A Fall with no pumpkin...

 As some of you already know (particularly those of you who have lived with or near me during the autumn months), I LOVE fall.  It is my favorite season by far.  I love when the air starts to get chilly and starts to smell like campfires.  I love turning on lamps and lighting candles and sitting in front of the fireplace.  I love when the leaves start to change and fall to the ground, I love brown, and harvest time, corn, hayrides, mulled wine, corn hole, scarecrows, orange, tights, cornbread, apple cider, college football, bean soup, Thanksgiving, red, sweaters, corn mazes, cinnamon brooms, scarves, gourds, fingerless gloves, butternut squash, and yellow.  And I love baking and cooking with pumpkin.  Pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie, pumpkin soup, pumpkin anything really.  I just love it.  And I love fall.

But, alas.  I have moved to a place that doesn't really have fall as I know it.  I guess when it never really gets much hotter than 75, a significant change in temperature doesn't really take place in October.  And when you live in a city by the sea, there aren't a ton of trees to change color.  And the shops aren't full of fall merchandise, because they don't have Thanksgiving and seem to have skipped right over fall and put out all the Christmas stuff in September.  And pumpkin is for decorating with, not for eating.

Sad, isn't it?  But, I can't say I wasn't prepared.  I knew it would be this way.  In fact, I had several conversations about it with people before I left...back in August.   And I know that even now it's not even half way through October, so there is still fall to be had.  And I will make it happen.  I think the lack of fall-ness makes me miss home because the cozy, homey feeling that comes with fall makes me think of home.  But, don't you worry.  I bought a mulled wine candle the other day and made butternut squash gratin, and wore my brown tights, and turned on the one lamp in our house.  Bring on the fall.

And despite the not-very-many-tress-that-change-color-yet sadness, there is much natural beauty to be seen.  This weekend Cherie, Kelly, and I headed about 45 minutes west of here out to the Gower peninsula to a beach called Rhosilli.

 

If you look really closely on the lower left 

you can see someone rock climbing

Happy October!  Hope you are enjoying the fall things.