As we plunge headfirst into Autumn....

We have has some cracking late Autumn days. Cold at night but clear blue skies with morning to evening sunshine. Daytime temperatures hovering around 17/19 degrees. Quite a few days have been spent pulling the garden back from its summer neglected growth to some sort of readiness for its winter rest. One of the fence posts from the wooden perimeter  fence was found to be completely rotted out at the base and was held up by one of the evergreen Euronymus  shrubs covering the fence. The rotten post is too difficult to get to, to replace, so 'Himself' has prepared a secondary 'bracing' post to prevent the fence from being blown over and destroyed by winter gales.

The popular 'News Rags' are predicting a bad winter once again. Even a plunge into a Mini Ice Age! Well, we've heard it all before. What about the horrible wet summer they said would be a 'barbecue summer'. Today's headlines - 'Thousands will die because of cold weather.' 'Pensioners will not be able to afford heating bills to keep themselves warm over the icy winter!' For goodness sake most of today's pensioners were brought up in cold homes warmed only by a cold fire in the living room. Ice on the inside of bedroom windows. Much colder, snowier winters than we get now toughened us all up.
With a new efficient gas central heating boiler and new insulation in the roof we should be cosy enough this winter, not to mention a posh new bespoke fireplace we have, built by Number three son, to add a cosy winter warmth to our lounge.

We have now found a Blacksmith who has made the fireplace a new fire basket, so we should be all set to face what ever the winter throws at us. The News Rags sensationalism don't scare us!

What does scare me though is the evidence everywhere of  the coming Christmas season.  John Lewis has its Christmas decorations up in the store and windows.

Christmas cards are in all the shops Food outlets and restaurants are advertising the Christmas fare. Television adverts are gearing up for an all out assault  on us. The one thing we don't have yet, thank goodness are the non stop Christmas song, piped over the speakers of stores and the Queensgate mall. 

I have a feeling this year, for us  Christmas is going to be a 'homemade' Christmas with definitely no over spending on goodies that never get eaten. This summers prolonged vacation in beautiful British Columbia with our dear Canadian friends have drained the coffers to an alarming low. A period of restrained spending is much needed to aid the  replenishment. 

A couple of weeks ago we had a phone call from Canadian friends who were were touring Britain before catching up with their vacationing group and flying off to Spain for the next leg of their tour. They were driving from York down to Frinton on Sea to stay with old friends there. As we were on their route along the A1 they called in for a brief 'flying pit stop' 

Wieman is a retired Nurse who worked in England before Emigrating to Vancouver where she found herself working with my friend Nancy who use to work with me here in Peterborough. We've met them several times in Canada over the years we've been going. Hopefully next time they come over to the UK they can have a longer stay with us.