My Month of November

I have never needed my camera more, this month has been hard on the soul. With a funeral, illness, accidents and the events of Paris, which we visited earlier this year, there is nothing I have enjoyed more than photographing and styling to empty my head of its cloudy whirlwind of emotional mush.

The more photos I take, the more I love fall in love with my camera. Taking pictures of the children, places we visit and food acts as a journal, helping me to recall the wonderful memories we have made throughout the year. Days like this one, spent sauntering through the wonderful Elvaston Castle grounds, the children let their hair down and enjoyed the cool autumn day by running through the leaves and mud, collecting twigs along the way.

Autumn brings with it a mixture of emotions anyway, gone are the sandals, sun hats and summer dresses and here are wooly jumpers, tights and welly boots. I am definitely more of a summer person, as much as I love snuggling in the front of the telly, I would prefer to be out and about, preferably without having to don heavy coats and itchy hats that make my hair frizzy! Maybe it's time to invest in some nice jumpers so I can layer up more.

The cold weather isn't all bad though, being out and about means we can stand huddled together drinking hot chocolate,  quickly eating food without your gloves before your hands start to freeze. Getting home to a warm house and roast dinner and snuggling up on the sofa.

Being indoors means baking, making and creating and with so many deep autumn flavours to chose from and so many pretty colours and themes to be able to use, autumn definitely has its pros. My heart hasn't quite made it into the cold days yet but it will and then we can all wrap up and get cosy. 

Hopefully, once the Christmas tree is up and the house is looking festive things will feel better. We headed to our local garden centre on Saturday to welcome Santa, it was rather cold but afterwards we headed to the park with some warm sausage rolls and then on to the pub for a hot chocolate. We met up with my brother, his girlfriend and her daughter, which was nice. I am so up for more family and friend get-togethers, just need to find some more time at the weekends and finish off our house.

Hopefully the next few weeks won't go too quickly, I need time to plan presents, food and enjoy the festivities as they start to take place. Christmas always seems to slip by so quickly and before I know it we are into the New Year.

How do you plan your weeks running up to Christmas, I need a planner me thinks!