Fifty shades of ……Autumn

Fifty shades of…………Autumn

Everywhere I look at the moment there is colour! Stunning, beautiful shades of green, yellow, rust, ruby….and it seems that every time I open my mouth to speak, I am saying “isn’t it beautiful”, “look at those colours”, “aren’t we lucky to live here”. And we are…. very blessed. It is a truly beautiful time of the year in rural South West France. The leaves are still on the trees – just, and they have changed in to a wonderful carpet of muted shades of autumn…simply stunning.

I’ve always loved Autumn – it is my favourite time of the year. I like the way that the earth is getting back what it needs to regenerate itself – a bit like Doctor Who!! Some people see it as a sad time of year as nature is dying, but no, I see it as the necessary process required for rebirth. It’s a great time for us humans to hunker down, snuggle up during the darker, colder evenings…and give ourselves whatever it is we need. Whether that be a good rest after the craziness of the summer, or simply just time to take stock and work out what it is we need…not want, but truly need.

For me and Martin the colder evenings have been spent poring over house plans – tweaking ideas from draft plans 2 and 3, and having video calls with our architect, Rob, and now at last we have reached final draft stage and have the layout of our dream home. Finally, we can begin to dream about where next year will take us, and the life we will be able to live in our new home.

The colder evenings have also brought lots of concern about our well-being in our life in the motorhome and we have had lots of kind offers of hot showers, a place to sit and do some work, the use of a washing machine, and invitations round to dinner. We are truly blessed with some lovely friends here. We were even offered the use of a house to stay in over Christmas by our neighbours but we are actually going to be back in the UK for Christmas – but even so – it was very kind of them to offer. It reminded me actually of when we first arrived here in our February trip and put up an event shelter in the snow. They had thought that we were camping and would freeze to death so they had discussed amongst their selves and decided that we could have Alice’s pigeonnierre to sleep in and she would move in to the main house. So kind, and yet at that stage we had not done one single little favour for them. We have been really moved by the kindness of people who are not returning favours that have been done for them – these are genuine acts of kindness – and we honestly cannot wait until the time when we can return those offers of dinner, and when people’s showers blow up, we will be the first to invite them over to use ours. Such a lovely sense of community there is over here. Our neighbours have an abundance of rocket and chard at the moment, so last night’s dinner for us was a rocket salad with calendula petals from the bounty we came away with when we nipped over, and tonight’s dinner was sweet potato, peanut and chard stew made with the chard she gave us. That’s another aspect of life over here that I really love – the eating of fresh, seasonal veggies. Essentially if you cannot get it in the local shops, its not in season so you cannot have it. This is making us much more in tune with the seasons, with nature and more in touch with where our food is coming from. For us, being veggies, we no longer really think about the food chain as such, but it does still apply to us in that we are not only reducing our carbon foot print by eating seasonal stuff – it must be so much better for us – it’s not travelled far – literally only a few metres in the case of the rocket and chard, and often no chemicals and no crappy processing methods.

So, all in all the Autumn is proving to be a happy time for me!! I’ve been feeling much more upbeat and it has really helped that I’ve been able to get out doing some decent walks again.

I now have a couple of ladies who I have been walking with and it’s good to have a chat, put the world to rights, and generally enjoy this beautiful weather and scenery we have been getting. I had to giggle one morning last week, when my friend was making drinks for the two of us, and also her hubby who was outside working. She got a large silver whistle and gave a very loud and shrill blast on it to call him in!! He obediently came in for his tea, and I laughed with them about what I good idea that was and how well trained he is. My friend explained it stops the need for shouting out. Great idea I thought…. I’m always shrieking for Martin when he is busy down past the stone wall on our land.

When I got back home to Martin later on, I put the kettle on and when the drinks were ready, I spotted the dog whistles hanging by the door. Giggling I gave a large, long blast on one. And, sure enough – ten seconds later, a bemused looking Martin popped his head up from over the wall. I congratulated him on coming when called and joked he would make a good slave for me, and maybe I should now consider myself to be a dominatrix. To which he told me to get stuffed in no uncertain terms. Boring……..after all there are all these long evenings in the motorhome!!!

We were doing a house sit for a few days this week, and I spotted in the pile of books in the bedroom that infamous grey cover…Yes!! Fifty Shades of Grey….”Martin! Maybe we could get the dog whistle out again??” “What do you mean no chance ha ha” …oh well, we’ll just have to settle on the hot tub again!!

Fifty shades of grey maybe not….but the view from that hot tub was certainly Fifty Shades of Autumn!!

©Sharon Rees-Williams – wordpress.com/thislittlepieceof.land, 2018 

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