Autumn

I am sure it hasn't escaped your notice that Christmas is coming!  For weeks now the shops have been filled with gifts, cards, chocolates and so on, the street lights are up (although not yet lit thank goodness) and glittering decorations abound in all the stores.  Every magazine I pick up recently seems to be filled with recipes, ideas for presents and stocking fillers (who fills stockings with gifts costing more than £30 each? - probably the same people who according to a recent weekend paper downsize and buy properties at over £1,000,000!)  Why this madness?  Christmas is more than 8 weeks away.  How long does it take a body to prepare for the 25th December?  I feel sad to think that with all the anticipation of the festive season Autumn is often overlooked.

Living in the moment rather than rushing headlong towards the future we'd appreciate Autumn in all its guises the gentle slowing down of things, the softening of the colours, the wonderful light when the low sun does deign to show itself, the clouds scudding across the sky, the shortening of the days - no long twilit evenings perhaps but instead we shut out the darkness and snuggle by the fire.

I love autumn - there is a kind of liberation in the fact that we can't be outside all the time gardening and going for outings sometimes the weather is against all that, the things we didn't do that we had planned to do must now be shelved till next year and there's time for indoor pursuits instead. They say a change is as good as a rest after all and there will be plenty of time to think about Christmas later nearer the time surely?

So I plan to make this a Christmas free zone here on my blog at least until we are well into December.  If you want sanctuary from all the madness that seems to take over at this time of year I promise there will be no red and green, no tinsel nor recipes for Christmas food, nothing telling you how to decorate your house or tree just normal daily living and enjoyment of the seasons each in its turn.

Front page headline in the paper   It seems that due to poor harvests the price of olives will increase by 50% and some olive growers will struggle to meet existing contracts and earlier this month agriculture experts said that there would be a shortage of goat's cheese too.  Whatever will we do?!!! Can we possibly entertain without olives or goat's cheese?!!