Seasonal working

For the past few months, my morning routine has been much the same:

• Get up and have breakfast
• Head upstairs to my office, switch on my computer, check my email and have a browse through social media
• Get dressed (no, I don't work in my PJs, but I do enjoy the luxury of slow start!)
• Then I head up the garden for 10 minutes before I make my second cup of tea and settle down at my desk to start on the day's writing.

I live right in the centre of the city, so I don't have a large garden, but I love my morning garden tour. I see how everything's looking, dispatch a few slugs and snails, and usually come back in with a handful of home-grown goodies ... most recently that's been raspberries and French beans. It helps to clear my sleepy head and gives me a few minutes of 'me time' before I face the demands of the day.

This morning though, it was absolutely heaving with rain and there was no way I was stepping out the back door. So I made my tea, switched on the lamp on my desk and tried to get my head back into an exercise practising emotion adjectives. Personally, I couldn't help feeling a bit sad (A1) at the passing of summer and a distinct sense of gloom (C2) at the prospect of the long autumn and winter to come.

Thankfully, this afternoon the rain has stopped and the sun's reappeared. I've just had a trip up the garden, hefted a dozen snails over the back wall and come back in with a handful of beans. And now I'm sitting with a cup of tea in the sun on the front doorstep before I fit in one more hour at my desk. Maybe it's not time to give up on summer just yet ...

The view from here ...

Daylight savings

As someone who struggles through the short, dark days of winter, I always dread the clocks going back and the prospect of it getting dark before I've even finished my working day. So this year, I'm trying something different ... I'm staying on BST for a bit longer. Yes, I did change my clocks yesterday (that would be too confusing), but I'm shifting my day so that I get up an hour earlier, start work early, have an early lunch and hopefully, finish at my desk before it gets dark. I've never been particularly good at getting up in the morning and one of the key benefits of being freelance is being able to get up when I want, so I was a bit unsure at the prospect of a seven o'clock start, but it wasn't too bad this morning and so far, the new routine's going great. In fact, I was so productive this morning, I'd finished work for the day before four o'clock and that was with a break mid-afternoon to go out and do some chores and admire the autumn colours (see below). It's still bright and sunny outside, and now I've got a couple of hours to myself before my boyfriend gets home and I start my evening proper - feels like a nice luxury.

Okay, it was a particularly beautiful, sunny day today, so perhaps not entirely representative of what's to come, but it's an encouraging start. I know the strategy's only going to work for a while, because at some point, I'm going to find myself getting up in the dark, which is probably even grimmer than having to switch the light on mid-afternoon. So I suppose at that point, I'll claim back some extra time under the duvet and my start time will creep later and later, but even if I can stave off that winter feeling for a little longer, I'll be happy.

Lots of weather

I took this picture this morning as I was having my breakfast. The trees outside the window were blowing in the wind and the sun was making fantastic patterns on the wall.

Half an hour later, it tipped down with rain and was so dark I had to have the light on at my desk. All morning it's been alternating between bright sun and dramatic downpours.

What a strange summer it's been.