I'm really pleased to have fallen back into the habit of reading. I shared back in August that I'd not read anything for months, and then in September I chose a particularly gloomy set of books. My October and November selection has been rather more varied, and fortunately a bit more cheerful. 

I started October with a trip to the library, which yielded a few nature-themed books, and November saw our trip to Scarborough which, as with all our holidays, found me rummaging through charity shop bookshelves and buying things I probably wouldn't normally buy. 

It's been a few weeks of easy reading - nothing particularly challenging, not like last month. There have been some thought provoking moments though, and I'd recommend quite a few of the books I've read this time round. 

So, here goes... 

The perfumier and the stinkhorn (Richard Mabey) 
This is a short book, a collection of essays about the senses and the natural world. I'd not come across Richard Mabey before, but it turns out he's actually pretty well known as a nature writer, and famed for blending scientific knowledge and a romantic appreciation of the natural world. I do love a collection of essays, and I was really rather taken with this one. 

A brush with nature: 25 years of personal reflections on the natural world (Richard Mabey)
I picked this up in the library at the same time as the one above, and it's equally charming, although much longer. It's a collection of selected newspaper articles spanning 25 years (another format I'm fond of), and I really like the way it blends descriptions of the natural world with how they relate to world events and smaller things happening in the writer's personal life. I've not actually finished reading it yet. 

How to be free (Tom Hodgkinson)
This is the third book I've read by Tom Hodgkinson, and I think my least favourite. How to be idle (you can access it from the link above) was much more charming, and was more of a ramble through literary accounts of idleness and how marvellous it is. How to be free seems like more of a personal rant, and I spent much of the time I was reading it feeling like I was being told off. Having said that, I suspect a few years ago I would have loved it, and that right now I'm just being a bit defensive because I'm working full time and about to take out a mortgage to buy a bigger house - all things that Tom says you shouldn't be doing if you want to be truly free (I confess I do agree with him in part, but I'm going to do them anyway...). Most thought-provoking, and a reminder of how we often DO have options, even if we've forgotten about them. 

A shepherd's life: a tale of the lake district (James Rebanks)
I loved this. I've followed this guy on Twitter for years, and always enjoyed his pictures of his sheep. This is an account of his life as an upland farmer in the lake district, and covers all manner of things from farming traditions to family, including a surprise stint in Oxford getting a degree in history. I'm quite a fan of detailed accounts of people's lives, and this was no exception. It's really quite beautiful and I'd highly recommend it. 

Elizabeth is missing (Emma Healey)
This is one of those books that I'd ignored because so many other people were reading it, but I spotted it in a charity shop and it's actually quite moving. It's a novel, a touching account told from the perspective of a woman with dementia, but told in such a way that you can see the impact it's having on her daughter too. She's searching for her friend, but nobody will take her seriously. I confess I enjoyed this far more than I was expecting (although I'm not sure 'enjoyed' is quite the right word). It was nice to see a lot of detail about experiences of people with dementia too. Another one I'd recommend. 

Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
I had a vague feeling reading this that I'd read it before. I wasn't that sure about it. It's about a man who finds out his old college professor is dying, and they rekindle their relationship. The chapters are organised as a series of conversations about different aspects of life, and woven through is also the professor's experience of losing various bodily functions and becoming increasingly reliant on others to care for him. That part of it is interesting, but I'm afraid the rest felt a bit trite for me. It seems it was made into a film, but I can't say I'll be rushing out to watch it. 

So there we have it - another motley assortment of books. I'm enjoying keeping track of them here. My library books had to go back (some of them, not mentioned here, I hadn't even started), but I've got a few holiday charity shop purchases waiting in a pile. 

I'd love to know what you've been reading - anything you'd recommend? 

This is what came tumbling out of my purse when we came back from Scarborough last week. Not a pretty sight, but it seems I just can't throw away a receipt without tracking it first.

Do you save your receipts? For a long time I didn't keep track of money at all, partly because I didn't have much and it was quite easy to see what was (or, more often, wasn't) left. Then I ended up with a small but increasing sum on a credit card, and my regular income stopped, and I realised pretty sharpish that I'd have to get a grip. 

About nine years ago, I joined the Money Saving Expert (MSE) forums, and the people on there have been a source of much advice and all round cheerfulness over the years. I've learned a lot about money, and one of the most valuable lessons has been how much it misbehaves if you don't keep a close eye on it. 

I've always been pretty thrifty, again, mostly due to having very little money for a long time. I don't have expensive tastes. I learned on the MSE forums where I could save more, and how to make a bit extra through completing market research surveys and various other little tips. I no longer do most surveys (I don't need the extra money now and I always found them quite tedious), but if I needed a bit extra I'd pick them up again. 

It was MSE folks who encouraged me to keep a spending diary. I'd probably tried to do this on and off over the years, with little success, but they talked me through it, and I finally stuck with it. I created a budget, and wrote down every penny I spent - and it quickly became very obvious that most of my spare money (and some that was allocated for other things) went on cups of tea and cake in cafes. Hmm... 

These days, things are different. Having shot from being in the bottom 20% of income distribution in the UK to being in the top 20% in just a few short years, I'm well aware of two things: 

1. how privileged I am, and
2. how precarious financial 'stability' can be

Privileged is the right word. I feel lucky, but I've worked hard to get where I am, and made some difficult decisions to get too (including living on a very low income and doing multiple jobs for a lot of years while I studied). So it's not just luck, but equally it wasn't all just me - I'm also aware that there was a good degree of circumstance involved. Not everyone has the same opportunities as I did, and by that I mean a decent secondary school education, a family who encouraged (but didn't push) me to learn, no dependants, winning a research grant to pay for my PhD (including living costs), and all manner of other things, without which this might have been achievable, but it would have been a heck of a lot harder. So yes, privileged.

Incidentally, if you'd like to see where your income fits in relation to the rest of the population, this website is interesting.

Anyway, the point is that, while I've been in my new job nearly a year now, I could easily be made redundant tomorrow, as could most of us, and that thought makes me want to keep an eye on what's going on in my bank account. 

These days, I don't use a paper spending diary, I use a programme called You Need A Budget, or YNAB for short, and it turns out that, yes, a fair chunk of what I spend goes on tea and cake in cheery little cafes. YNAB software isn't free, and so I'd never recommend it for anyone who was struggling with money, although you can use the methods without paying for the actual software. I've used it for a couple of years now, and I love it. It forces me to allocate every pound that comes in to a particular 'job' - whether that be 'holiday' or 'emergency' or 'new car' - and doing that means that you don't have a generic 'savings' pot that you mentally allocate to holiday AND emergency AND new car. 

It's basically the age old envelope system, but with a fancy-pants app and lots of pretty colours. 

When I'm about to spend something, I look on the phone app to see how much money I have in that particular category. If there's not as much as I'm about to spend, I have to decide where I'm going to steal it from. Holiday fund? Christmas? Dentist? Hmm. Makes that cake seem slightly less appealing, knowing I'm stealing from a particular fund, doesn't it? And that's the beauty of it - it forces me to acknowledge that by spending on one thing, I'm taking away my ability to spend on something else. 

Anyway, the point of all this waffling is that, every couple of days, you'll find me sat with a cuppa, gathering all my receipts and making sure I've entered them all. Not the most exciting activity, but one that I actually find quite satisfying. Being forced to confront my spending decisions every few days does really make me think twice about what I buy. 

Of course, I'm not perfect by any means. Just this week, for example, I stole from the Christmas savings pot to top up our holiday fund so we could sneak off to Scarborough for a few days. The 'new car' fund only has £54 in it, so the old car had better keep going for a while. But I'm not kidding myself about what I'm doing. For me, whatever you earn, it's about making sensible decisions, based on the information available. And the better that information is, the better decisions you'll make.

I'm not going to stop spending in cafes any time soon. Most of the ones we go to are small local businesses that I'm happy to support. But there are other things I am willing to compromise on. We only have one car, and it's thirteen years old. We've done most of our house renovating ourselves rather than paying other people. We stock up on things when they're on offer, and rarely buy branded anything. When I have the time and head space, I make bread, jam, soap, and many kinds of soft furnishings and household items. We use things til they run out or break (and sometimes we tape them back together and keep them going for a while longer). 

I'm doing a lot of pondering about money at the minute, because at the minute we don't have a mortgage, and pretty soon we're about to take out a rather large one. We won't take on more than we can afford, and we'll try to pay it off as quickly as possible, but it's still quite a commitment. It means I'll be more reliant on my job than I've ever been. Lots to think about... 

October was mild, and the garden looked very much like it did in September, but, if anything, the flowers were even more lush. November has been a little more varied. We've had some lovely sunny days, but a fair bit of wind and rain, and the trees are fast losing their leaves, and the garden is starting to look a little forlorn, as it so often does at this time of year. 

We had our first frost, closely followed by our first small flurry of snow this month. 

Not much, and it didn't stay for long, but it was definitely a reminder of things to come. 

I'm surprised at the number of flowers that are holding on. The fucshia is always the last to lose its colour (although it's looking increasingly sparse now), but even the violas are hanging in there. I've been very impressed with them. 

We're planning to sell our house in early February, when the garden is at its worst, and last year was nothing but sticks. Not ideal, but it's such a small space that I don't think the garden will be a deal breaker anyway. We have evergreen herbs now, and I'll get some early spring bedding plants into the pots. I've just acquired a pile of bulbs too, all kinds of things that should flower from early spring through to early summer, resulting in a bit of a riotous display. I must get out and plant those this weekend, before it snows again. 

Such a lot of something-and-nothing has happened since I was last here. My days are filled with work, mostly, and worrying about work when I'm not there. Not exactly my ideal state of mind. And as you may have guessed, we are still not living in a show home (but we have plans on that front, soon, soon!)

Anyway. Too much thinking about work is not good for the soul, however cheery your job is. And so last week, I was collected straight from work on Wednesday evening and we went to the seaside. Hooray! 

​We arrived in the dark, and the next morning was misty but as we walked along the front the sky cleared and the sun came out. 

I love Scarborough. I know people who hate its tackiness, down-at-heelness, and propensity for doughnut stalls and amusement arcades, but I love all those things about it, and many more. This holiday in particular I appreciated the wide variety of eating establishments it offers, even at this gloomy time of year. 

Yes, we were only there for four days, and yes, I did eat all that cake, and more. It was purely in the interests of staying warm and dry...

The weather wasn't too bad actually - the kind of weather that looks grim through the window, but when you're out in it, it's fine. The forecast for our second day was nice, so we took off down the coast on our foldy bikes and had lunch sitting outside.

I was quite taken with the beach huts. So cheerful! And the colours were matched in the older buildings too.

We managed to squeeze in a few trips to other little towns dotted along the coast too - Whitby, Bridlingon, Filey... I love them all. Whitby was bathed in golden light when we arrived. 

Filey is the quietest of all those places, and I love the vastness of the beach. 

The cliffs rise up behind the beach, but they're not-so-slowly crumbling into the sea, and the effect is quite striking. 

We wandered along the sand for a while, and had a cup of tea sitting outside the cafe (outside, again!)

(No, that is not a teabag floating in my mug - perish the thought! It's just a reflection. Always milk after the teabag is out for my tea, please!)

We're home now, and work is still there, and the house still needs doing, but I do at least feel a little bit restored. Just being able to hear the sea helps sometimes, doesn't it? 

Looking back at my pictures for the last few weeks, it seems I've been spending quite a lot of time outside, most of it in the woods. Of course, I've actually spend far more time at work, and in the house - but neither of those places are quite so photogenic (there will be a house update post soon, I promise). 

In the meantime, here's a bit of seasonal cheer. 

I've taken most of these pictures while out running (yes, I know I'd speed up if I didn't keep stopping but I can't help myself). I do love this time of year. We had our first frost this week. 

I had to laugh at those two photos - I took them a week apart in completely different places and they're so similar. Seems I like taking pictures of my shoes...

I love the skies at this time of year too. I often find myself out at dusk and I love the shadow of the trees against the sky. 

Yesterday I found myself in the woods again. The light wasn't great for photographs, but the colours were overwhelming. 

Today the sun's shining again. I've already done my long run this week, but I do need to walk into town so I'll find the most scenic route, and I'll try to persuade Peter out for a bike ride later too if the weather holds. There's nothing better than being outside at this time of year.