Summer is now officially over here in France and the autumn leaves have arrived.

This week has seen the covering of the pool, our first frost of the autumn season and we have had to light a fire to take the chill off in the evenings. That’s actually quite nice because we have a big log burning fire and it is very pleasant to have a real fire.

The days are still pretty glorious however and we are waking up to lots of lovely sunshine which has a real warmth to it during the day.

I actually love this time of year, its when I feel inspired to get the camera out and take a few photographs of the autumn skies and the changing landscape with the amazing light and different colours you get from all the trees going into their winter preparations.

The holiday season isn’t quite over as we still have people arriving next week for the UK half term break which they have decided to take with us here in the South of France, good decision I think and hopefully the sun will continue to shine for a couple more weeks.

We have actually sat out well into November before now having lunch at a cafe in town when the sun is shining. Obviously not every day is like that and there is a chance the weather can turn to be pretty chilly or wet, but when that sun comes out it really is warming, even at this time of the year.

A little about French life, its funny how the chores change as you go through the year, I am now looking to build the wood pile for those winter evenings, I know I will have to start soon, in fact probably should have already if I am honest. So instead of tending to the pool I am cutting wood, preparing fires and taking care of the maintenance jobs I have been putting off all summer on the basis it was way too hot for that sort of work. Oh well no more excuses now, guess I will just have to get on with it.

We are also looking to install a log burner in the gite, which has now taken on a little more urgency, although in typical French style I have been waiting for about 3 weeks for the local heating engineer to come up with a quote following his initial visit. We did think at one point that it would have been nice to have it in for next week, but ‘c’est la vie’, I guess the central heating will have to kick in if it is too chilly.

Of course while I am waiting there are plenty of walks to go on armed with my trusty Nikon D40 SLR camera to capture a few seasonal snapshots.