My Autumn 2018 Bucket List

I've been meaning to follow the example of lovely Leslie from Once Upon A Time and Happily Ever After and have a quarterly bucket list of things to attempt to do. Finally got round to it!

I'm not a big fan of autumn or winter. It's so hard to get up on those dark mornings and drive to work in the rain or fog, and then return home in the dark. You want to hibernate and eat carbs. But I try to make the best of it.

Spring Bulbs

First up is the very pleasurable task of ordering my bulbs and planting them. Normally I would have already bought my bulbs but because we had a September holiday, I  delayed ordering them to avoid them arriving while we were away.  I usually order some crocus, three varieties of daffodil, and four or five different tulips. For next spring I'm going to choose tulips that flower both early and late in thr season. Selecting the colours is fun. There's a lot of yellow in the garden in early spring so I'm going to go for purple, white and orange.

Christmas Carols

The Christmas carol service is a fabulous event at the Royal Albert Hall in London. There are several, part of a Christmas festival.  This year it's being moved to the Barbican Centre.  It's easier for us to get to, but not so festive or special in my view. So we may skip the festival and perhaps go to the service at St Paul's Cathedral instead.

Blogger Meet-Up

It's great to meet up with fellow bloggers so I'm hoping to get a posse assembled to go to the Berkeley Hotel for their famous Prêt-à-Portea. The cakes are inspired by latest catwalk trends, and the line-up changes every six months.

Theatre Visits

It's been a bad year on the theatre front. We haven't been once! Shocking when we live in London. But I have no fewer than four theatre visits booked so far, starting with next Friday and rural drama Foxfinder, starring Game of Thrones actor Iwan Rheon (Ramsay Bolton).

Lose 7 Pounds

I've been trying to do this for a long time but can't sustain it.  So I've told myself sternly that I must knuckle down and stick to it.  To lose weight I usually need to drop to around 800 calories, because most women of 45+ only need 1,300 calories a day for normal life.  So it's hard to be devise nutritious diets which don't have you climbing the walls. I'll still be doing my usual exercise regime.

Start the daily walking again

I started the Walk 1000 Miles Challenge on New Year's Day to get ready for the 200 mile walk we were doing in May  (which sadly I had to stop).  Since then I haven't done much walking. I find it easier in cooler weather so it's time to reinstate "the Tesco Circular" when I'm at work.

Buy a year planner

Mr Mutton is now retired and determined to fit in as many sporting holidays as he can. He's slack at using the Google or Outlook calendar so I'm going old school to try to track what he's planning.

Buy fewer clothes

I didn't buy much in summer because I found I didn't really need many new clothes. So for winter, apart from buying into a few key trends and wardrobe updates, I won't be buying many new clothes. Expect to see me "shopping my closet."

Participate in at least one "style imitating art" challenge

I love these SIA challenges, run by a team including Jen from Librarian for Life and Style. It really encourages you to think outside the box. I've only ever done two though. So let's attempt at least one this autumn!

Gather some conkers

Tick tick! Did this today. I don't tie string in them and use for some conker fights, as we did at school. There's an old wives' tale that spiders don't like conkers, and we tried it last year.  Definitely seemed to work. So Mr M will replace all the old wrinkled conkers with nice shiny new ones.

Organise a mini break

One way of livening up winter is to go on a short mini break so I'm going to arrange a long weekend in York.

I kept my list fairly short so let's see how I get on!

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