The unofficial last day of summer?

'If this is it, I'm making the most of it,' I thought as I sat cross-legged on the grass on the 2nd of October at 4.45 in the evening, wearing only shorts and a vest top (and underwear! - someone will be wondering), and didn't even get a cold, wet backside.

For days the Met Office had been promising the arrival of colder, wetter weather by the weekend and I could feel a need to suck up the last hours of warmth.

We'd had tree surgeons in and around the garden, drive and lane most of the day, and had been trying to do that "keeping out the way but making yourself available" thing that you have to do when noisy, messy, dangerous things are going on but your opinion and tea-making skills might be needed and they might need to borrow the loo. So we popped in and out to Sainsbury's and then to walk the dog and surveyed the scene and got out of the way again, and did that arm-folded, nodding thing we all do because we're wise grown-ups with knowledge and confidence.

Then finally by about two-thirty they said they'd finished. So I put on my Shorts To Be Seen By No One Ever Because Of The Big Knees Thing, and played in my garden with my plants and enjoyed all the extra sunlight because of the tree-pruning.