LUCY KIPPIST’S OCTOBER ALMANAC

It’s hard to forget October. Warm woozy days full of sunlight, the blossom trees in full song and the clear, crispy ocean that makes you want to break out the deck chairs and pour yourself a long, cool drink.

It’s a month just made for John Coltrane and sunsets:

To market, to market 

Bananas, blueberries, lemons, MANGOS, pineapple, strawberries and tangelo. Asparagus, beetroot, cucumber, lettuce, Kaffir Lime Leaves, garlic and Hass avocados.

Salad lovers, like myself, go completely nuts at this time of year. There is hardly anything in season that you couldn’t wolf down happily on its own or mix together in a bowl and dress to your tastes. What’s your salad secret? I love lots of crunch, chopped up herbs and finely sliced cucumber with a lemon juice dressing.

One of my best online discoveries this year is the woman I fondly refer to as, “the salad queen”. Her name is Louise Bell and she blogs at Table Tonic. Louise is a whizz with a salad (among other things) and she tweets pictures of her delectable dishes (see right) – the likes of which most of us would find impossible to rival. Someone needs to give this woman a cookbook. Check her out here.

October’s flower is the Marigold.

I’m never too sure what to make of Marigolds – their goldenness is lovely but I really dislike the smell and waxy texture.

That’s probably why I find it amusing that in Victorian times people would send Marigolds when they wanted to say, “I am thinking of you”.

That’s a precious sentiment, but you’d end up chucking them straight out wouldn’t you?

Speaking of precious sentiments, Good Housekeeping in October has come up with a “dream care package”.

I love this concept. My mum sent this kind of thing to my sister and I when we were each living overseas and I have never stopped thinking about how fun and lovely it was to get a bunch of stuff you love, most of it homemade, when you’re far away from home.

Somewhat disturbingly, the Good Housekeeping list comes with a calorie restriction snacks list (just 100 calories) – but it also includes stuff like socks and tea bags, which are comforting in anyone’s language.

Personally I take terrific comfort from to-do list making.

To-do lists clear the mind and give you a tremendous sense of purpose and achievement. If you feel the same then you will adore this piece from the Brain Pickers website that gives the history of the to-do list. Everyone from Leonardo Da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin and John Lennon are said to have made them – presumably God had a long one too.

The key to a successful list however, so the article says, is to keep the items short and concise and un-conflicting. As Franklin himself wrote:

“Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.”