My Month in Numbers 2014: October

Hi and Happy November to you!

[Do people say that? Well, I've said it now ... can't take it back ...]. So as a new month begins it's time to summarise the old one ... in numbers.

And if you're going to write about notable numbers you can't beat a record-breaker for a good place to start ...

31st October in the UK = the warmest Halloween on record!
Apparently it was 23.6C in London and while I doubt it was quite that here, it was certainly a balmy day and evening. We walked home from a party at 23.15 and even at that time it was still too warm to be wrapped up in the winter coat I'd dressed in! 

30 mins = the duration of my 2nd sports massage. This one left me not only completely exhausted ... but also pretty bruised. My back had 1 large plus several smaller bruises which all left me wondering: how am I meant to judge the success of the massage process?

I don't seem to be getting as many aches and pains as I used to ... but am I meant to weigh the bruises against that?! Is it a case of things getting worse before they get better? Or being cruel to be kind? Or do I have to learn to embrace my inner masochist?? Who knows??!!! I need to get my head around it before booking myself in for a 3rd session ...

5 [at least] = number of times my campus work timetable changed. I'm working 2 days a week there this term and it took at least 3 weeks for everything to finalise, and we'll just get used to that pattern of working ... before it changes again in February!

But enough about work ... let's move on to some play ...

15 = the number of crafters who attended at crop which was another record number.

In fact, there were so many of us there that [a] we could hardly see the people at the other end of the room and [b] we very nearly had too many to fit in! Oh the perils of popularity ... we're really not accustomed to it!

And, as if we hadn't had enough of each other from being trapped in that room crafting together at crop ...

October marked the 2nd time my friends and I have stayed here together:

The holiday cottage we stayed in is a converted barn, on a working farm [for the record, cows seem to start making their presence known at around 7.30am in October. Moooooooo.] in the Yorkshire Dales National Park:

[BTW: I didn't know my post-craft-shop-shopping, fresh air-seeking, dale-gazing was being photographed until this photo appeared on Facebook. Thank you Andrea - you can take over James's role as my official paparazzo!].

And while this was only the 2nd time we'd stayed in that particular place ...

11 = the number of times, over all, I've been on one of our 'crafting in the country' weekends!

• This time around there were 9 of us, who arrived in 6 different vehicles.
• I took 3 bags with me [1 for clothes, 1 for crafty stuff, 1 to stop my tool tote from tipping out in the car!] plus 1 trolley full of crafty supplies.
• And I came back with 1 small bag of fresh supplies from visiting Samuel Taylor's craft shop which was a mere 15 minutes away from our cottage. I know! It's almost as if we plan our trips so we were never too far from a craft shop ... but who would do a thing like that? Who? ....

We tend to have a theme to our weekends and this time it was Christmas ...
67 = the number of days early we ate Christmas lunch.
Here it is complete with the regulation number of sprouts:

Hannah counted up the number of sprouts in the bags to ensure everyone had a fair share!

Thanks to Jean lunch with all the trimmings was delicious, and thanks to Jackie so was the homemade Christmas pud:

But, thanks to health and safety rules meaning the cottage didn't having any matches on site, and thanks to none of us having a lighter with us ... Gail didn't get the chance to douse the pud in brandy and set it alight! [Which, in our circle, is her duty whenever there's a Christmas pud involved; seemingly we have official sprout counters and pudding lighters in our friendship group!]

After lunch these numbers became rather important:

5 things for £5 = the rules for our early Christmas gift-giving. We each brought with us 5 items we'd found, spending no more than £5, then we decided who got which by picking out a raffle ticket.

And finally ... while we're on the subject of receiving parcels you know nothing about ...

 

 285 = the number of vintage postcards I received in a not-especially-well described job lot I bought:

Rather enigmatically the product description read "do not know anything about these but there are a lot! many used through the post". And, as they were a bit of a bargain [if you love old paper like I do!] I decided I didn't care what they were ... I wanted to be surprised [you know I'm a sucker for serendipity!].

They turned out to be a collection of all kinds of odd postcards, some used, some blank, some in English, many in German. With postmarks dating from between 1947 [for the German postcards] up to 1981 for a pile of cards sent to an outdoor sports retailer in Tuscaloosa USA by people requesting, amongst other things, kayaking catalogues!  Remind me to share some with you here sometime - they're a fascinatingly random bunch!

------------------------------------

And so ... those were my numbers, you can join me with yours if you fancy it.

The number of people joining in has tailed off somewhat this year, but that's fine! I've struggled this last 2 months to get my own vital statistics blogged ... so I know how it is.

But, it's like I always say, you're welcome to dip in and out of the numerical pool whenever you feel like it; whenever you find it fun or useful. I'll still be here sharing mine and visiting the other counter-uppers each month.

At the end of this year - after 2 more Month in Numbers posts - I'll have been memory-keeping-by-numbers for 5 whole years!!!!! So I've no plans to stop counting before my half decade anniversary.

Wishing you a happy, healthy, month filled with things you just might feel like counting up and sharing this time next month.

Julie x