Autumn and Gardens                                          2020-10-02
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Autumn is definitely here now. After the Texas summer, where it's
unpleasantly warm when you get up and hot when you go to bed, it's
refreshing to step outside into slightly chilly air with morning
coffee. This is the time of year I enjoy most living in Texas. The
weather is good. Lovely temperatures to get out and about, but without
so many storms as happen in the spring.

I've cut back on my leisure-time computing a bit recently, on the face
of it as I'm a bit tired of the treadmill of the software world, and
all the public negativity about tech stuff which occupies the web and
other spaces. Maybe it's not really that, though. At this time of year
I'm always likely to be spending more time in the garden, taking the
children places outdoors, or just riding my bike anyway.

Yesterday evening we had fun as we forked all of the compost from the
last year out of one of our compost heaps, so there's space for the
onslaught of leaves that will soon start to fall. Lots of digging and
bugs to see that entertained the children, and tired them out a little
before bed. The Chrysanthemums in planters, which bravely held on to
life in the summer heat, have all started to flower again. We also
have some roses blooming, and masses of yellow flower on Lantana in
the back yard. Time to take a trip to the big nursery that's only a
couple of minutes away from us to buy some more things to plant for
Autumn / Winter colour.

All of this makes me feel very lucky to have a garden. We've not been
going out and about much at all since the Coronavirus stuff started,
as we help out extended family who are very vulnerable to it. Without
a garden to potter about in, and have the kids run around in, it'd
have definitely been harder on our sanity. I sometimes wish that at
some point we had lived properly in a city, in an apartment, within a
stroll of museums, restaurants, the downtown parks etc. This is
definitely not one of those times. I am in awe of the people surviving
lockdowns, work from home, remote schooling etc. in small apartments
with young children.

I am very lucky indeed that with my fully remote job, and within the
bubble of our house and garden, there is little difference vs. the
'before times'.