shirt!
14. I am a published poet (and yes, I do know it).
15. I have a group of incredibly supportive and excellent friends (cheers guys).
16. I like growing fruit and veg.
17. My favourite film is Sense and Sensibility.
18. My favourite book is the Kite Runner (beautiful and sad).
19. I’d love to drink Elderflower Fizz with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.
20. I love marking exam papers, though it does half kill me!
21. I don’t want to live in Manchester forever (though God did indeed create Manchester).
22. I want She Bangs the Drums by The Stone Roses playing at my funeral.
23. I used to teach journalism and loads of my old students now have careers in the media, it makes me proud.
24. My favourite band are The Smiths, genius.
25. I’d like to retire and look after my hubby and be a proper 50’s housewife.

Thanks for reading!

I’ve been thinking… what’s on my Bucket List?

I’ve never really thought much about making a bucket list of things to do before I die. I’ve always been focused on the present. Putting food on the table, making sure my family are okay, going to work, rushing around. There never seemed to be the time to get dreams together. I suppose it’s good to dream or to have a future focus beyond next week or next month.

Lot’s of people put together a bucket list. Usually places to visit and experiences they want to have before their time on this earth is up. I’ve always had a little list in my head, but never done anything to make them happen. Maybe I’ve always felt that time was on my side. It probably isn’t on my side, which probably means it’s time to sort myself out and start making things happen.

After much contemplation this is my bucket list…

See my son grow up strong, happy and confident
To see the Northern Lights
To return to Gothenburg, Sweden and enjoy the city where we honeymooned
Get a tattoo
To see The Wonder Stuff live
To get half decent at photography. I really enjoy it.
Be a passenger in an Aston Martin DB9 going flat out round the Nurburgring
Have a go at some wild swimming
To go for (another) meal at River Cottage HQ. Yum.
Spend at least a year living in North Devon

my bucket list

I don’t think my bucket list is too outrageous. I don’t think most of those things are impossible dreams. Maybe I’ll need to find slightly tamer versions of the things I want to do, or maybe my fairy godmother will come to my aid, wave her wand and make my dreams come true.

So that’s my bucket list. I wonder how many I’ll manage before I do eventually kick the bucket.