Feeling busy for the last week and, as a result, my need to blog has not been exercised. It's OK though, I've been keeping notes.

I must begin on a contemporary note. A classic V-formed flock of geese just flew over, initially in five or six waves heading SW, but then a few flew back the other way briefly, honking. Maybe they had left someone behind. It is one of those days when, seasonally, small flies coat the Northerly windows. A light, particulate snack for the fattening spiders, already swollen on daddy-long-legs.

A week ago, exactly: The sun was defeated by the moon-lit phase of the day. Equinox, and on a cooling autumn evening I got out of the car and waved my nose at the starry sky to see, in sequence, the plough upright and ready for harvesting, and, a slow faint satellite heading North West (not the one that crashed on Friday). No surprise to find the car covered in dew the following morning, nor a lifting mist as I drove out across the lawn North of the village. The mist had left the ground, but only by enough to show off the damp ponies, the beautiful highland beasts, the white webs in the tops of the gorse. Just above the road, near-tangible threads of water vapour looked like folded curtains hanging across the sky, just thinner than the dusty spider webs we have in the roof at home.

I drove carefully, engrossed in other mental activities than steering, accelerating, braking. Through the woods, across a main road, swishing back and forth the curves in the next woodland until, bearing left I slowed to let two lumber lorries turn wide into an enclosure to my right. As I sped up again I had time to see the progress of a large grey slug, half way across the carriageway, unmolested, leaving an uninterrupted trail of lubricating slime. This is not a busy road, as I may have mentioned before.

At the weekend, and taking up far too much time, a collection of new PC components got shaken into their new case, with the power supply I never did get around to fitting the last time I did an upgrade, and commissioned with 64 bit linux. I completed most of that job on Tuesday evening, creating an almost perfect Minecraft processor by this morning. The other day at the weekend was taken by a visit to the Southampton Boat Show. The boat show seemed to suit everyone in the end; enough freebies and activity for the boys, some pretty boats for the DW and, for me, just the atmosphere, meeting a few folk we know, a few techy displays, miles of hulls and rigging.

Instantly, with the equinox, cherry trees showed their newly red coats, Virginia Creeper clothed buildings glowed their autumn blood tresses, the tops of the birches reflect yellow back up to the skies, sycamores hold up their dinosaur footprint leaves, spotted with the colours of ripe oats and barley.

And the Morning Pages. Just for the last two mornings; finally putting that difficulty sleeping, or excessive ease in waking, to some use. As sometimes happens, the pages seem more of a symptom of better productivity than a cause. I feel a familiar stress/relief pattern as I write them. A need to Do Stuff when they are complete. I always worry that they replace useful activity, or leave me tired, but analysis seems to show a benefit, at least until I lose the feeling of need to do them. The mandolin practice is lagging a little though, I must keep an eye out for that.

The stupid pidgeons are still trying to nest inappropriately

Meteorologically, an interesting sort of a week. We have the tail of tropical storm Katia to the North and there has been a deal of blowing and swirling around these parts too. The weekend was a little showery at the start, dampening my children who were turfed out, briefly, to worry the crabs at a local quay, while I visited a library and community centre on Saturday. On Sunday I looked out on the apples on the tree in the garden every time I passed through the kitchen, but I never got around to picking them, ready though they are. The red apple tree has exceeded the appetites of the usual vermin in its productivity this year, so I look forward to eating too many beautiful red, sweet apples (my fruit bowl is already full, as well as half a worktop in the kitchen from the drops).

Crossing the car park at work on Monday, the breeze was like standing in the back-draught of a shop doorway air-curtain heater thingy. The breeze infiltrating the summery clothing was warm, humid; completely un-autumnal. As the week has progressed, the air has grown quieter and cooler, but the shreds of cotton-wool lying on the inverted pale-blue carpet this evening are drifting, not rushing and the trees are waving tentatively, instead of doing cheerleader pom-pom impressions.

The Westerly sun is reflecting quite prettily off the slightly faded leaves of the trees, off the fire assembly point and off the retreating car trim of my departing colleagues. The car park lamps are side-lit parodies of 1950's flying saucers. The rabbits haven't come out to play yet.

I've not been sleeping well. Not due to Internet usage except in a way that is so tentatively linked that I would be embarrassed to mention it. The lack of sleep, despite occasional success in tidying the kitchen before bedtime, has caused a failure to write Morning Pages. I'm unwilling to get up at 4am and write, although I'm familiar with the theory that doing something until tiredness can be a good route back to sleep. The Morning Pages process is not conducive to sleep, nor is it a friend to sleepiness; it requires focus to write, discipline, energy. I try to avoid filling my Morning Pages with journalling; my journals are already fragmented enough with two sites online and a paper journal that I keep infrequently these days, except on holidays.

I now know the NATO phonetic alphabet backwards better than I know the English alphabet backwards. Such knowledge is an essential precursor to the RYA VHF SRC course, which is my next stop on the journey towards being able to charter a boat in UK waters. Strange that sailing itself is completely unregulated for pleasure sailors, but that calling the Mayday requires a certificate. I shall soon know my Delta Sierra Charlie from my Golf Mike Delta Sierra Sierra.

The A in ssaw

My children return to school and my wife, perhaps, to sanity. My work continues along with most other aspects of life. Playing the mandolin has not been allocated enough time since I got back from sailing, and I seem to be getting worse at making bread - I forgot the salt last time, which was not an improvement.

Generally I am finding myself unproductive. I sit and think, but doing is not starting well. I found a solution a couple of years ago in The Artists' Way, a process I might repeat in order to rediscover productivity. I didn't follow the whole programme, and I was forced to edit out the God bits, since I don't go there, but the process of writing morning pages was quite successful in my case. In order to write though I have to do my chores in the evening and get up before the house stirs; not simple with children around.

There are warnings of gales in sea areas Dover, Wight and Portland. I believe the air was clocked at around 80 mph yesterday near the Needles. We've had a few days of blow and bluster; some of it quite wet. And, blast them, people are calling Autumn. Although I do not have an active dislike for autumn, indeed it is often a pleasure to watch the leaves turn, the canopy clear and the road verges open up long sight-lines, permitting more active driving styles, I do not enjoy the turn of summer into autumn. The closing light of evenings, the death of another year, my Birthday approaching and then, bloody Christmas ;).

The sky outside is like sliding marble, looking flat despite a few darker patches below an almost complete, thin layer of high cloud. Grey to palest blue and just beginning to show the, still green, tree-line in silhouette.