While I don’t always love the shorter days or heading to my evening job in the dark, I’m trying to find some positives in autumn after a wonderfully sunny summer.
1. Crunchy Autumn Walks
I love walking in the woods at any time of year, but especially in autumn when we can crunch through the fallen leaves. Autumn also has such beautiful colours.
2. Collecting Conkers With My Kids
They loved doing this last year and have already been asking when we can go again. We often walk through a park with lots of horse chestnut trees on our way into town, and there are already the odd hard, spiky shells on the ground.
Any suggestions for what we can do with the conkers once we have them?
3. Watching Practical Magic. Again.
For me, this is the best autumn movie. I hadn’t watched it in years and then last year I bought a digital copy so I can watch it every autumn.
Also hoping I can squeeze in a cinema visit to see Practical Magic 2!
4. Watching Local Theatre Productions
This autumn I’m heading to see local productions of both Come From Away and Jesus Christ Superstar – two of my all-time favourite musicals.
I’ll also be heading to the cinema to watch the Hadestown proshot.
5. Decorating for Autumn
I’m not usually a decorate-for-the-seasons type of person, and I’d never advocate buying loads of random autumn tat that never gets used again.
But we’ve recently changed our fireplace and I want to get a small decorative tray and add a few candles and a couple of Munchkin pumpkins to it.
6. Carnival Season
Autumn means carnival season here in the South West. I’ll be working during both Bridgwater and North Petherton carnivals, but I’m hoping we can head to Burnham-on-Sea Carnival instead.
If you’ve never heard of the Somerset Guy Fawkes carnivals, prepare to be amazed. The carts are illuminated with thousands of lights and have incredibly complex moving parts.
7. Gilmore Girls Rewatch
Like many fans, I often start a Gilmore Girls rewatch in autumn and it’s one of my comfort shows. This year I might even brave A Year in the Life (like many fans of the show, I tend to avoid it and pretend it never happened).
I’ll always be Team Logan.
8. Slow Horses Season 6
For me, autumn is all about cosying up and getting stuck into something good to watch. We only discovered Slow Horses around two years ago, so we were lucky to have a good few seasons to get through and then only had a short wait for season 5.
This year has felt long, but we are very excited to start watching.
Really hoping that if Jack Lowden gets cast as Bond, he continues with this too!
9. Christmas Planning
I love planning ahead for Christmas. Shopping trips, looking for gifts, shopping second-hand, planning the food and get-togethers.
10. A Halloween Getaway
We have a little caravan trip planned for October half term, and I’m really looking forward to getting away for a few days!