So goodbye to October and hello November! I always find November to be the month where all the signs of autumn have disappeared and we slide quickly into winter. It’s the month when I start semi-hibernation - making plans for Christmas, taking advantage of the dark evenings to curl up on the sofa with a good book, and when a lovely cup of hot chocolate becomes a Sunday evening staple. It’s a month for cosying up in a blanket, for staying in, for drawing the blinds and lighting candles.

 

Things that have made me happy this week:

 

1. I placed our Christmas food order this week! This will be the first year that we host Christmas – we’re having my parents round and I’m really excited to share Christmas with Max this year when he’ll be more aware of everything than he was this time last year.

 

2. Getting my first post-baby manicure. Given that Max is 18 months, it’s been way too long, and a nasty split in my thumbnail was a clear sign that I’ve been neglecting my nails. My parents kindly babysat while I popped off to the beauty salon. I also picked up some Nailtiques Nail Protein to give my nails some of the vitamins and bits they seem to have been missing, so hopefully they’ll be back to their normal strength soon.

 

3. We also took a quick trip down to Cornwall with my family to visit St Ives. It’s fair to say that the weather was not on our side, but a rainy day in St Ives is still infinitely more beautiful than a rainy day elsewhere. We donned our hats and coats and still got pretty drenched.

 

4. Like 90% of the population, yesterday we went to see Spectre. Although the reviews have been mixed, we loved it - it has everything you want from a James Bond film; epic car chases, the odd cheesy moment, and beautiful shots of London. I’ve loved Daniel Craig’s Bond - a real flawed hero - and will be sad that everything points to this being his last outing as JB.

 

5. We ordered a new bed! I’ve been having on and off lower back pain for quite some time now and was blaming our somewhat aging mattress – that is until I had to retrieve something from underneath the bed last week and realised that the metal frame of our bed had actually broken and the middle of our bed frame was actually touching the floor! I’ve been eyeing up this tufted velvet number from Loaf for ages now and I can’t wait for it to arrive in 8-10 weeks (until then we’ve come up with the ingenious solution of propping the bed up with a big stack of books. I’m nervous that we may just crash through the ceiling below…)