Now I Know Why The Leaves Change In The Fall

The Seven-Month Change My Life Challenge, Week 11

Summer has given way to autumn first slowly, and then all at once, here in Bristol. In the space of a week I’ve gone from shorts weather to passing over a light raincoat in favour of a proper autumn jacket.

(Warning: I’m about to get a bit existential…)

Predictably as ever, the seasons changing has me thinking about the passing of time and the concept of ageing. Confession: I initially wrote ‘the inevitability of ageing’ and then my fingers paused over my keyboard. Ageing isn’t inevitable, after all - some people aren’t lucky enough to age, or to experience ageing in good health.

In the last year or so, my family has lost two members to illness and seen two more diagnosed with degenerative conditions. We lost a friend to a shocking, sudden, accident. And all the time, the rest of us go on, day after day, doing the best we can to make the most of each day, each week, we’re lucky enough to have.

How marvellous it is, yes, to live in a world where there are Septembers, Octobers, leaves turning a burnished gold in the sunshine. But how painful it is, too, to look out of the window at those trees and wonder how many more autumns I’ll have before I can no longer go home to my parents’ house to visit, or call my mum to share my inane observations about the world and the day I’ve had.

1. Training for the half-marathon: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
   Turns out, training is much more tiring when you’re also walking up and down a big hill to uni pretty much every day… the state of my legs today is telling me to ease the f**k off!

2. Master’s dissertation: N/A - Complete!

3. Look after the space I live in: ⭐️⭐️
   Last week I made another £21 on Vinted, and spent half a weekend day “unf*cking” my flat, including rearranging my bedroom furniture in a way that already feels more restful. In particular, that meant taking the mirrored doors off my wardrobe, on the basis that an open wardrobe is less overstimulating than seeing my bleary-eyed morning face reflected back at me first thing in the morning.

4. Screen time below 3 hours: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

   

   That’s well under three hours! Nice one, past Lily.

5. Read the books I already own: ⭐️⭐️
   I did buy one new book last week - a fun crime thriller that was recommended on a podcast I was listening to and on Kindle offer for only 99p: Laura Lippman’s Murder Takes A Vacation. (ad - commission link). I did also finish reading - and list on Vinted - a hardback book I’d bought earlier in 2025, as well as a couple of ebooks. So I ‘broke even’ there, I guess?

6. Draft 1 of the Unhinged Fiction Project: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
   Having told you all last week that this would be the week for the unhinged fiction project… I’ve started a new one. More on that below.

7. Knitting progress: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
   Only a couple of rows of progress this week… I had a lot of late evenings out of the flat being sociable and I didn’t have the energy to do any knitting when I got back.

So, the unhinged fiction project…

Back in the spring, I had a completely nuts idea for what I have been describing as the ‘unhinged fiction project’; over the space of a few weeks I wrote about 10,000 words for it, and then uni got intense, and I lost all momentum (sound familiar). That’s why, when I set these goals a couple of months ago, I wanted to prioritise progress on the fiction.

Since then, though, there’s been increased chat about “fan fiction with the serial numbers filed off”, which is, I have to admit, what the unhinged fiction project basically was. (Think The Idea Of You, crossed with Notting Hill, featuring a fictionalised version of my favourite socially aware, long-haired, Irish singer-songwriter).

But I have a new story idea, and one I’m really excited about. It will involve more in-depth world building than anything I’ve written before, and entails my dipping a toe (or perhaps more than a toe…) into the world of fantasy.

Inspired by the lovely Christy Anne Jones on Youtube (psst, her debut novel is available to pre-order! - ad, commission link), I’ll be coming up with a codename for the project, but in the meantime I can tell you that it’s cozy, witchy, and set in the world of academia…

Best

Lily