Round the world in 57 days...really?

Hello...and thanks for popping by.

I'm just getting ready for a quick whizz round the world. I'll be back on here again soon,but in the meantime.... fancy popping over to www.thetimeofourlives.net  to find out about our trip?

If you click *follow* on that site, you'll be able to follow our progress....37,250 miles, 9 countries, three very different train tracks oh....and how about the post I wrote today about missing people...and even an English autumn.... while travelling.

See what you think?  http://wp.me/p7ezGr-MV

Autumn changes...and packing up the past

It`s hard to enjoy your panini when an aggressive goose is jabbing you in the back. Funny too--just one of the things that made the three of us roar with laughter over lunch beside a Shropshire lake just now.

A couple of years ago we`d have been sitting together round a busy newsdesk-anxiously racing against the clock, planning and reading news bulletins or researching programme reports.Then a couple of us got the chance to take the money and run; jumped at it; and haven`t looked back. The third in today`s group works part time now--leaving her free to write, and do as she pleases.

We`re all lucky to have that kind of freedom now--the chance to meet a friend, do a day`s work at the other end of the country--or not--or jump on a train for a couple of days away. All three of us have faced some really tough challenges in our lives recently. And for all of us, autumn, as it always seems to do, is bringing yet more changes.

Friends are dropping their sons and daughters at University. I`ve just hugged and said goodbye to my youngest daughter for a few months. Her gap year has taken her to the French-Swiss border to work as an au pair. The house is so quiet. But we`re all incredibly proud of her.

And tomorrow--preparation for yet more changes as I head to Kent to continue packing up my late dad`s belongings, ready for his home to be sold. The shredder`s nearly blown a fuse already; chewing its way through decades of correspondence, council minutes, and `phone bills going back as far as the early 1990s. No, I don`t know why he kept them, either. But the house has lost its beating heart now, and it`s time to let someone else breathe new life into it. Busy days lie ahead: sorting through everything; trying not to linger or shed too many tears over the endless photo albums; choosing a few of his huge, cosy winter jumpers to hug me in the chilly days ahead; and bagging up the remainder for his favourite local charities.

It`ll be tough heading out to his beloved garden, maybe taking cuttings from the plants he nurtured. If I can find the key, I`ll take a last look round his little shed and open one of the empty but still aromatic tins of Balkan Sobranie, that he kept for bits and bobs. I might bring one home. Then it`ll be time to rake up the leaves.

Autumn. Time for change. Kids to school. Students to Uni. Birds migrating to warmer climes, even. Probably why that bloody lunchtime goose was after my panini.

Summer? It`s a wrap.

The train to Manchester on Thursday was baking. I was glad to be wearing a summer skirt and T shirt. The next day, it was lashing it down on the city streets, and I was freezing on a film set. Like all the extras, I ended up borrowing a waterproof jacket and plastic poncho from the lovely wardrobe ladies. Then, late at night, I shivered all the way back to Shrewsbury.

While there might still be some gorgeous, sunny days ahead; autumn`s in the air. I wrote part of this a year ago, after a rotten summer, when we were sharpening our pencils, flogging frocks and crocs, and eyeing up supermarket stewpacks.

This year we`ve had some sizzlers. I reckon it`s easier to face the chilly weather ahead when you can still see strap marks on a fading tan.

So here are those autumn thoughts. Not least because I seem to have nearly a thousand more followers on Twitter than I did this time last year. If you`re one of them...thanks. Slide over here for some apple crumble and custard: 

I woke up today to a tweet from chef and food writer Sabrina (@SabrinaGhayour), about  how much she loves September, and the autumn `mists and mellow fruitfulness` so beloved of Keats. She even copied Ode to Autumn in her message,a poem I used to know off by heart.

Yes, it`s beautiful to feel the sun on your face, relax in your garden and run free in bare feet. But in recent days, I`ve started looking longingly at my boots again : high black suede; shiny conker brown; little ankle boots with tip tap `look at me` heels. 

Out shopping, I found myself stroking a charcoal grey angora jumper and wriggling my fingers into the tips of soft tan leather gloves. I`m longing for those Aberdovey days when I can pretend the beach is mine during a brisk walk or a bracing run against the breeze. Only after a pause for hot chocolate in a cafe overlooking the sea will I start my lazy meander over the Welsh hills to home.

Much as I love throwing open every door and window at home in the summer, months later, I still get a thrill out of battening down the hatches with a gale lashing against the glass, knowing there`s a casserole cooking and a basket of logs for the fire. I was born in December and often wonder if it`s the same for all `winter babies`.

We`re not quite there yet, mind. There`ll be apples, pears and damsons to pick, and a little cottage in Normandy to visit where the branches are already heavy with walnuts. So I`m wrapping myself up today in my softest, pinkest pashmina. The colour`s summer fuchsia. The feel is...just a gentle, warm touch of winter. Might just wear it to the beach.