Today is 3^rd September and having spent yesterday combing our glorious National Park for birds, with my bird watching buddy, (our inveterate quest netting us a grand total of two buzzards, one mallard, several thousand crows, one Stonechat (female)and an elderly woman with tangerine hair), I can safely and accurately report that autumn is definitely in the air. This may not come as welcome news to those of you who have waited, with breath bated for the arrival of summer, but my advice is to let it go. Relinquish your hold on the vain dreams of a sun kissed voyage through the dappled delights of our region, and accept the vagaries of an English summer as your own. Celebrate our refusal to be cowed by our unfeasibly unpredictable weather. How many of us have clung tenaciously to beach tents, chairs and sunhats, whilst force 5 winds have been a mere prelude to a veritable monsoon season? You can almost see us shaking a clenched fist at a gathering sky, You can almost hear the cry, ’We are British, it is summer and we WILL have a picnic. Do your worst’. Stalwart souls all.

Our usual two weeks in Bamburgh provided an acceptable number of days when it was possible to leave the shelter of the cottage and head for the beach, but the bad days gave us the perfect excuse to stay in and enjoy the unprecedented spectacle of GB doing wonderfully well in the Olympics. This was most unexpected and not at all what we are used to. In fact, to a nation that has spent aeons celebrating heroic failure, it’s a bit of a culture shift and we had to get used to saying, ’Well done for winning a Gold Medal’ rather than, ‘Well done for making the quarter final, you did your best’. Now I could go on to discuss issues around the Olympics at some length, including references to funding, drugs, amateur status etc etc, but as this is our website and not a sports fanzine, I shall say no more.

In last months editorial, I asked for ideas about new website pages, and teased you that I had some ideas of my own. As I have been inundated with no responses, I can only assume that you a: Have no ideas to put forward, b: Have not had time to submit your ideas or c: Don’t give a toss, tick appropriate box. So, here are some of the ideas I have had. They may appeal to some of you, or they may not. Either way, you NEED TO TELL ME, Because, as much as I love this website, I don’t want it to become a completely self indulgent Kateblog.

Do you remember school?? When I was at convent school in Gosforth (I know, I know) On returning to school after the holidays, we would be charged with writing an essay entitled, ‘What I did on my holidays’. This invariably resulted in a pretty turgid collection of mini memoirs, How much more interesting could our stories be now?? I would love you to send me your summer stories. I know that some of you are confident writers and some are not, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have a story to tell. If you don’t feel comfortable writing it up, give me the bare bones and I will do the rest with you having TOTAL editorial control of course. If you have even short anecdotes, doesn’t need to be funny or momentous, I could put them together as a memoir of summer 2008, Pics too if you don’t mind publication.

I also wondered about a page for our literary types with short stories, poems etc.

Don’t forget the existing pages for Campaigns or activism you may be involved in, and pop a comment on the Guestbook.

Have a great time at Rock ‘n Doris this weekend at The Side Café, (I forgot I have a date with my Granddaughter to watch the new series of Strictly Come Dancing! Hope to see you at The Live Theatre Next Monday for Open Clasp’s production ‘A Twist of Lemon. Incidentally, we are trying to get this performed in Northumberland for those of you who can’t get into Newcastle. I will keep you posted.

Happy Autumn and see you next month

Love

Kate