Five Things I Loved in October
Exploring our new neighbourhood
We have officially moved from Zone 1 to Zone 2/3 (we’re cuspies) and thus far it has been a Good Decision. We are near an incredible amount of green space, well connected for travel, and close enough to amenities to benefit from them without having them affect our rent too much. I managed to take a lot of pictures of a truly glorious day in the neighbourhood and managed to delete all of them before saving them to my blog photo files. Oops. More soon.
The return of the date night!
Like everybody and their dog, the Quarantimes affected how my partner and I socialise. Or rather, don’t. When we first moved to London we prioritised going out, enjoying the city and exploring. But in recent years, life and work got a bit overwhelming, we committed to saving more, and then there was a global pandemic and we just stayed stuck in the rut longer than we should.
The end of summer and early fall has seen a lot of travelling, concert going, and the return of the good old fashioned date night. Sometimes it’s important to be reminded how good the basics are and should be.
Healthy frozen meals
This is peak 21st century and privilege problems, but I am a chronic snacker and a working woman. My husband and I both work fairly high performance or profile jobs in an urban centre, with commutes and professional commitments and other such adult requirements. Add to that a genuine need for decompression time in my life in order to not spiral into mental health issues - couple with a degree of inherent laziness - and cooking can slide to the bottom of the list. Which is odd because I can enjoy it a great deal! If you stalk me on Instagram at all, particularly at this time of year, you will see many a pot of soup lovingly concocted, or an impressive roast celebrated. But on the weeknights, I want to expend as little effort as possible. Enter fancy frozen meals. I’ve been buying these from one of those foodbox services (emphasis on the sustainability of their packaging, delivery, and recycling options in addition to ingredients), and just found a shop in our new area that prepares and freezes whole meals.
Could I do more of this myself? Absolutely. And I do with things like breakfast burritos and soups when I do cook in bulk.
Am I delighted to have found options that I find ethical and sustainably priced in a way that buys me some leisure time? A thousand times yes.
Not sponsored (because I am NOT important enough for that) but for anyone interested, I use AllPlants and Cook.
Art
We picked up our Christmas presents to ourselves at the Affordable Art Fair, an event I’ve wanted to visit for years. This is an international, rolling event and is a fantastic way to get to know the art scene in your area and possibly dip your toe into buying something unique. While a lot of the stuff is definitely out of the realm of “affordable” in my opinion, they famously make a point to stock pieces below $100. We went to support an artist we’ve bought from before and it was a delight to snag some small new pieces from her.
Pivot, podcast from Vox Media
The Twitter saga of Elon Musk is long, twisting, and aggravating. You may have seen my rants about this on Instagram - and no, the irony is not lost on me. But if you want some useful insights into how we got here, the podcast Pivot is a conversation between journalist Kara Swisher and academic Scott Galloway. The jokes fly fast and the conversation can be annoyingly “inside baseball” at times, but this show has helped me keep track of the story and its implications from a legal or business perspective. I’ve found it a useful alternative lens to the sturm and drang of pop culture and soundbites.
