Season of mists...

St Grégoire
Yesterday's weather: Lovely, sunny, warm

In previous years we would have just finished our holiday and returned to the UK ready to go back to work. We would have the feeling that summer was over and it is time to think about Christmas shopping and turning on the central heating. Sometimes we were lucky and the warm weather returned to give us a lovely long Indian summer, but that was fairly rare.

With the arrival of September this year we had the same sort of feeling (without the going back to work bit). The majority of tourists have gone home. The supermarket is noticably quieter and we can drive into the local town without getting caught up in traffic queueing at the one roundabout. The baker has shut for three weeks holiday and the butcher has bread for sale so that we don't have to go too far to collect it. The children are buying their last pencils and notebooks ready for the new term, people are returning to work after their long summer break.

This morning there is a mist in the valley and a chill in the air but we are promised a sunny week (at last) and that is a huge bonus. There are blackberries in the hedgrows, walnuts ripening on the trees and soon the cats will find it uncomfortable to walk under the horse chestnut tree because of the conker casings.

Not much different from living in the UK really. Oh, except that we don't have to sit in a six mile queue of traffic to get to work, we can profit from the free food in the hedgerows and wild mushrooms in the woods, and our supermarkets are much quieter than Guildford Tesco or Sainsburys. Do we miss it? Nah!