Our feet haven’t really touched the ground since we arrived home from our travels and though I had the draft of a post about the changing seasons, I hadn’t got very far. I’d had just one day to turn around and sort my things out for a two-day training session I was teaching, once again thinking that in my next life I’ll come back as a Maths teacher- we craftswomen always seem to need to take the whole studio with us!

I always love teaching this particular workshop which is the final fling for the talented women who have been training to become crafts judges since the early Spring. I always leave feeling inspired and with a list of topics and skills I’m eager to find out more about.

This year’s group “The Class of 22” included a birthday girl and whilst I’d already planned an activity including judging teddy bears, that quickly become a teddy bear’s picnic with the birthday cake centre stage. I think a dozen bears stepped up for the challenge, each one made with love, some knitted, some stitched. Lucy the Lamb was soon judged as “not according to schedule” and the bear whose eyes were made from pins was swiftly judged as a safety hazard. Everyone left kind and encouraging comments for the makers offering advice and suggestions for next year. The other bears were carefully handled, the technical skills of the makers evaluated and the level of difficulty assessed. William, a beautifully made, fully jointed bear with the most exquisite expression gained more marks than the simple knitted bear, made for a charity project and working through the bears one by one, a winner was found.

There were five or six different challenges similar to that one, offering a chance for the trainee judges to demonstrate their skills and fulfil the requirements of the qualification they were hoping for. A busy couple of days indeed and yes, all of them made the grade and were awarded their badges.

Afterwards, I brought all of that “stuff” home again and guess what? It all needed to be put away! Oh to be a Maths teacher ;-)

The thing is, the autumn mornings have crept up on me and now, when I go swimming, it’s really dark. As we wait for the pool to open, someone often asks how it can be that there are more dark mornings in the year than light, sunny ones! (Or perhaps that’s just our perception!?)

It’s that time of the year when we could sweep leaves up every day if we wanted to. We don’t…

On a walk around the garden though, I noticed more pears on the tree than I’ve ever seen before. They’re not edible pears but tiny, ornamental ones, which are making an awful mess on the path beneath the tree. (Something else to sweep)

There are lots of (rose) hips

and haws. Plenty of food for the birds, then and as I reach the wild part of the garden, I sniff the scent of cider!

Whilst we were away, the old apple tree has deposited all its fruit on the grass underneath it and some are quietly fermenting. Though the squirrels have stripped the walnut tree of nuts, I guess they don’t like apples.

There’s a few mushrooms in the grass too, which I don’t remember seeing before.

One thing I remember all too well is up there on the sycamore tree though; hundreds of “helicopters”, They set seed all over the place and for the next few months we’ll be picking them up wherever we can before they take root. We do not need any more sycamore trees!

How did one reach our upstairs landing!? (Blew in through the skylight, I suppose!) They really do get everywhere.

And oh yes, one more change we noticed since we’ve been home…

I’ll leave you to guess what that is.