September

Well September has arrived and the air in London has that back to school feel about it. The weather is still warm and the nights are drawing in but yesterday I spent a lovely morning picking blackberries in the fields surrounding the house where my mother lives.  I think we will make some jam with them over the next couple of days.

My mother also has a lot of hydrangeas in her garden and I have picked them and I am experimenting with drying them, I am not sure how they will all go as two of them are not the normal hydrangeas you see everwhere and they are beginning to resemble dried hops but I'm sure they will be beautiful and give hours of pleasure and I might try and incorporate them into a wreath. 

My lovely friend in Sydney always takes the changes of seasons and re does her house, builds a nature table and puts pumpkins and fir cones out in October and daffodils etc in spring. I feel the need to start getting the house ready for winter, make it cosier and ready for another long winter. 

In other news I am so obsessed with Pachinko on apple tv. I absolutely loved the book and binge watched the first season but that came out 2 years ago so I had to rewatch the whole thing before the second season came out last week. It is so good, set in Japan in the 1900s and switches to 1990s, its so well done and I highly recommend watching. 

I am currently reading The heart in Winter by Kevin Barry It is set in Montana in the 1800s and I'm only halfway through but really enjoying it. 

I have set myself a few projects for September, I watched a photographer on you tube say you should always have lots of projects on the go, dip in and out. I am trying to do a watercolour tutorial each day on you tube, I did some classes a few years ago and seem to have forgotten everything. I would like to get into sketching something every day but don't want to set myself too hard a task at the moment. 

I have loaded my film camera with black and white film - soooo expensive now thanks to gen z taking over film and developing! I am hoping to venture out with it soon. 

I am not good at podcasts but I think I need to give them a try, one a day, any recommendations gratefully received. 

I committed to turning up every day on instagram for the last 5 or so weeks, it was hard and challenging and exhausting but what I have learnt out of it is that I know where my style is going. I have struggled with finding where to go with my work after Sydney and the beaches and sunny lifestyle there and here in England there are so many seasonal differences that affect the light etc. I used to be able to pick a photo of the beach or icebergs and use it anytime of the year as the sun was always shining and the sky was always blue but now I find if I look at the photos I have taken over the last year, you can tell what time of year they were taken! I have decided that I like the dark and moody way my pictures are forming on my grid so that has been a positive to this challenge. 

Do tell me what you have been up to and watching and reading etc.