Seeing “Tom Baker” and “Death of the Doctor” trend together on Twitter was a scary moment, but thankfully that icon of my childhood still lives. Just an unpleasant co-incidence.

Hitting the sack early (for me, at least) as I’ll need all the energy and motivation I can manage to get through the week ahead.

That’s a commitment I’m not prepared to make, alas.

It’s nearly time for our ritual trip to Spithandle to hunt down a wild Christmas tree. Next weekend, perhaps

I retain the determination to complete the November micro.blog challenge this year. Less than a week to go!

I get more wary of applying a software update the older I get. I miss the old devil-may-care attitude to tech - back when it didn’t matter.

One unintentionally positive outcome of the cost of living crisis is that we have less food routinely in the house, which means there’s less to graze on. That should help keep the ol’ waistline down.

“Ice has a memory, and the colour of this memory is blue.”

— Robert Macfarlane, Underland 📚

Repeat a difficult thing often enough and it becomes a habit and then a pleasure. And so it is with my early morning Sunday trips to the pool. An hour by the poolside with a book and a coffee. 👌🏻

Reading a book called Mermaids by the poolside.

After revelling in non-fiction for the last few years, I have really rediscovered the novel this year, and am enjoying losing myself in other lives.

It turn out that one can tire of London without tiring of life.

It’s nice to be home in Sussex.

I know that the phone has the advantage of being the camera you always have with you, but I do enjoy the tactile nature of more traditional cameras — the viewfinder, the lens barrel, the dials and buttons. Grabbing the Canon and going shooting with it is my weekend treat.

I try to avoid spending too much money in franchise chains, but when your small, indie coffee shop is closed due to a broken coffee machine, sometimes you fall to the temptations of Starbucks — and regret it afterwards.

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A good pub is one you don’t want to leave.

My daughter enjoying an open fire in a pub.

Life doesn’t always go to plan. The secret to resilience is to just adjust and forge new paths forwards. And that’s fine.

Well, dealing with the flat tyre put pay to our planned afternoon out. But, given how tired the girls were, I have a suspicion it was for the best.

The evening light was putting in a wonderful display earlier.

Evening light by the banks of the Adur.

I just discovered that the minister from my childhood home carried on working well into his 80s.

There’s something quite moving about being that committed to a calling.

There’s a certain joy to early starts in the autumn, and this morning’s early trip to the station was spectacular.

A ranbow over houses near Hassocks station.