To Autumn...

I know that spring is traditionally the time for being refreshed and motivated but for me it's autumn that really makes me feel energised. Maybe it's because I'm not very good in hot weather (not that we had much this year) and find myself running down to a snails pace in summer; but the onset of cooler, more mellow days always see the activity levels rise. I'm so much happier wrapping myself up against the elements and stomping through the woods or across the beach at this time of year, then coming home to a bowl of homemade soup - such bliss.

It fires my imagination too. Summer is barely gone and I'm shuffling the bead boxes around to bring the lovely earthy, spiced and mulled hues to the fore and of course, when you do that you just have to stop and make something...

 The perfect start to a Sunday morning! I hope the changing seasons bring energy and inspiration to you too.

 To Autumn
By John Keats

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.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

   Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

   Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

   Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

      Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

   Steady thy laden head across a brook;

   Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,

      Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?

   Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

   And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

   Among the river sallows, borne aloft

      Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

   Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

   The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;

      And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Lesley