Autumn has officially begun!484Please respect copyright.PENANAYQ5tMj5oRb
Thus begins the season of boots and fluffy jumpers, cold mornings and warm drinks, and perhaps more importantly: Halloween!484Please respect copyright.PENANAKDIPfokrTu
Halloween is, for me, better than Christmas. Usually a chance to dress up and throw the annual Halloween house party that includes literally hundreds of pounds worth of decorations, it is beyond question my favourite holiday of them all.484Please respect copyright.PENANAmyspZmYLgk
Gallons of fake blood, mist makers, DJ lights, plastic skeletons and inflatable coffins, skeleton beer coolers and pumpkins, polystyrene gravestones, red light bulbs and fake spider webs that span the length of entire walls, the whole ceiling covered in torn black cloth and interspersed with glow sticks and light-up balloons... I'm getting excited just thinking about it.
October is the month of everything fun. The already-mentioned and always-fabulous Halloween, and, of course, uni starting up again. I'm already looking forward to my lectures, despite their frighteningly early start time of 9am. I'm looking forward to seeing friends again and immersing myself in the university environment again. This year I have vowed to be more involved with societies and activities on campus. Already we have promised to at least try ju jitsu, meditation, learning an extra language and to actually turn up to the weekly meetings of the History Society - and we don't start back until next week! What I am trying to say is that this year I hope to try a lot of new things. I want to look back on 2015 and think 'that's the year I did everything.' I've already travelled Europe and experienced a myriad of new foods and activities, and I would love to carry it on now that I am back home.
So, in short, I am so excited for October. I am excited for the crunchy leaves and wearing warm boots with thick fluffy socks. I am excited for curling up with a good book under a blanket by the fire or watching 80's movies by candlelight instead of spending obscene amounts of money in beer gardens or cocktail bars. I can't wait for late-night trips to the cinema to see a scary movie and gigs in foreign cities and that feeling of warmth inside even though the cold is burrowing it's way into your very bones.
October isn't just Starbucks pumpkin spiced lattes (admittedly though, they are so good) and leaves falling. It's so much more. It's the calm before the storm; before the cold gets too bitter and before the Christmas panic sets in. Before the roads become too icy to get to work or university or school, before everyone is caught up in November and December, October is a chance at peace. October is a chance to be calm, just for a brief moment before November arrives on the scene and announces its arrival with an array of fireworks on the 5th. October, and especially Halloween, is a chance to be someone different for thirty-one days; to do something different with that week off most of us have off in the middle; to try that pumpkin spiced latte or pumpkin soup, to try toffee apples and hot chocolate spiced with rum. To go to that scary maze, to go on that ghost hunt they've been advertising or to simply try answering the door to trick or treaters just this one year.484Please respect copyright.PENANAMYX8DoJuXu
It's a chance, nay, a challenge. A challenge to have as much fun as possible in those 31 days.