It appears to be Autumn....

My walk in the park of a morning involves
kicking up lots of leaves, much to Gretchen's
annoyance when they land on her....

So, we have passed the Vernal Equinox and are official in the dark side of the year.....

The weather is getting colder and the trees changing colours and losing their leaves..... though there is a stunning amount of berries on some which makes me concerned we are in for another really stupidly cold winter (okay, by British standards that is - I know in other parts of the world you just think we all moan and gripe when really we have it easy in winter.... but we still aren't used to it and there are parts of the country that go into complete melt down if it gets below about -2 or there is an inch of settled snow)

So, I am back to dog walking in the dark in the morning and it's now dark by 8 pm..... (in fact today it's been dark all day .... and we've apparently had a month's worth of rain in 24 hours).....we have had our first frost of the year .... I love walking the dogs when it's frosty and a whole story line once evolved from meeting a family of foxes out on the park in the very early morning light with frost and fog about.....

I've broken out the winter foods and by default am back to baked potatoes and macaroni cheese (no not together)..... and crumble, I have a craving for crumble.... though still definitely not apple!

The temperature dropped massively over the weekend .... I did however have pre-warning of this..... as the pilot light went out on my boiler and refuses to re-light...... no, I was sensible, I didn't start taking the boiler to pieces I called the boiler man..... but until he makes an appearance I am without central heating....

Which meant tonight I lit the gas fire in the lounge for the first time in about 3 years...... erm.... the sparky ignition thing appears to have died... .which meant matches......I thought long and hard about it, removed the dogs from the room, held my breath, lit the match and switched on the gas flow....... and what do you know it lit.... okay, on the third attempt...... there might have been some minor burning of stray dog hairs that I'd missed when cleaning....... and perhaps a little popping banging sound on the 2nd attempt........ and it smelt a bit of burning dust for a while......... but hey it got us all warm again .....and didn't set anything alight that wasn't meant to be... which is probably a record for me!