I am here, I haven’t fallen off the edge of the Earth (for all those Flat Earthers!).  DH and I have been dealing with family things which I will not disclose here.  We are all okay and life is moving on, but as I have said before, even though your children are grown up they come with grown up problems and we are lucky to be here to help them through it.  However it has been a very challenging few weeks and I am hoping that between now and Christmas will be a little calmer.

Speaking of Christmas:

Because things have been so up in the air, I have been playing Christmas music in my car when I have been travelling around!  It just lifts my spirits, but I do get moaned at by The Boys as they think it is far too soon for all this!  I can say that I have almost finished my Christmas shopping, only a few things left to get and my sewing room now looks like half of Santa’s Workshop!  I am debating with myself as to whether to get wrapping now or leave it a little bit?  I have managed to get all the pets their treats and toys for Christmas and had to put them definitely out of the way of Coco and Blaze! 

This weekend is one of my favourties, in that we get an hour back, as the clocks go back one hour on Saturday night.

Yesterday would have been my Mom’s 95th Birthday.  Here she is on her wedding day in 1949 aged 19.  Sadly she died one week before her 55th Birthday so this time of year is quite poignant. 

Our weather is defintely in Autumn mode now, although we have had a couple of frosts it has not been too cold.  However that has meant that it has been quite misty in the mornings and on Wednesday the above picture was at 5.00am as the fog rolled in.  Usually we don’t get foggy days until November, but it was quite thick on Wednesday and lasted quite a while. 

The trees in our garden have almost lost their leaves and DH and I have the job of collecting them this weekend.

Here is the big tree at the top of our garden and the platform where the Den used to be.

So as it is Autumn I got our winter bedding out and I love it as it feels all cosy and warm, especailly as I also got our winter duvet out too.  Someone is also loving it:

This is cuddle mode.  She hops up on the bed, once DH has got out to shower, for morning snuggles and then in the evening, especially if I am in bed first!  The other morning she actually stayed on the bed asleep after I had come downstairs!

Little Man is now sitting up on his own and has in fact begun to crawl, so nothing is safe now!  Watch out World he is on the move!

Honey and Star are now finding high places to sleep as he is moving 🙂

This was Blaze the other evening, so I think my Halloween decorations are sorted, pumpkin and black cat!  Now if only I can get Blaze to sit still for a few hours on Halloween!!!

I subscribe to Country Life magazine which is every week and I love it.  There are so many articles in it regarding country things as well as art and life in general.  Anyway this week’s issue came through the door on Wednesday and look who is on the cover!  Anyone who has followed me for a while knows I absolutely love Snoppy.  This one I will be keeping.

I have still been doing bits of decluttering here and there in my aim (which began on January 1st) to get rid of things we really don’t need or use.  A lot of things we give to the Charity shop and obviously some I keep and some get tossed!  When we went to the charity shop last weekend they said they are no longer accepting books due to hygiene concerns. I don’t get rid of many of my books as I try very hard to only buy books that I know I will read and re-read and keep, but there is always a few and I did get rid of some. So now we have a problem of what to do with them?  We do have a book stall at Carnival each year and there is the Book Exchange in the Village so they will be going to one or other of them.  However what on earth are people going to do if we don’t keep our books?  Can you imagine if they had had the same attitude hundreds of years ago, we would not have the books we have now which are in museums!

I did spend last Saturday doing some quilting, which I cannot show you because they are Christmas presents! It was great to sit down and get some quilting done again.  DH is out all day Sunday this weekend at another swimming event, so I will be in the sewing room again.

Next week the children here are on Half Term Holiday for a week and although our Boys are all grown up I still stick to my routines that I used to do when they were young.  One of which is next week I will be making our Christmas Cake and putting it in the tin and will “feed” it until I need to put the marzipan and icing on it just before the Big Day.  We are out tonight to some very good friends their home for dinner, which I am looking forward to.  I have made a blackberry and apple crumble to take with us, a very Autumn dessert. Last night I managed to get all the ironing done and the washing is up to date and today I am cleaning our home.  Tomorrow DH is home and is going to help me with some of the bigs jobs, where I need furniture moving etc.  I also need to get two jobs done in the garden and then it will be all ready for Winter.  Grocery shopping will also be tomorrow too.  I need to sort the downstairs freezer out, I did our upstairs one last week, and then they will be ready for the Christmas build up.

Anyway after this very long catchup post, I hope you lovely lot have been faring well.  I am still suffering from things left over from the virus I had in August on holiday and was at the Doctors on Monday and have to go back next Monday having had to take more tablets.  I really hope they are going to work and it will all be sorted, if not I will be taking a trip to the Hospital, which I would really like to avoid! 

Have an absolutely wonderful weekend, it is almost November and only 61 days to Christmas!!!! 

Hugs & Love, Susie & Coco xx