Hanging on to summer

Autumn may be here but I am hanging on to summer for as long as I can. These are the last of the flowers in the garden and while they still live it's still officially summer at my house. We have been spending as much time outdoors as possible over the past two weeks. It's actually been much drier and sunnier, if a bit chilly, in September than it was for most of the summer. I have been taking photos of every last glimpse of blue sky I see desperate to hold on to the sunshine.I took Alex on a "Get to Know your Footpaths Day" organised in our village at the weekend. It was great fun meeting lots of other parents and a good excuse to get out for the day. We walked for about 2 hours and Alex walked most of the way despite his little legs. We managed a bit of blackberry picking en route and visited the Crump earthworks - an ancient pre-historic mound just outside the village (one of the advantages of having a friend married to a history teacher!). In the end it was three families who walked together as we had the youngest and slowest children and we had a really nice time.

Our village is such a wonderful place to live. It is very small with no facilities apart from a village hall but the people are very sociable and enjoy organising regular events from harvest suppers to midsummer balls to barn dances and pub quizzes. Most people who move here never leave and houses rarely come up for sale. We have lived here three years now and I have to say it is probably the nicest place I have ever lived. It may not be the most picturesque but it is definitely the most friendly.