Autumn: one buh-conker..

(written on Monday, got interrupted by children as usual...)
I think Autumn is well and truly upon us.  I have had a load of washing on the line that has been showered on twice when I wasn't paying attention and I finally brought it back in to dry indoors.  (Incidentally it has been lovely and sunny and blustery the rest of the afternoon, so have chanced it and put another load out, ever the optimist!)

(will now carry on - it's Thurs now)

So my washing made it through a few showers and got dry again and I am playing washing line lottery with a fresh load.

On Monday on the walk home from school we discovered that the big horse chestnut tree on our route was ready to drop it's load and so started the great conker collection of 2010.  I love conkers, don't know why really, they don't really serve any purpose other than for playing conkers or just to look pretty.  But they are so lovely and smooth and a gorgeous deep brown.  (as an aside I was recently told they deter spiders if kept around the house, all the more reason to love them!)  The kids love hunting through the grass to find the spiky shells and then stamping on them to squash out the conker.  Zach and Leilani are building up a collection of them each and when we got home on Monday Adam came to tell me he'd just spied Zach sat counting his saying 1 buh-conker, 2 buh-conker, 3 buh-conker.... in the style of 1 potato, 2 potato, 3 potato, 4...  I guess he's not twigged that Leilani is saying "potato" when she does that rhyme, but rather hears it as buh-tato.

So with Autumn we get lots of lovely things like gorgeous colours and conkers and feeling cosy.  However this does not outweigh the terrible feeling that summer is long gone and winter is fast approaching, bringing with it endless cumulative hours spent putting on coats, hats, gloves, scarves, wellies etc etc for the kids before we can even venture out the house.  And the great battle of the thermostat will begin in no time I'm sure as Adam will undoubtedly keep putting it up and I (being the one who sorts out the household bills...) will keep trying to put it back down without him noticing.  I will be doing my annual battle of wills trying not to use the heating until October.  Let's see how far I can get this year...