Yesterday was glorious.  Not only due to the sunshine, but knowing I had a day to spend with Mr. VP as I pleased.  I haven’t often felt as good as this, though being brought breakfast in bed was the best way in the whole world to be woken up.  Admittedly, I was late getting up (just shy of 9am!) but I hadn’t got in until 3am, so the lie-in was a well-deserved one.  I had been so late getting to bed, due to the need to have a heart-to-heart with mon meilleur ami, in the car, for 4 1/2 hours.  We talked and talked until we couldn’t talk any longer.  It was just what was needed.

So although I was tired, we had a whole Saturday to ourselves.  We went into Morpeth again and flitted around, had a coffee and returned home, at a leisurely pace.  Once we’d been home, Mr. VP had done the lawn and the chickens, we both wanted very much to go out and walk.  At 5pm we set out into the woods.  Not far from our house lies a pleasing bit of woodland, not the prettiest in the world, but a welcome relief from tarmac and brick, a getaway from man-made structures and confinement.

I don’t think we could’ve picked a better time if we had’ve planned it.  Our outing was a spur of the moment thing, eschewing the beach for something more autumnal.  The beach is beautiful, but not as wonderful as being in a forest at sunset.  And that is where we found ourselves.

As we walked deeper into the woodland, the floor carpeted with brown and gold leaves, the sky was darkening too.

Deeper still it was so dark, it felt magical, as there was hardly another soul around. My mother is quite the opposite of me when it comes to woodland, she feels a somewhat eerie presence when she is in a forest. Yet for me I feel nothing but contentment, even if it’s a dark woodland, or an impenetrable pine forest.

We came to a little brook, a tributary to a bigger river, that snakes through the other side of the wood. Full of twists and turns this little brook is lovely to sit beside or to play poohsticks with.  Indeed you could imagine Christopher Robin and Pooh playing that game on a stream like this. When I reached the bank of the brook, the last rays of sun were upon the water and it looked to all intents and purposes as if the water was made of molten gold.

I called Mr. VP, to look!  Quick!  Look at that, what a wonderful sight.

We walked a little further, completing the loop, and then took another path.  We followed the golden light and were rewarded with this view.  Trees, fallen leaves, red berries and the sound of crows calling, all captured against the most beautiful last rays of sunlight.

We stopped for a time, both not wanting to move from this spot, watching time elapse and leaves fall.  There is something about autumn that no other season has; it has warm light.  You can see from these photos, the low, warm light.  Highlighting ferns and trees, still green in many places.  It was simply, simply beautiful.  I couldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else.

You know, I think Keats had a way with words.  You can see, very clearly, what he was seeing with his own eyes when he wrote the poem “To Autumn”.

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

It is indeed the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, in particular the former, which leaves its dewy mark on everything in the garden.  There is something very magical about going for a walk amongst the dewy-coated spider’s webs, the rose petals covered with droplets and the lawn, a blueish grey, covered in a fine mist of water.  These rosehips are begging to be nibbled, hanging large and voluptuously ripe, they are on the rugosa rose “Frau Dagmar Hartopp”.  Truly autumn treasures.

I am particularly fond of the sunshine we’ve been having for the last few days.  It’s as if the black clouds have lifted for a while, for the first time since the events of summer.  And look what beautiful things are revealed every time I step out into the garden!  This is the Euphorbia x Griffithii “Fireglow”, I like euphorbias, but I like this one more than most.  Especially covered in dew.

Despite the temperatures dropping at night, quite sharply at times this week, the roses are still continuing to blossom.  This is the Austin rose “Rosemoor“, with a heady scent and an uncanny ability to look so alluring at 8am on a cool autumn morning, dripping with dew.

As it’s now officially autumn, in the VintagePretty household at least, I have not only brought out the knitting needles to continue the dove-grey jumper for Mr. VP, but I have a renewed vigour for house and home.  I’m reading, for the nth time, and slowly so I can savour it, Daphne Fielding’s “The Nearest Way Home”.  I read it just after Mr. VP and I got together and I loved it then, it spurred me on to do many things, and re-reading it again now, it’s giving me the impetus to make some longed-for changes.

I can’t even begin to tell you the magnitude of things that are going on here, but what happened this summer was only the beginning, the catalyst for something even more wonderful.  And if it’s anything like as exciting and as reinvigorating as the last change, then I welcome it with open arms and an open heart.

The corners of our house in the autumn light.

Our house, or particular areas of our house, are beautiful in the daylight hours. Our living-room is almost south-facing, and it beams with light from sunrise until around 4-ish. Whether it’s bright summer sun or pale, watery winter light, it’s always beautiful. It’s a lovely light room, full of character and charm.

Whilst sitting at the dining-room table this afternoon - which directly looks into the living room as it’s semi-open-plan - looking at a pile of papers that had to be attended-to, I glimpsed the scene that lay before me. The dog on the rug, looking supremely comfortable, the outline of the ficus on the dresser, the silhouettes of the hedge outside on the net curtains.

I love many things in life.  The richness of a rainbow’s illusive colours, the smell of a freshly-baked cake, the crackle of leaves underfoot.  But nothing is so pleasing as a sense of home.  However I know that home isn’t ever in one place necessarily, that people will move houses and change places, but home follows you wherever you’re happy.  Home is where the heart is.

This house is a pleasing one, just the right size, the right age, it happened just at the right time for us.  Though I know we won’t live here forever, we won’t regret the years we’ve lived here.  The midsummer’s day wedding reception in the garden, the huge Christmas trees that’ve filled the living room (and our hearts) with joy, our first evening, days and year as a married couple were spent here.  It’ll be a place remembered fondly.

In the autumn light that flowed through the window into the room, which silhouetted objects and made me stop what I was doing.  In that autumn light, it was perfect.  A moment of pure perfection.  As transient as a mote of dust.

(The light and the dark in the city…  I hope my French is improving)

I love going into Newcastle.  It’s a big, sprawling and somewhat dirty city - as many cities are, but amongst the smog and throngs of people, there is beauty to be found.

Take the city’s numerous churches.  There are many of them within the city, some ancient, some more modern, which look so out of place amongst the horrid 60’s concrete structures nearby.  In this world, few things are as beautiful as a city skyline, a silhouette of hard work next to a sky of freedom.

Juxtaposition is all over the place.  Bright blue skies next to smoggy, dark and dirty pavements.  Religious buildings next to office blocks full of greed and capitalism.  Beggars next to footballer’s wives.

My favourite part of going into Newcastle is the Metro ride in.  You might not think it’s anything special, but being on the railway (even though it’s not a proper train, it feels like it) is a wonderful thing.  Not only do I get a break from driving, I can sit and listen to my iPod and watch the people as they go about their business.  I can indulge myself, for the 25 minute ride in, and just think.  I love the rays of sunlight that pour through the windows, as the Metro zips along the track into the city.

When we first moved to Northumberland, Newcastle was my first experience of living near a big city, and it felt so much bigger than it does now.  Grainger Street and the surrounding area feels big, because of the beautiful yet imposing buildings that line the streets.  I kept saying to Mr. VP, on our first visit to the city after he got his job, “…but it’s so enormous!”.  Previously I’d only ever lived in one city, but that was so small it could hardly be seen as such.  Before that it was soley towns.  Now I was in a real city and it was loud, vibrant and full of newness.

Newcastle was the coal and ship-building capital of the world, pretty much up until the 1950’s when both industries began to decline.  Home to some of the nation’s worst slums during the industral revolution, it has taken an awful lot of regeneration time and money to make Newcastle what it is today, and what it will become in the future.  Newcastle is far more than its impressive number of bridges, its position of one of the largest northerly cities in England.  It’s starting to make something of itself.

Upon alighting at my stop, letting the hoardes of people pass me, I came across this dragon fly.  Sunning itself on this fence, it didn’t mind me getting up close for a photo.  City or not, there’s something beautiful about seeing wildlife managing to live with the obstacles we put in the way.

And this is my self-portrait.  Feet, shoes and Autumn leaves.  At the end of a hard morning’s walking, it was awfully nice to put them up.

Even the amount of sun we’ve had so far (2 1/2 days, two-and-a-half days!) isn’t enough to make hay, help farmers to rescue their crops or to make much of an impact when it comes to drying the yard and garden out.  But it has been sunny, and so you’re not going to hear a peep of complaint from me.  Sunshine is too rare and too precious.  This Summer has been grey in more than a metaphorical sense.

The days are still going by.  Time is still marching and we’re now past the autumnal equinox, where the night and day length is equal, before the nights become longer than the days and we approach the unending Northumbrian winter.

This is the time I usually savour most in the year, as important as May when the days are lightening, but with such a different purpose.  This time of year is when I get out the knitting needles and turn inwards to the house and the home, to a long winter and food.  I’m still cooking, yesterday we had creamy smoked salmon and leek pasta, which is delicious.  Today a homemade quiche, Friday will be homemade pizza avec mon meilleur ami (with my best friend).  I’m still finding solace in the kitchen, away from the hustle and bustle.  I am still cooking as if I can do nothing else.

We’ve been having waves of decorators come in to quote for some things we want tidied up around here, the rest we’ll be attempting ourselves (at least it’ll be something to do to keep warm on these cold winter evenings), but we’re not really DIY-ers, we’ll paint, but that’s about it.  Finding someone who is a happy medium between honest but slow or total geeza is proving difficult.

It’s becoming more and more autumnal, the leaves are starting to fall from the trees in ever-greater numbers and the nights are definitely drawing in.  We had our French lesson yesterday, and for the first time, when we left our tutor’s house it was pitch-black outside.  However we did see a weasle run across the road in front of us, and also a vole.  There is something magical about being in the middle of nowhere at night.