From #Halloween To #BonfireNight, And Everything In Between; #Pumpkins, #HarryPotter, And #Fireworks

We didn't do much to celebrate Halloween. We rarely do. But I wanted to carve a pumpkin, so we brought a little one so I could. You can see my mini Mr. Pumpkin-Head in the photo at the top of this post. He's still sitting in the middle of our table right now, grinning his lopsided grin, though he probably won't get to stay much longer.

Lilie has seen pumpkins in passing when we've been to the fruit and veg shop, but she didn't see one properly before, because we didn't carve one last year. Given the ball shape, the fact it smells of food, and the fact it doesn't take much to get Lilie excited as a rule, we figured she'd get really excited over checking it out, just like every other dog we've known. But no. Lilie just has to be different. She was curious about it, and gave it a good sniff. That's it. After a good sniff, she walked away. Even after my carving it peaked her curiosity more, she still wasn't all that bothered. We even let her come up to check it out on the table (something she isn't usually allowed to do) thinking the novelty of that would encourage her. It didn't. She gave it another sniff, and then dismissed it and jumped off the chair to go play with something else. Kelly just had time to grab this photo before she lost interest:

Lilie wasn't interested when I offered her some pumpkin to eat either. She just spat it on the floor and left it there. I guess she's not a big pumpkin fan. Unlike the rodent gang, who were pleased to get their share of the pumpkin seeds.

Oh well, at least that means Mr. Pumpkin-Head has been able to stick around all week without her bothering him.

I was going to set out our Halloween decorations too, since we have them unpacked after all, but I didn't bother. It's not like we get any trick-or-treaters here anyhow. Plus, things are still a bit chaotic around here, which is actually the real reason for my not bothering to get them out. I've promised myself they'll all come out next year. Not that we have loads of them, but still. I'll have the table runner done by then too, so can make the table all pretty while I'm at it. It was just my mini Mr. Pumpkin-Head this year though.

I carved my pumpkin while watching "Beauty And The Beast" (the Disney animated version). Yeah, I know, not really one that screams Halloween, is it? But a lot of my DVDs are still in boxes, I'm pretty sure I have no Halloween themed ones among those that aren't packed, and "Beauty And The Beast" was just starting when I put the TV on to see what was on. I couldn't resist. Besides, as I said on Twitter and Facebook at the time, it is sort of a monster movie. Sort of.

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We almost took Lilie on a dress up dog walk. But we found out about it too late to get her a costume.

It was happening nearby. It was a Halloween event happening the Friday after Halloween for dogs and their humans, complete with prizes for best costumes (with catagories for both dogs and people). All the dressed up dogs - and their people, some of whom would also be dressed up - go for a walk together near the seafront as part of it too.

I'll have to remember to watch for something like it happening next year. I think she'd love to go.

Of course, Lilie gets walks along the seafront pretty much every day. But she'd love the extra attention being dressed up would get her, and all the people and other dogs to make friends with.

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The badge in the photo above is my exclusive Newt Scamander Fantastic Beasts Pin Badge. I brought it on Pottermore, gaining a cool keepsake for myself, while at the same time supporting Lumos (the charity J K Rowling founded). As I'm sure you figured out by yourself - especially if you're a Harry Potter fan, or pay enough attention to movie releases to have heard about it despite not being a Harry Potter fan - the badge is in honor of the new Fantastic Beasts movie being released this month. It's now sitting on a shelf near me, with a couple of other keepsakes.

Speaking of Harry Potter stuff: my October Harry Potter box finally arrived yesterday!

So, what was in the box this month?

two recipe cards. One for a spider themed dish (which I'll have to substitute the meat based ingredients in for vegetarian alternatives, but this will be easy enough to do) and one for a berry themed dessert:

A Belatrix Lestrange wanted poster, which is even framed:

A little Ron Weasley figurine:

A basilisk fang replica:

And the t-shirt and scarf I'm wearing in this next photo:

A pretty cool selection of things. They feel like they're of pretty good quality too. It was an almost two week wait for the box (boxes are shipped out between the 21st and the 26th of the month, according to their website, and it took my box until November 5th to arrive). But at least it was worth the wait.

You know, with all this Harry Potter talk, I have an urge to read the books again. I can't though. Those are among the couple of boxes yet to be unpacked. Oh well, never mind. I'll read them again another time.

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I had my shot this past Friday (November 2nd). Because of how the shot has to be every four weeks, I'll actually be getting two shots in November, since my next shot is scheduled for November 30th at noon.

Still no surgery date though. Mind you, you probably figured that by the fact I hadn't mentioned one. Hopefully it won't be much longer now. We'll be at the five month mark in the "three to six months" in another week. If they keep to their promised deadline, I should hear something in this next month. I sure hope so. It would be nice not to have to worry about the shots deciding not to work any more, or side effects from having them becoming a problem, or whatever.

Anyway, I had them weigh me while I was there for my shot, as usual. I'd hoped all the moving of furniture, etc, would mean I'd managed to get some of the weight back off, though I wasn't holding my breath. Yeah, it didn't. I didn't lose so much as an ounce. Didn't gain any either, so I guess that's good. Still, it's frustrating. I'm being careful with what I eat - I was even careful about not eating lots of Halloween treats - and I'm getting much more exercise than I was. I should be losing weight. But I'm not. This is why I stopped trying in the first place. It's like nothing I do makes any difference. In fact, with the weight gain from before, I'm actually heavier than when I started trying. The same thing happened when I was trying to lose weight before.

If it wasn't for the gynecologists, I'd just be glad I'm able to do more, and focus on being healthier, while not worrying about what I actually weigh. But I can't help worrying about what they'll say if I haven't lost weight when my surgery date rolls around. There's not really anything more I can do about it than I am, but I know they'll say I should have figured something out. I'm trying my best. I can't do more than that.

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I've had fireworks to listen to most nights.

There are fireworks around here a lot of the time, since they're popular additions to all the events, especially the ones put on for tourists in the "Summer season" (roughly late Spring through early Autumn). But yesterday (November 5th) was Bonfire Night here in the UK, so there are always a lot of fireworks around this time of year. Luckily, none of the furkids really mind them, which leaves me free to enjoy listening to them.

The only time I didn't enjoy them was when someone got the bright idea to set some off in the early hours of the morning. Even I think fireworks at 3:50am on a Sunday morning is a bit much.

Anyway, when it was a reasonable time of day, Lilie and I have been enjoying the fireworks. I even had her in my arms by the windows a couple of times while we were listening to them. She actually seems to enjoy listening to the fireworks. At least, she's eager to jump in to my arms when I ask her if she wants to come up so she can look out of the window and see if she can see them, and stays there happily while all the bangs and fizzes are going on, tail wagging the whole time.

I'm afraid I don't have any photos or videos of fireworks to share though, because we could hear them, but Kelly said he couldn't see where they were. He might have been able to see them if he'd gone down to the street, but there was no guarantee he'd have even been able to see them then, and he was reluctant to go and look, because it's been quite cold here. The one day it was warm enough, it was obvious they were coming from a direction where he wouldn't have been able to see them from where we live, even if he went down to the street so the angles of buildings wasn't a problem. Oh well. Lilie and I enjoyed them anyhow.

A lot of the past week has been 7 degrees C (about 46 F) or lower, though it did get a little warmer than that a couple of times. The warmest it got in the past week was 12 degrees C (about 56 F) and that only happened once (it was yesterday). We had a bit of a storm towards the end of last week too. Not a particularly big one though.