October this year started off strong with the Harvest Festival at Caldicot on the 1st! We were introduced to the Harvest Festival tradition way back in 2018 when we first visited in Wales, and I always get a kick out of leading these services now. This year, Caldicot really blew me away with their vegetable display - check out these leeks that are as big as I am!
A while back, when at Costco, we picked up a random salsa they had for sale. It took us a while to get around to trying it, but when we did, Oh. Em. Gee. This is the best salsa I have ever had in my life from a store - and possibly better than any restaurant. I truly cannot remember one better. The flavour is fresh and amazing, the texture is perfect, it is so, so good. Now that we knew it was good, we immediately went back to Costco to stock up. They don’t always stock it and they only had 17 jars left…so we bought 12 of them! Hopefully, that will last us a while. Seriously, if you have some available in your local grocery store, go get it! After we stocked up I did share about it in my "US in the UK expat" group so other salsa-loving Americans could go get some.
On the first Friday in October, Joel and I had a really fun day at a Krazy Golf place that is about a 20-minute drive away. For just £7 each (about $8.50) they let you play unlimited mini golf! That’s right, you can play the 15 hole course as many times as you want! We decided to do three rounds and then do a final score based on our best round at each hole. It was close, but Joel still won. Each hole is based on a nearby historical site or attraction and it’s spaced over about an acre of woods.
There are also places to stop along the way to play giant Connect 4, foosball, ping-pong, air hockey, pool, badminton, volleyball, and more - also all included in that one low price! We plan to come back here again with some friends as it is such a good deal for all that entertainment.
The next day we jumped on a TikTok trend I’ve been dying to try - take a thrift store painting and add to it to make it a spooky painting! It took us a while to find the right paintings, but we ended up finding a matching set so we could customize them differently and they would still look like they went together. I even managed to thrift the painting supplies! We put Shaun of the Dead on my tablet while we worked and it took us most of the movie to finish.
In my painting, I added some ghosts, pumpkins, full moon and bats, and turned all the trees to fall colors.
Joel went for an alien theme for his. We both added glow-in-the-dark paint but it turned out not to work very well. We had so much fun that we might end up doing this for other holidays as well!
After that, I ended up a bit under the weather for a few days so I tried to take some time off work and we spent a lot of time watching horror movies to get us in the mood for Spooky month. We watched every movie in The Conjuring “universe” so that we could go see the latest one in theaters.
Then it was off to Leeds to visit Vince and Joan and take a big step in my career here in the UK! Back in August I applied for Full Connexion, which means I will be a full minister here rather than be “on loan” from the Iowa Annual Conference. Now it was time for the in-person interview which was scheduled at Cliff College, about a 3.5 hour drive from us. But it is only a 1.5 hour drive from Vince and Joan so we tied in a visit to them! We left early on Wednesday and arrived mid-morning. After lunch at a local cafe, we spent a very chill afternoon together, and I had plenty of time to sit with a cup of tea and read a book.
On the day of my interview, I slept in (I was still a bit under the weather!), while Joel, Vince, and Joan went to our favorite local restaurant in their area - a place called Winnebagel. Thankfully they brought me back a breakfast bagel! This one is a special not on their regular menu and it had smashed avocado, an egg fried in pesto and feta cheese, and crispy bacon and it was incredible. I have since tried to recreate it at home and it was not nearly as good, whomp, whomp.
Then in the afternoon, it was off to my interview! We got there about an hour early which gave me time to catch up with a friend who had just finished her interview. While I got grilled about my life and future as a Methodist minister in the UK, Joel went off exploring! He figured a place called Cliff College must have a cliff nearby, and it did, so he hiked up for the view. He got a bit lost on the way but thankfully made it back just before I finished my interview.
As soon as we got back to Pudsey we hopped into Vince and Joan’s car and went into the city centre of Leeds for a light show they were putting on. There were some inside displays but everything was really crowded so we mostly just wandered around outside. The lights were all set to music and it was overall pretty cool!
This very busy day also happened to be my and Joel’s 10th wedding anniversary! Vince and Joan would be celebrating 15 years in just a few days, so on Friday we decided to spend the day celebrating both of our anniversaries. We started with lunch at a BBQ joint called Red’s True BBQ. Joel and I ordered the sharing plate which literally came served on a garbage can lid! (A new one, I hope, lol.) They had just changed the menu from what we saw online and it turned out to be a bit more burger joint than authentic BBQ, but it was still delicious.
Then we spontaneously decided to drive an hour to go to a gelato place Vince and Joan couldn’t stop raving about - The Groovy Moo. We had a pleasant drive and then some fantastic gelato! We each got three flavors although I went for mine in a cup while everyone else got a cone. (I don’t like the pressure of having to eat the gelato before it melts off the cone!) I got dark chocolate, biscoff, and cookies and cream and the combination was heavenly.
Joel and I decided to drive home at night to avoid traffic so we left later that evening. On the drive home, I got the email with the results from my interview...I have officially been recommended for full connexion in the Methodist Church in Britain! In true Methodist fashion I was interviewed by a 5-person panel who have to report back to a larger committee at the end of November and then everything gets voted on at conference next year…so nothing is actually official until 30 June next year. So stay tuned for that celebration!
Leaving at night also made sure we were home in time the next morning to go to…The Taylor Swift Eras Tour Concert Movie!!! I love Taylor Swift and my claim to fame is that I loved her before she was famous. I actually got to see her play live all the way back in 2007 - she opened for a Rascal Flatts concert my friend Amber and I went to. I bought her debut album at the concert and have been a fan ever since! However, I was not about to drop hundreds of pounds to try and go to the concert (plus I don’t like concerts anymore, too many people) so I was thrilled when they announced the movie. We went to the theater in Cwmbran that has recliner seats and that made it so nice to sit for the 3.5 hour film. It honestly did not feel that long it went by so fast and I could have watched a few hours more.
I was too busy immersing myself in the experience to take any photos, but I did catch this one at the end. I also bought the commemorative cup and it now has pride of place on display in my china cabinet. I wanted to get the popcorn bucket, too, but they were already sold out!
After that whirlwind week, we had a more chill week where I caught up on a bunch of work and we went to some scary movies in the theater (The Nun II, The Exorcist: Believer). Then the next weekend it was time for our early Halloween party! We planned it early because two sets of friends that we invited were going to be off in Italy for Halloween. So on the 21st, we had everyone over to carve pumpkins, eat s’mores, do a Halloween scavenger hunt, and just generally have spooky costumed fun. Since we live so close to the store here, we ended up all walking into town to pick out our own pumpkins, which kind of turned into an accidental mini-Halloween parade.
Thankfully the weather was nice enough to carve pumpkins outside so we were able to keep all of the mess confined outdoors. We took all the pumpkin seeds we removed and “planted” (more like scattered) them behind the garage, so we are hoping we might grow some pumpkins of our own next year!
Everyone’s Jack O’Lanterns turned out great!
The next week on Tuesday, my tap class was cancelled at the last minute, so Joel and I went to explore Chepstow and to get our steps in for the day. I finally got to go inside a church I’d been eyeing for a while and then we walked along the river and outside around the castle as well. It was a bit of a gray, gloomy day, but still beautiful in its own way.
On the Friday before Halloween, we went back to a mini golf place near Bristol that we first went to in May. This time they were having a “Course of Horrors!” They took their King Kong themed course and added Jack O’Lanterns, spooky decorations, and live actors to make it Halloween themed and it was so much fun! There was a creepy nun who even made Joel jump and no one ever manages to scare him! This creepy clown gave us a real fright and then sat there judging us as we played. We definitely got some of our worst scores ever with all the distractions!
Even the water was turned to “blood” for the event, this was seriously so fun.
Halloween seems to be becoming more and more of a thing here each year, which I am so excited about. This was our first Halloween in Caldicot and I was delighted to find some of our neighbors go all out with decor! Check out this Sanderson Sisters display!
Finally, it was Halloween night. We stocked up on candy and put my Jack O’Lantern outside as we have learned that the tradition here is kids only knock on doors that have Halloween decor up. We put Ghostbusters on the TV, cooked up some bat-shaped pizzas we picked up at Asda, and crossed our fingers that we would get some trick-or-treaters. And we did! I think we had about 40 overall from about 4:30-7:30. It was so much fun to see all the cute and scary costumes, though I didn’t take any pictures for privacy reasons. Our video doorbell really made this fun as we could monitor it to see when people were coming and be ready for them. We managed to give away all of the candy we bought!
Phew, October was a busy month! I think this is the most Halloween we’ve celebrated since we’ve been here and I enjoyed every minute. Spooky season is now officially over for this year, but we’ve got plenty of fun stuff ahead!
XOXO, Bethany