Despite the warm weather we have been having lately, the signs of autumn are galloping towards us. Little by little, my Bonsai are getting ready for their winter sleep and their leaves are gradually beginning to change colour. As they start to close down, they change colour, imperceptible at first, then transformed by the red and gold just before losing their leaves.
The colour change is a wonderful sight, but when the tiny leaves begin to fall I always feel a little sad, as I miss seeing them in leaf.

It reminds me more poignantly that I am approaching my own autumn (and hopefully I won’t turn scarlet!) emphasised mainly by the fact that I am not at my best this week.  My body is already telling me that I will not enjoy the cold weather and some of my joints are having a practice run!

I have been doing a lot of gazing out of my window this week (as I don’t feel like doing much else) and just love the way Mother Nature goes about her business, come hell or high water. Maybe we could all learn from her example, especially me. But I’m afraid it is all too easy for me to find excuses for not doing what I ought. I find myself constantly using my age as the perfect excuse, and I really must stop doing that, it’s pathetic and doesn’t match how I have lived my life up until now.
The only thing I have always known for sure is that you can do anything, provided you want to enough. So if you are still breathing, just get on with it!

It is easy to think of autumn as the end of life as we know it, when in fact it is just part of the sequence. A resting time to reflect on how much better and brighter next spring will be. And we need that slowing down, as working flat out all the time is unsustainable. We need to look back at the past year and really see what worked and what didn’t.

You know what I mean, all those things you thought were important at the time but turned out not to be. I have learned such a lot this year, but the fact that I am still making colossal mistakes only proves there is so much more to do.

It would be easy to mimic the seasons, shut down and hibernate until spring arrives; and I must admit that sounds incredibly tempting…

But we have books to finish, Anita’s busily scribbling away, so lots of editing there. I also have a pile of how-to notes to wade through. Some to digest, others to discard; time to clear the decks and really get organised, ready for a new year with all those lovely new possibilities…

And a big thank you to all those of you who have helped us this year, you know who you are…