October got off to a bit of a slow start, which was welcome after the rush of September. After living here for almost two years, I suddenly decided that we needed to rearrange the dining room so there was a bit more room around the table. It took a while to remove all the dishes from the china hutch, move that giant piece of furniture, then put everything back, but it was worth it in the end!
With our Life in the UK exam coming up on the 18th, we started studying in earnest. This included going to Amy & Ben’s for a quiz night! We took several practice tests together and discussed some of the history and questions. We all passed but Ben aced it with a perfect score, so he got to wear the prize headband!
The next morning was our second annual pet blessing at Caldicot! We had 5 pups in attendance again this year, and we blessed some cats in absentia. (They don’t travel well!) All of the dogs were lovely but my favorite were the two named Biscuit & Waffle. (Not pictured!)
On our wedding anniversary, we were blessed with some absolutely perfect fall weather, so we took a walk so I could go take pictures of this perfect tree. We drive by it every time we leave the house and I love that it has all three of my favourite fall colours on one tree!
In somewhat exciting news, a Popeyes opened up near us in Newport! Yes, the US fast-food chain. I love it because unlike KFC here, they actually serve proper American biscuits! They tend to overbake them a smidge, but they are still delicious. We have eaten here more in the past month than we probably should have, lol.
On Friday the 18th we drove to Bristol to take our Life in the UK exam and I am happy to share that we both passed! This means we are one step closer to getting our next visa and then one step closer to eventually getting citizenship (hopefully sometime in 2026.) To celebrate we went to Amy & Ben’s for a game night and Amy made us a proper British meal of shepherd’s pie.
That night we also tried an American tradition - taking pictures of a baby in a pumpkin! I sent Amy a picture of a friend who did it with their baby this year and she was gung ho to try it with Hebe. The boys were more skeptical. We bought the biggest pumpkin we could find and the girls helped me scoop it out and carve it up. But in the end, Hebe was not having it. We had it staged perfectly…
But this was as close as we got before she cried bloody murder! Ah well, it was still fun to try.
I am doing my best to take all 5 weeks of my holiday time this year, so I had the 21-27 October booked off with no real plans to do anything. Which turned out to be a good thing because on the Tuesday when we tried to go see a movie, our car wouldn’t start! Thankfully we have roadside assistance which was able to come out and get it moving so we could get it into the dealership to be looked at. They basically held it hostage for 3 days then said nothing was wrong with it. We are so irritated with that dealership (this was the last straw!) that we ended up buying a new car…but more on that later.
Luckily the only real plans we had for the week were local - a haunted house at the castle! The front of the castle was decorated appropriately.
And it was just starting to get dark as we arrived for the first time slot of the night.
There was a creepy cat dude at the entrance…
And then we got in line for the haunted maze…
I don’t think we were supposed to take pictures during the experience, but I snuck this one of the fire dancer. She was the best part of the whole thing. Overall it was…okay. I definitely wouldn’t go again as I felt it was way overpriced at £22 each. The worst part was at the end they separated Joel from our group as part of a story they were telling and then just…that was it. We were split up for no good reason and didn’t get to be together till the end. I didn’t enjoy walking the last bit of the maze with a group of random people I didn’t know, not because it was scary, but because I wanted to be with the person I came with! It was very weird.
So that was the Wednesday of my week off, and the rest of the week we spent hanging out at home mostly watching scary movies and playing Magic. On Saturday we decided to go look at new (to us) cars just in case we decided to get rid of our current one…and somehow we accidentally bought a Tesla. I know, I know, Elon Musk sucks, and we did think long and hard about this (we’ve been eyeing buying a Tesla for literally years.) In the end we justified to ourselves by buying used so at least the money doesn’t go straight to Musk.
On the Sunday we went to the game store in Newport to play in the Magic: The Gathering “Trick or Treat” event. It was a sealed event where you got some packs, made a deck, then played with special “trick or treat” rules. Every time you played an enchantment you could choose to get a “trick” (a mana rock) or a “treat” (gain life.) It added a fun dimension to the game.
On Monday the 29th, while on the phone with my parents, Joel and I carved the pumpkins that we grew in our very own backyard! We ended up with 4 pumpkins total, 2 of which were good enough for Jack O’Lanterns. Not quite the harvest I had hoped for, but good enough!
On Halloween, we saw Smile 2 in the cinema in the afternoon, then spent the evening at home eating some spooky-themed food from M&S, watching the finale of the HGTV show “Scariest House in America” and did a re-watch of Hocus Pocus 2. (I like the second one better than the original!!)
All that while handing out candy to trick or treaters of course! This year we got so many Joel had to run to the store for more candy - TWICE! It was fantastic. We ended the night with the terrible yet fun film Time Cut on Netflix, and that was the end of October. It was a pretty chill month, which was a good thing as November is about to be nuts!
XOXO, Bethany