Woo! It’s the first of October! Which means, er, that, um, it’s… October, she finished, flatly. Well. Despite this slightly lacklustre start, I confess that October is one of my favourite months. Not only is it Quercus’s birthday (the twenty-third, since you asked; send extravagant presents at will), but it’s also a month of last tomatoes, illicit rosehips glowing in the morning sunshine, crabapples juicing gently on the stove, and hens pecking around in the warmth of afternoons still light enough to mistake for summer. Oh, and of course, at the end of the month, there is Samhain, or Hallowe’en, if you prefer, to look forward to; our two cats would make excellent hire choices for this particular occasion, being both black and vaguely sinister, though I have to say they’ll be spoken for. This year I am in hopes that the tiny daughter will take a little more notice of the pumpkinage we are sure to acquire; last year’s number came from the post office a mile or so away, and despite the fact that it was most splendid, she remained largely above its charms, being only four months old at the time. Add a year, and hopefully she’ll be up for helping me to hollow it out a bit too.

This month, I thought I’d start out by setting down some of the things I’d like to do in the coming weeks. It’s sort of my October wishlist, because, well, it’s October, and this is… a wishlist. Right. Glad we’ve cleared that up, then. So, in no particular order:

- Finish the hat I’ve started knitting the witchling.

- Stack the chopped wood we’ve amassed in what has become the chickens’ shed, which means emptying said shed of such varied contents as… a washing machine (defunct), a potter’s wheel (very much not defunct, but sadly underused at the moment), boxes of assorted detritus, a large rat (we fear), and fourteen incomplete sets of dustpans and brushes.

- Chop more wood so we’ve got enough to fill said shed, if possible;

- Accrue roughly one hundred pallets as part of Project Free Woodshed (of which more anon);

- Make the witchling a small quilt to go on her cot; I have lots of fabric kicking about, and lots of interest, but sadly bugger-all time at the moment (yet here I am…) because I’ve taken on yet another copy-editing job when I said I wanted time off, and this one’s 23,000 words. Oops.

- Rosehip jam, of which probably six pounds; we have quite a few rosehips kicking about – I’ve already got three gallons of wine going, so I think something new is called for. This jam is supposed to be almost cheese-like in texture, and a most glorious colour, so it sounds worth a go.

- Walk a couple of miles on at least three of the five days a week that I go to work. I’m trying to remember to do this, because since I’ve been working in the mornings, the obvious time to take the tiny daughter out for a walk in the sling has become a slot which Quercus has to himself, mostly. But I don’t want to turn into the Woman Mountain (TM) just because I’m working a desk job for a portion of my week; work, after all, is something I see as a minor interruption to Real Life, so I’m buggered if it’s going to be responsible for any further slide down the hideous slope to the point where hiring oneself out as a temporary roundabout becomes an option. Quercus and I both enjoy walking, so at the weekends I’m hoping that this month, which sees less pressure on us in terms of house work (although if we want a kitchen this side of Christmas, we do need to press on with the work inside; at least for now the outside is weather-tight, again, of which more anon) might find us out for some Proper Walks, which tend to be a full morning or afternoon, and often amount to something like seven or eight miles. But these walks alone will not suffice to escape Woman Mountain status, after all; I need regular exercise, and although I hate to admit it, I actually seem to thrive on it. I feel better. I feel more energetic. I sleep better (!). So, I must do it, and make time for it, because such things are important. (Although how best to manage it when it gets dark at four and we live in the middle of lanes with no lights, I wonder? I used to walk quite cheerily to the station in the dark morning and afternoon when I worked full-time, before the tiny daughter was born, but I feel I’d be living life on the edge slightly to wander about with her in the sling and no lights… Paranoid?)

So, that’s what October, if I manage to retrieve the small shred of discipline I once possessed, may bring me. And you?