September

This month was very busy. My husband and I went to visit a few fascinating locations opened for Heritage Open Days. On top of that, I’ve started University last week with the first teaching session and a full day in which I had the chance of getting to know better my new colleagues and the professors. I love it! I shared a few pictures in the monthly collage, but I’m not going to talk about this too much, so no worries about that.

At the beginning of the month I was watching an economic lecture on youtube with Sir Paul Collier. If you’ve read my book reviews, you might be familiar with his name, as I love his books. He mentioned the Full Monty movie and I asked my husband if he remembers the movie. Surprisingly, he hasn’t seen the movie, so we’ve watched it. He enjoyed it a lot and I like the movie now just as much (if not more) as I did when I saw it for the first time. It’s a powerful account of what impact can globalisation have on everyday citizens, especially in an industry as steel. Did you see the movie?

Another highlight from this month was my visit to a Solar Farm. It was very interesting to learn about this new way of producing electricity and what this might involve (including tax related issues).

Making this collage with all the places I visited for Heritage Open Days was a great way to recap everything I saw. All were very interesting, for different reasons, but it was so worth it going to all of them.

1. Frappes, made at home with a new syrup I like. 2. I talked about my Reading Retreat at home. 3. Railway. 4. Took pictures for the Matte Clay Skin Clarifying Foundation. 5. Festus. 6. Knowsley Safari Park. 7. Victoria Baths, Manchester. 8. Birds of Prey Centre. 9. Doing a bit of reading for University. 10. I saw this canal while I was walking in a gorgeous little village. 11. Yummy desserts and much bigger than expected. 12. The plan for Heritage Open Days is ready, this is the first thing we went to: High Park Reservoir. 13. Lunch at the Veggie Republic. 14. Kennington Primary School building, open on Heritage Open Days. 15. Me, at Croxteth, in my 19th century maid outfit. 16. Solar Farm visit. 17. Tea & Cake at Wedgwood tea rooms. 18. Another bake for GBBO bake along. 19. Gorgeous street art in Liverpool. 20. Chatterley Whitfield Colliery Tour. 21. It was Festus’ 10th birthday. 22. We played in the garden with Festus, because he loves it. 23. I’m enjoying a new set I got from the Body Shop. 24. Festus at Blenheim Palace. 25. I started University. 26. We visited the Ashmolean in Oxford. 27. Turnpike, an old pub in Oxfordshire. 28. A full day at University. 29. Coffee & books. 30. I’m going to the library today.

I’m baking along the Bake Off and so far I haven’t missed a week. I will share two pictures. The first one is the Tear and Share Pizza Loaf from the bread week and next one is Sandesh Mishti, a Bengali milk-based dessert.

Of course, I’m looking forward to seeing the next challenges. All the recipes are on my food blog, CookStyle.

It will not come as a surprise that this month I’ve read mainly history books. I would recommend most of them because I’ve enjoyed them a lot. The one that is not about history is Dawkins’ The Magic of Reality. This is a book for young adults, but I didn’t find it boring, so I would recommend it to adults too. I mentioned in the review that I like how he explains the evolution, maybe because it does seem magical and awe inspiring.

Books I’ve read in September, 7 in total:
Fires of faith by Eamon Duffy – 4 stars
Edward VI by Jennifer Loach – 5 stars
Tudor England and its Neighbours by Glenn Richardson, Susan Doran – 5 stars
The Magic of Reality by Richard Dawkins – 5 stars
Elizabeth I and Her Circle by Susan Doran – 3.5 stars
English Reformations by Christopher Haigh – 5 stars
History Of British Costume by James Robinson Planché – 5 stars