The temperatures have really dropped these last couple of days. It's already 7C and it's not 8pm yet. By the middle of the night, I just don't know what it'll be.

I'm trying to save on electricity, but not to the point that I'm freezing. As you know my house has high rooms but no central heating!! So my faithful Halogen heaters are facing me and I'm warming up. I do hope you all here aren't freezing too much.

The weather though has been very kind to us down here in the South West, these past couple of days - we've had glorious sunny days but the days are so short, it's not warming us up much. I was washing up and looked out at the lilac trees and realised that the leaves were now starting to curl inwards and are changing colour into beautiful gold. Against the bright blue sky - they really looked lovely.

Curling leaves as they dry up

Leaves turning into gold

Then further down the lilacs, the leaves were still a sort of green, so hopefully the leaves should stay on the trees for a couple of weeks yet.

The lilac trees still manage green leaves

See what I mean? The birds in my garden are flying and dancing around the branches, maybe it's their way of keeping warm!!!

Had a bit of a shock - well "bit" is an understatement really. Last week, Emily went upstairs to find something and heard "drip - drip" coming from the spare bedroom. She went in and saw this.......
It shouldn't look like this!!!

Great isn't it? I've got the insurance surveyor coming round on Monday to assess the cost etc. There no way anyone could have known this was going to happen, so they'd better not say we should have. My neighbours very kindly went up into the loft and they found the culprit. The flashing going down between the roofs of my house and next door was leaking. It's just as well I don't sleep in there - I'm downstairs. Emily looked at the floor etc to check that the water hadn't gone and ruined the floor in the spare bedroom - it hadn't - thank heavens.

I don't understand my coping mechanism nowadays really. Once before I'd been ill, I could face situations like this head-on and sort things out myself - nowadays, it really unsettles me and I just can't work out what to do or who to call. It's horrible - and boy am I so lucky with my neighbours and Emily, who have stepped in and sorted things out for me. Richard, my neighbour has even offered to come over on Monday and take the surveyor round and talk to him and explain my situation. I'll let you know what happens.

I wish you all a wonderful weekend and a great week to come.