Autumn is coming, isn't it? Sometime soon, PLEASE.

Tomorrow is my darling grandie boy's 12th birthday. Yep 28th of FEB! We are pretty sorted for parcels after we finished off today with a bike chain lock thing and a wall fixing which will see his bike locked up outside and so release a bit of space in the lounge room. That can only be a good thing. Yeh we got him some fun bits and pieces too, cos everything practical would just be a bore.

It's supposed to be the end of summer and March 1 heralds the start of the cooler weather. Yippee!

And it has certainly been a bit cooler today. There was a sprinkle of rain overnight and just a bit of damp during the day, not even really enough to wash the windscreen, but the cloud cover has been pleasant.

Now don't get me wrong, I do very much love the loud, bright, vivid colours of OZ. Whenever I travel I'm pleased to be greeted by the COLOUR when I come home. The ads are louder and faster and colloquial and the primary colours do lively combat. But sometimes enough is more than too much and a day or 2 of London grey is a very pleasant change.

We watched the rugby replay this afternoon. The poms were playing the Italians at Twickenham. The day was overcast and misty and eventually the clouds opened, and it was lovely to be sitting under a similar sky.

And so I slumped into my chair for a little nanna snooze, when the scratchies snuck up on me. Yep unusually, the house was full of midges. Bugger.

It might be hard to believe, but we rarely get the biting little buggers IN the house. Yeh if you go out into the park, unprotected at dusk, then you are a bloody idiot, cos the midgies will just about pick you up and carry you off, and sometimes if we sit out on the deck in the evening there might be a little meal made of our feet. But somehow the little buggers usually know not to pop on passed the doorways.

Not today. Damn

So another lovely thing about the coming of winter is that these little fuckers hibernate somewhere far away from us, so there is a great deal to enjoy. Yep no biting turds and no sweating. Bring it on!

Happy birthday to my Darling Boy.