Seasonal Digest: Autumn 2019

Welcome to another Seasonal Digest! Reflection is an important part of life and in my effort to be self-aware and grateful, I will go through a summary of what’s been going on in my world season by season. This Seasonal Digest covers Autumn 2019 from September to November. If you want to read more Digests, click here.

Travel Summary

Flights: 2
Countries: 1
Beds: 2

My favourite time of the year has finally arrived! There’s something so nostalgic and magical about the leaves changing colour, the breeze coming through, and warmer meals filling our tummies. One of my favourite autumnal activities is walking through the park in Autumn with a warm drink in my hand — how romantically wonderful.

September

Autumn started off well with me starting my training contract at my company. Just a quick summary: to become a lawyer (well, solicitor) in England there are number of requirements including obtaining a law degree, passing the Legal Practice Course (essentially, a law Masters programme) and afterwards undergoing two years of legal training. Without the training, you cannot become a lawyer, so it truly was an amazing day when I found out I had been offered a training contract! Victor took me out to dinner to celebrate as it really is a momentous moment in my life.

We attended the long-awaited Stanley Kubrick Exhibition at the Design Museum. We watched a number of his films in anticipation of the exhibition, including A Clockwork Orange, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Paths of Glory. The exhibition was fascinating and taught me a lot about filmmaking and directing.

Soon after we left for our first vacation of the season: Galicia! Perhaps many do not know where in the world Galicia is and I’m so excited to be able to share my whole adventure to this beautiful and unique part of Spain.

We stayed with Victor’s parents in a small town called Raxó, located in the Rías Baixas (“lower estuaries”). The Rías Baixas are a series of four inlets along the coast, which creates this sort of jagged coastline. What this means is the growth of an amazing ecosystem, unique to only here. Along those rivers are picturesque villages, sandy beaches and famously amazing seafood restaurants and bars. Stay tuned for more coverage!

Upon returning to London I received a large package from my college best friend. Within were various gifts, but also a special question: will I be her Maid of Honor? Of course! This was a wonderful package to receive and I’m so excited for the wedding in October 2020.

October

Now in full swing, autumn pleased us with all its beautiful oranges, reds, and yellows. I really wanted to make sure I enjoyed some of those typical fall activities, so I made Victor come with me to… can you guess? A pumpkin patch! Pumpkin patches are iconically an American thing, but it seems to have become incredibly popular here in England as well.

We visited Foxes Farm, a family run farm with two locations in Colchester and Essex. We headed to the one in Basildon, Essex, and it was truly a great time. Yes, there were tons of kids, but we managed to walk through the med to the furthest pumpkin patch to select our goodies in peach and quiet. We even did the corn maze!

Back to London, I went with my friend Ioana to a rather unique exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts. The artist if largely unknown globally, though I’m thrilled that I know of her now. Helene Schjerfbeck (1862–1946) was a Finnish artist most known for her self-portraits. Like many artists, she changes and hones in on her style but my favourite series is definitely her self-portraits. It’s so interesting to see how her perception of herself change over the years.

November

In November we made our yearly visit to Victor’s grandmother in Spain. As it was November, I insisted that we take part in some Spanish and Catalan autumn activities (you can see a theme here). Parts of Spain celebrate the season of chestnuts. In Catalunya, this festivity is called the Castanyada. I love this festivity because it’s truly all amount enjoying the treats of the season. It involves eating eating castanyes (roast chestnuts), panellets (almond balls covered in pine nuts), moniatos (roast or baked sweet potato), Ossos de Sant cake and preserved fruit (candied or glazed fruit). It’s also common during this time for street vendors to see those roast chestnuts and sweet potatoes. Victor’s mom got me a whole pack of different kinds of panellets. There are so many different types, but I think my favourites are the most traditional ones (pictured in the top two rows of the photo below).

And back to London again, we wanted to make sure we enjoyed as much of the fall foliage as possible and so made a day trip to Epping Forest. This forest is an ancient woodland not too far from London and honestly, it took my breath away. It’s a forest filled with different types of history including royal, ecological and even murderous. I will definitely make sure to make trip up here again next year.

And so December arrived, closing autumn for another year. I truly enjoyed this season and even though I didn’t travel as much as usual, I just really took in all the beauty around me. Let’s see what’s in store for next autumn. I’m hoping it includes pumpkin spiced tea and lots of forest walks.