Autumn

I'm sat writing this in the garden. It is lovely and sunny and hearing the birds singing in the trees the weather is almost Spring-like instead of Autumnal. It was the first day of Autumn yesterday and I'm noticing the shorter days already. As I spend so much time in the car from 4pm onwards transporting the children to various activities the darker evenings are very apparent. A new season is definitely here in more ways than one in my life.

Almost finished interviewing my participants and am preparing for 3 months of intensive data analysis which will take me up until the end of December.

Our Saturday morning church group has started back with the possibility of 4 more people joining us. Praise God.

We are almost the owners of a Swiss apartment and Graham flew out there on Monday to sign the contract. We plan to visit Interlaken for a few days during half-term so we can decide what furniture we need before we take ownership of it on the 1st Jan. Interlaken is our piece of heaven on earth and has been for over the last 20 years. We plan on sharing this piece of heaven with family and friends once it is furnished.

The children are busy with their new seasons too. Charlie is enjoying the sixth form and is working so hard. Harry has started his GCSE coursework and continues to songwrite and play his guitar. Rosie is back in the routine of hockey, swimming, lacrosse, badminton, church groups and being full-on with everything she does. There seems to be party after party and friends here there and everywhere. We had to make some decisions during the week about the HPV vaccine which I'd gaily signed the consent form about without putting much thought in it. However, the day before she was due to have it I just kept thinking she was too young at the age of twelve to have it and after researching the incidence and risk factors of cervical cancer and taking into consideration that I would hope Rosie will have regular smear tests and won't be sexually active for a long time yet we decided to postpone it. I sometimes feel that financial health service targets coupled with the invested interest of drug companies pressurise us parents to subject our children's immune systems to drugs that have not been around for long enough to guarantee their safety 100%.

Well, we were in the minority with our thinking as the majority of her year had the immunisation. However there were a few girls who didn't. As it turned out Rosie was unwell with a cold and cough that day and although she didn't have a temperature I wouldn't have felt happy with her having an immunisation that day. She is still unwell but has gone to school.

God and church continue to be my raison d'etre and on Sunday 5 people were baptised and a couple of healings were also witnessed! The Alpha course was launched last night with an Alpha Grill where we ate a bbq followed by a questions and answer session where 4 Christians were 'grilled'. It was an excellent and innovative way to launch the course.

Looking forward to the week-end already and a quiet one is planned after a hectic one last week where we had a dinner party followed by attending Rosie's friend's baptismal lunch after church which was really lovely and such an honour for us to be invited. Family XFactor night on Saturday followed by roast dinner on Sunday are the only things that are planned.