Keats' Autumn

"Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness"

This is what he was talking about. The dawn has finally chimed in with my getting up time, and this morning was a cracker. In fact, I spent so long outside gawping at it, mug of tea in one hand, camera in the other, that we were nearly late for school. Just as the sun poked its head above the hills, the mist rolled in up the valley and in 5 minutes flat the whole area was blanketed. Twenty minutes later, the mist rolled off to the west leaving just the valley bottoms holding the remnants. If only the drive to work hadn't been such a frantic dash I'd have had time to stop for some beautiful shots. Tomorrow maybe.

So today, the day you've all been waiting for: taping and filling the plasterboard walls. And what a journey of thrills and spills it has been (no, really). It was pretty warm today, so getting the filler on the wall, then the tape before the filler had set, was quite a challenge. We eventually worked out a good system, which also allowed me some time to wander about with a filling knife sorting out some of the gouges out of the walls. It will never be a perfectly smooth paint job, but we'll make it as good as we can. Though as Mr B pointed out - it's only us who'll notice so we shouldn't be too fussy about it. (But then, it's only me I'm doing it for - so it still needs to be done.)

The kids had another great day at school, and Conor delighted in showing off the fancy cursive writing he is learning at school. Katherine surprised us all (and herself I think) by trying a chilli tonight - and quite liking it. Today I finally got around to stringing the chillis up for drying - and very pretty they look too. I'm sure you'll be seeing them on the many slow blip days to come. I think the chillis are the big success story of the garden - 112 large chillis from two small plants that cost 3 euros each, on top of the ones we've been using throughout the summer. And still some to come.

The other success story is not one I can take any credit for: another three kilos of figs collected tonight. A friend sent me a fine looking orange/fig/fennel pudding idea so between that, more jam, dried figs, drunken figs and frozen figs, I think we'll get through them.

One failure to report though. After a rather disturbed night last night, I can confirm that there is a very good reason that aubergines are normally cooked very thoroughly. My last minute dinner addition of lightly cooked aubergines had unfortunate repercussions on me that I don't really want to go into.

I'm definitely going back to my failsafe cooking them for two hours in vinegar and spices to make a mush to eat with flatbread.