Where did the summer go?  I don’t know about you but seemed to pass me by in a haze of kids’ activities, camping, the Olympics, fruit picking and dogs all over the place…

I must admit, for the two weeks of the summer Olympics I hardly had the TV off at all.  Luckily the sitting/dining room where our TV is situated needed painting so I coincided this with the Olympics so that I could spend every day in there with the TV on while I filled holes, sanded and painted.  The TV was pulled to the middle of the room and draped in a see-through plastic cover especially so that it could still be seen.  It worked fine.  I saw loads.  Not sure about how the room turned out though!

Besides painting we also had three dogs in the house for a couple of weeks over the summer.  I didn’t realise how much work three dogs would create.  I daren’t take my camera with me to the common on a walk with them in case I had to run after one of them!  So, sadly, I didn’t take many photos on the common over the summer.

Early morning or late evening and are the best times to walk on the common in the summer.  In the mornings the dew is still on the ground and the air has a damp expectancy to it.  Later on the dust from the day is settling creating a haze to see through and everything is calming down after the heat.  These moments on the common are beautiful, the light streams vertically across the sky illuminating the leaves.  These are some of my favourite times of the year.  These are what summer is about, being able to enjoy the “butt ends” of the day more and relax.

The onset of autumn brings a much more sedate pace.  Changes in the air create changes in mood.  Last weekend we had a fairly early walk and watched in awe as the sun burned off a beautiful morning mist rising from Queensmere Lake.

That set me up nicely for the week ahead.  Wimbledon Common can be breathtaking.  What inspiration do you find on the common?