The New Normal: Autumn

 This week we have turned the page into Autumn, I have the heating on and am wearing warmer clothes.  Also wanting to eat warm foods - I made a spicy lentil soup for lunch....  

In the conservatory the houseplants are still warm enough - this pottos plant has something strange sprouting - a flower?

In the garden the creeper is turning red, it is climbing along the shed and fence and looks spectacular.

I dug out one of the borders - it was thick with roots from the woods that have crept in.  It took 3 hours!  I went to the garden centre and found roses half price so bought two yellow and one peach floribunda for this patch.  I also planted tulips.

I brought out some pumpkin tealights and our son bought an apple cinnamon candle.....

I made beetroot hummus - it's delicious - very easy, just roast beetroot blended with tinned chick peas and some seasoning/fresh garlic and oil.

I made another soup - this ones thick vegetable with a little macaroni.

My lemon tree keeps giving, it still has two huge lemons and its sister is growing some small ones and is flowering.

This corner has got a bit overgrown so may be my next gardening project.

I haven't felt like painting lately and I know I have missed a couple of months of my art journal - maybe I will catch up when the mood returns - but I was looking through things I painted in years gone by for inspiration...

Blackberries never really happened this year - they formed, then we had heavy rains and they didn't fully develop.  They are now shrivelling up on the bushes, somewhat mouldy, brown and squishy.

Leaves are just starting to fall now - the creeper in my garden has turned red - that is how I determine the Seasons - by that creeper and what it does - it will show the earliest signs of Spring too next year.

There are plenty of chestnuts in the woods, the squirrels take them quickly, I enjoy finding the discarded skins with the odd gleaming jewel still intact where they missed one!  Conkers - plenty of those, and rosehips - some say a lot of hips on the bushes indicates a hard Winter ahead - well there are an abundance this year.

Pumpkins - we usually carve a few at Samhain/Halloween - I painted these a few years ago in an an experiment when I cracked my shoulder and couldn't use my left hand - I found I could use my right and painted these - I think that means I am ambidextrous!

I have been on the waiting list for an allotment for some years (for overseas bloggers an allotment is a small piece of land the local authority rent out so you can grow vegetables, usually there are about 60 plots on a site so there tends to be a long waiting list).  My friend's name came up though and she has offered to share until mine transpires.  I am going up there to help her dig some manure in tomorrow:)

How are your preparations going for Autumn?