Monday 3 October

The camera and I have been reunited. Amazing how much I missed having it to hand. BadPenny suggested I should have two of everything. Unfortunately, you end up with two items in one house and none in the other - ask me how I know...!
I hadn't downloaded photos off the camera for a couple of weeks and found 73 photos this morning which I hadn't seen yet. A quick catch-up:

The weekend before last I had a day with 12yo on my own. We sometimes do a swap where one child gets to have one parent for the day. It was lovely to have a bit of one-to-one time with her, without having to split myself between two children and their varying interests.
The day began with a riding lesson, which she has started a few weeks ago.

So far she's been riding the stubborn horses - perfect for a beginner but she hasn't quite learnt yet that she needs to be quite authoritative with them!

Afterwards, we did a charity shop crawl - there are eleven of them in Bury St. Edmunds and we had a great time exploring them all. I came home with a new skirt, a cardigan and another bowl, and 12yo bought a lovely evening dress for a disco she's been invited to next week. Of course, all that shopping makes thirsty and hungry...

And no, she's not drinking coffee yet - it's tea in a cafetiere - very posh!

Autumn more than any other season makes me want to cook. Almost like an instinct to preserve things for winter time!
We are trying our hand at making sloe gin

This is just after we shook the right-hand bottle, I'm hoping when it is ready to drink, it'll be that colour as it's gorgeous.
I have also made apple and plum jelly which was much easier than jam and turned out another beautiful colour

and thanks to a prolific apple crop I am constantly making apple cake in various forms - unfortunately, I hardly get the chance to take a photo before it's all gone as I have several grateful recipients!

I'm still trying to get a decent bike ride in every weekend. The days are now too short to go in the evenings during the week, I'm thinking about going swimming again a couple of times a week now that I don't run anymore either. Biking is still the best though - I love exploring the countryside and stumbling upon little villages with sometimes well hidden churches. This week I noticed this gravestone

Very sad - she'd been through so much heartache.

And although we're going through a heatwave in the UK at the moment, you can tell it is Autumn by the trees - some of them are looking decidedly bare

I love poplars, they're my favourite trees. They're tall and majestic, they make beautiful lines against the landscape, they smell lovely in Springtime and they rustle like no other tree.

Last but not least, 9yo and parttime dog pretending to be Indians and wolves....

Not sure what it is with that dog but he loves posing for the camera!

Hope to have some knitting pictures next time. Night for now!