The first almost unnoticeable touch of Autumn today.

I was looking out the windows. A good pastime when you are crook and it hit me for the first time this year that the light was a little softer, a little gentler. It is a magic day here. Every leaf holds the sunlight but not in the withering way of summer...this is just beautiful. I am so grateful for Autumn every year, it is my favourite season always...but this year it seems more welcome. Sort of a soothing balm for the country and the people.

So today instead of seeing the bushes and trees loaded up with feral vines which defy all but the sharpest wood saws, and have thorns, there were the trees standing still and tall...instead of seeing the weeds which are out of control after the flood, then hot sun and my time away there were the plants and bushes, all colours of the rainbow in their flowers. Don's favourite plant was the Blue Ginger which is the last picture. We originally bought it together over at a Wauchope nursery in the late 1990's and it spread in our old house... then we bought some here. I planted it just outside the big sliding door of our bedroom so when Don was bed ridden as he was a fair bit in the last years, he could see this plant and watch the bees and birds come to it. Watch it blowing in the breezes and catch the light that it is catching today.

Sometimes it is just so beautiful it makes me want to cry. Not in a sad way...I guess its just an opening of the heart, as happens when we see things of true beauty. For me its like a chord has been sounded, and when the notes of that chord are in perfect harmony my heart wells, and too often I cry. While the world can be really hard to live in at times, and while we all go through too much sometimes, its days like this which let me know that there is more than what we can see and measure that makes this little planet turn around in this great and beautiful universe.

Tomorrow may be different... i may have a flat tyre on the way somewhere and grumble because I can't get the nuts off the wheel imagining the universe is once again conspiring against me...as if???

I may be becoming a hermit for now, but I think that what we do always seems to happen at the right time for what we need... I need to be here as I am. This place has magic. When i stand at the slip rails and watch the sun set, or just go up the long driveway... it feels right.

Don and I moved out here under no illusions in early 2004. We both knew that at best we would only have four or five years at the very outside. I know in hindsight that much of his efforts after 2004 were towards setting things up so it would all be complete, and that there'd be no more to do than keep it going which is no mean feat (thanks Don). We only had a couple of Christmases here but they were the best and the four of us were so in sync it was always great. There was one Christmas when for a while Don seemed unusually grumpy and "different". I was worried that maybe he'd had a mild stroke because his face looked different in the photos for a day or so and then it all lifted. As he did have another one about 18months later, which also passed I think that this was what this was all about, but the girls were upset not knowing why their Dad was so hard to be with. But once it was over he was himself.

I handed my manuscript over to a Journalist yesterday who offered to read through it with the hope to finding me a publisher...I have to hope... (just an aside)

My sister Joan and her daughter Alanah are in the early days re grieving for Bruce. I left their place at 4am on Thursday for home and left a note which said "You will never get over Bruce, nor forget him but the pain will ease very slowly as time passes, not quickly. But it will ease and one day you'll think you are okay and something will slam you back and the tears will flow, but these days will get less and you are not going mad." When Don was killed I was scared that I would forget his voice, his sayings and his ways... but its like they have melded into me and are part of me. I find myself using terms he used which I seldom used...things like that. I hope I can be helpful for Joan and Alanah, but will need to also protect myself a bit as I did not do so well at the funeral home...I just could not go in. She understood. She's one of the goodies in this world.

Now outside clouds have come over and rain may come but the stillness is absolute. not a bird call, not a car, just the fan (its still warm). When the big events in life happen as with Joanie's husband if you are still enough it brings you back to something sacred if that makes sense. Thats how I feel today. If I was well I'd be out there sweeping or weeding /whatever...I think I needed to stop and smell the roses.