Cats sleeping on the window sill

How peaceful it is so see the cats sleeping nearby on the sill as I look away from the computer screen and see the autumn leaves outside.
Leaves are leaving the trees and the birches shed yellow petals and they are much like borders on the lane.
It is very warm in the cottage, outside is cool, the radio is on and I will play my CD from London again very soon.
"Here comes the sun", a cover by Charlie Dore, is so good it sticks. Alright alright alright...not like the leaves at all.
Tibetan prayer flags in the tree blowing in the wind will be like colourful buntings throughout the winter with its bare branches.
Wait a minute does winter have bare branches?
My memory is like snow.
It is good to be home but I do miss my bestest friend and all the fun we had in London! We had a wonderful time!
One night we went to an interesting Brazilian exhibition with contemporary young artists juxtaposed to already dead artsists e.g. Lygia Clark who also made contemporary art. The result was very good. We saw Guy Brett and David Medalla and talked to them. They are two very different people but equally alive and open to art and they make good things happen.
Also I had a lovely talk with Hugo Williams about Samuel Menashe, a poet living in NYC, whom I made a film about last year. I met Hugo's wife Hermione who lives in France and it was another moment of "six degrees of separation" when it turned out she knew a friend of ours.
Afterwards we went back to the Brazilian Ambassadors residence for a drinks party. It was sublime! An opulent Mayfair mansion all gilded and marbled with a grand staircase and a courtyard garden to boot! His art collection was most eclectic and I was particularly fascinated by these Brazilian wood carvings all out of one piece of wood. I enjoyed meeting the ambassador and his wife very much. Such gracious people. All in all the evening was marvellous and we met new friends and old.
Technically I suppose we were in Brazil for the night!

Leaving the capital

Departing for the far north today, sad to go and leave my bestest friend. We have had such a great time this past week. Thank you London!
Will be sharing some of the highlights when I get home.
Here are a few words to digest:
Brazil
Tricycle
Tower of Love
The Pineapple

Covers

Just finished designing several book covers for Bloodaxe Books. I really do enjoy the work, it is creative and researching is fun and I get to use a great many of my skills and knowledge. Plus I can do it from home.
I will be going away to Seahouses first and then London for more than a week so I will not have any opportunities to add to the blog. Sure you will be okay though!
I don't know what I would do living here without Bloodaxe Books and the work I do for them. Making films and videos is my metier however I am not always engaged in that work full-time, only mostly to deadline.
The sun is shining and will for the weekend by the sea. Hurrah!
The cats will have a good time too.
Until soon, ciao.

First Frost

Since the October full moon the weather changed and we have had two mornings of ground frost already.
Fergus who normally is a languid cat who likes to nap all day long has changed his behaviour instantaneously. He is up before breakfast and comes in from outside which is unheard of for most of the year. He then dashes about for more than a mad half hour. Out and about, in and out, chasing his brother and mother...It is an extraordinary lively Fergus I had yet to meet!
It is lovely to see and his enjoyment is obvious.
The others are quite surprised I think as are we.
The garden itself took the frost well and Ben and I are slowly by slowly putting the garden to bed for winter. I brought the house plants indoors and we have planted many bulbs more than a hundred.
It is so exciting to plan and plant ahead.
Like preparing for the work to be done this winter, although I am jumping ahead, after all it is still autumn!

The wee red squirrel

It crossed the road in a scurry where I change gear to prepare for the mighty hill at Houxty Bank. Luckily I had slowed down a bit. The squirrel was so very red and so very small.
It is the second one I have seen crossing the road in a hurry of late. A good sign for sure. They are not dying out as fast as we fear around here.
This area in the National Park and esp at Kielder is one of their last safe habitats.

What I love about living here: the wildlife, the landscape of fells, the rivers and burns, the wide open spaces and huge skies, the many rainbows, Northumbrian pipes, the farm eggs, it is a cat's paradise, and the odd gannin's on.

Autumnal Equinox

Glad to be back home for this time of transition and change.
Watching the garden and the landscape around us I see how summer turns to autumn and I would not miss that. The changing of seasons is a time of observing, noting and paying great attention. I love it.
The once lush green foliage is now coloured and bright red berries shine in the sun, rosehips of many kinds, cotoneaster, rowan, hawthorn...
The apple trees in the orchard are laden with fruit. This is a bumpercrop year. Although not one single plum!
Going for walks just to notice what is going on in nature right now. Invigorating and also melancholic as winter does seem closer than just before the equinox.
It is very windy and the tree brushes against the tiled roof, at night it is spooky. I may have to cut it back before winter.
Right now I am contemplating what to do with my huge apple harvest. Looking through my Swedish cookbook last night I found recipes for drying them, stewing them, making chutney...
I still have jetlagg and find it hard to fall asleep at night and I sleep late in the morning. Must try to shift that slowly.
A busy autumn lies ahead and I welcome that.
Winter will be for quiet work time, reading, writing,...

Hemma igen!

A halcyon day with warm weather and sunshine.
So happy to be back home with the darlings Luna, Fergus and Myles! Sleeping all together in the bed.

Unpacking, doing laundry, opening mail, hoovering up feathers,...It is so good to be home again.
I love travels and adventures and yet coming home is bliss.

The neighbours filled me in on the "gannins on" in the valley while I was away:
Peggy is in Chevy Chase and yet another house is up for sale due to a tennant farmer retiring, Robert is parcelling out allotments in his sheep field, R Cocker is winding up the village with his building plans, the weather has been mild in Sept, a lot of mowing apparently, and the choir starts on Monday!
Peggy turned 100 this past spring and could have stayed at home I think, but now she is in a care home in nearby Otterburn called Chevy Chase after the ancient road going through. I will go over and visit and read to her.

Laundry drying on the washing line in the sun. Cats napping and I am looking closely at the garden seeing how plants fared and grew in my absence. The houseplants did amazingly well. No premature deaths.

I hope to have time to write more about the trip soon.