I HAVE just eaten a beautiful bacon butty. Is beautiful the right descriptive word, or should it be tasty, or succulent?

No, definitely not, because the way I feel about my bacon butties is that they are definitely and always beautiful!

And now, I am going to cut up a thick slice of bread into small squares and fry them in that bacon fat so I can use them as croutons in my soup.

Oh, what a clever girl I am.

So, summer is almost over.

What summer was that, I hear you ask.

Well, my son says that we have had some good weather, so it must be that I am suffering from a bad memory, as the summers that we are having now, do not seem measure up to those long hot days of my childhood when we wore sunhats and popped tar bubbles and put cream on our backs to stop us getting sun burn.

I often wonder if the seasons are really changing or whether it’s that my memories are becomung misted by time and are just wishful thinking.

The farmer has been cutting the long grass in the field behind my house and so that is yet one more sign that those long, hot summer days that I was hoping and longing for, are not going to happen.

Do you know I can’t recall the last time I didn’t wear a cardigan.

Ah, yes, the comfortable, cosy, cardigan, that stalwart backbone and vital piece of clothing which I should imagine can be found in most northern ladies’ wardrobes.

Now, talking about them, I find at the last count, that at least half of the clothes in my wardrobe are really holiday clothes and in no way suitable for here.

So, why don’t I pack them away I hear you ask.

Well, I suppose it’s because being the eternal optimist, I am always hoping that this week will be different, and that this is the week that the sun will shine, the birds will sing and the tar will bubble.