A Writer's Life

"The quiet transition from autumn to winter is not a bad time at all.  It's a time for protecting and securing things and for making sure you've got in as many supplies as you can.  It's nice to gather together everything you possess as close to you as possible, to store up your warmth and your thoughts and burrow yourself into a deep hole inside, a core of safety where you can defend what is important and precious and your very own.  Then the cold and the storms and the darkness can do their worst.  They can grope their way up the walls looking for a way in, but they won't find one, everything is shut, and you sit inside, laughing in your warmth and your solitude."

Tove Jansson:  Moominvalley in November



Autumn is one of my favourite seasons too - for much the same reason.  I love the darkening nights, the warm evenings curled up on the sofa, the sense of looking inwards, being safe within four walls, with the wind and the rain battering at the windows unab…