Ah September! How I love you so. You’re the tail-end of summer, your weather has mood swings, and you make my geeky, school-loving heart nostalgic for brand-new notebooks, never-used pens and books with uncracked spines and crisp pages. The fact that so far you’ve delivered both thunder showers and sun-soaked days just makes me love your unpredictability even more, and maybe goes a way to excusing the fact that I’m posting my love for you at the end of your reign.

Also, am I the only person who considers September a better time to start a new year? I always get inspired at this time of year to list the things I want to spend time on, much more so than in January.

So what’s kept me away from the laptop?

Top of the list is the BBC’s Sherlock. I’ve been lucky enough to see all three episodes of the new series, and it’s stellar. Stellar!

I love that the show has inspired a catch phrase – Sherlock Chic – to describe the stylish outfits worn by Benedict Cumberbatch in the show, and caused interest to rise in long coats, touchable scarves,polished shoes, and other, more elegant touches in men’s clothing. I love a casual look that’s well put together, but oh! there’s something about a sharp-dressed man…

Which has led to the next item that’s kept me from the laptop; my sweetheart’s chocolate brown Alpaca Cashmere scarf, done on US 3.25 needles. It’s slow going, but the result so far is marvellous.

Also to blame is Mark Helprin’s A Winter’s Tale, a book I’ve fallen into on at least a yearly basis since I was a teenager, usually when I’d hit the point of needing a reminder of things bigger than myself. At 673 pages, this isn’t an afternoon’s or even a weekend’s read, and I’m not even going to attempt a review of the book, rather I’ll let people far more eloquent than I share a few words. All I can say is that my copy, purchased second-hand at the Vancouver Public Library when it still stood at the corner of Robson and Burrard, is a battered first edition, lacking it’s dust cover from years of moves and being carried in satchels and backpacks, and one of the few things I would truly grieve for were I to lose it.

So how’s your month been?

~ Cin