What does Autumn mean to you?

For me it is dark mornings and nights, and the smell of bonfires… 🙂

A season that doesn’t lie to me. A season I can trust.

Baking

My favourite colours,clear fresh air.

Spectacular sunsets, where you seem to be able to see forever, and clean, crisp mornings

The coming of the dark. BBBLLLLAAACCKKKKK, WHAT’S FOR TEA MOTHER? PPIIIINNNSSS.

leaves, jumpers, the start of dark beer, pies and real fires.
Throw in some slow cooked food and hugging the aga (when I had one) after a ride

Playing conkers and crunching through the leaves with minivader

Oooooo – and the slow cooker coming back out of retirement. Just christening it this week. Theres been a beef goulash in there all day. Mmmmmmmmm

a bit of this;

a bit of that;

Best biking of the year. You’re fit from the summer but temps are better. Slippy, slidey leaves.

Best sailing of the year. It gets windier. Crisp mornings.

Christmas is coming.

I also loved school so reminds me of being back in September.

Rugby.

Apple pie.

Bonfire night.

What’s not to like?

The best season going.
The colours, the smells, the baking, the food, the comfortable temperatures, cyclocross and great trips out. Also Walking Dead & Gotham should be back on 😀

The downside.

XFactor is on TV as is Strictly Come Bore me and soon to be The Voice which is going the same was as Crapfactor “Oh pick me my mum has leukemia *sniff*”

Unfortunatley the Mrs watches em!

Slow cooker came out last week.
Beef in beer this weekend. Had been thinking about doing pork in cider.
Apple crumble dish comes out this week too.

As my mate Cal said to some of the new kids the first day back at school ‘it gets worse’

Can I add a good smokey single malt on a cold evening…

…death and decay. I hate Autumn!

Morning rides.

Starting of a bit cool and finishing just right.

Best season of them all, crisp mornings, most of the wee beasties have gone, and it’s slow cooker time.

The smell of coal fires throughout the village, it being dark by the time you got home from school, conkers, roast chestnuts, and the annual trip to Kelham Island Museum (and brewery…)

Best season by far.

6 months of perpetual darkness….

The slow onset of winter, dark mornings and later afternoons, wet slippy trails that get churned up, the inevitable onslaught of the run up to Christmas. The bringer of death to fast dusty trails. At least Winter you know it’s supposed to be miserable out and take some relish in being out in frosty weather.
Best season – Spring, by a country mile.

Autumn to me is: biking in the leaves/mud, shifting firewood, nights in with the woodburner going (we don’t use the central heating unless it’s REALLY COLD), start of the shooting season, the back lanes getting muddy and shitty, covering my car in brown slime, making me feel like a rally driver, feeding the sheep, clearing the polytunnel, doing jobs around the farm that have been postponed all year.

And for me, Rallying, or more specifically Rally GB – November is its traditional home, I’ve been going since I was about 8 or 9 (bunking off primary school), it’s a couple of months away, but as soon as I see a cold, foggy, dark morning I’m reminded of those 4am starts to watch my heroes come through the local villages on the road sections to that days stages, then shooting off to see them in action. It’s why I bother spending a large proportion of my money on rallying now, rallying to me is 6am in a Welsh forest, 5°C, barely 100 yards visibility, grey sticky mud everywhere, and a bunch of nutters doing 100mph between the trees.

getting to wear longs & jackets

and cyclocross

and CX Hairs vids

what’s not to like !

Silent, perfect night rides.
Epic sunsets.
Sunrise commutes.
Brambles finally giving, instead of taking.
Starry nights.
Puffer training.

It’s all good.

Stifado!
The warmest stew anywhere!

Piles of wet leaves round the next corner, just waiting to take you down.

Crisp damp mornings giving way to nice sunny days once the mist burns off….

Autumnal smells
The last warm water in Saunton at Autumn half term
Shooting
Fatstock day in the market place
Soft landings in the woods
Two kids’ birthdays

Soup – made my first one of the year yesterday (roasted Mediterranean veg & pancetta)
Woodsmoke
Cool not cold.
Diet 🙁

Bleedin fireworks going off all hours from about now until christmas!!!!! 😈

Other than that I like autumn, when the sun comes out it’s bloody lovely.

and the TV weather folk can say autumnal!!

The short opening of some seasonal trails where the nettles have died back but before the ground turns to winter mud & sludge.

Dashed hopes.

Hope for crisp sunny days and lovely autumn colours.

Get a couple of them then endless low pressure systems blowing all the autumn leaves off and turning the trails to slop that’ll last 6 months.

It used to mean going to American for Thanksgiving.. the weather there was good. Still, grey, cold, calm, a bit frosty, hushed waiting for snow.. loved that.

Used to signify:

Beginning of new ventures
The Equinox/New Year
Beautiful scents and long walks/rides with friends
Fruit picking
Mushroom picking, winter veg, soups
Photographing sublime mists
Chilli every Sunday
Huddled in country pubs

Since married:

Heating
Heating bills
Heating discussions
Hearing about the cold
Guarding against the wet
Guarding against the cold
Etc 😕

I am surprised so many people stop using their slow cooker. Mine gets used through the year for freezer stuff!

A couple more I have thought of.

Fair weather riders are home and away 😛
Idiots driving with their windows down playing sh!t music.

All together now children!

Autumn days when the grass is jewelled
And the silk inside a chestnut shell.
Jetplanes meeting in the air to be refuelled.
All these thing I love so well

So I mustn’t forget
No, I mustn’t forget.
To say a great big
Thank You
I mustn’t forget

Clouds that look like familer face
And the winters moon with frosted rings.
Smell of bacon as I fasten up my laces
And the song the milkman sings

So I mustn’t forget
No, I mustn’t forget.
To say a great big
Thank You
I mustn’t forget

Whipped-up spray that is rainbow-scattered
And a swallow curving in the sky
Shoes so comfy though they’re worn out and they’re battered
And the taste of apple pie.

So I mustn’t forget
No, I mustn’t forget
To say a great big thank you
I mustn’t forget.

Scent of gardens when the rain’s been falling
And a minnow darting down a stream
Picked-up engine that’s been stuttering and stalling
And a win for my home team.

So I mustn’t forget
No, I mustn’t forget
To say a great big thank you
I mustn’t forget.

Apple pie & worn out shoes lines are my favourite!

Autumn to me – dog shit hidden under leaves

Mr Buzz Killington, everyone.

3rd best after Spring and Summer.

Bike related ??

Ok then…

This..

and this..

Putting socks on in the study as its cowd on mi feet ,and having to wear jeans again to work and pack the shorts away for a few months , and finally spending more on muckoff cleaning gear