Almost an equinox

Today is the 21st of September, but I have learned on the calendar that it is not the autumnal equinox just yet: it will only happen on the 23rd of September, two days from now. All the same, I consider all of September to be autumn and I certainly cannot wait for two thirds of it, let alone two more days, to consider that autumn is here. And today was very autumnal: the wind was blowing nicely, the sun seemed to bring little warmth and less light and coloured leaves were scattered on the ground. I went to the nearby park I went to yesterday, again to pick up conkers. I stayed for ages, just enjoying this autumnal day, maybe the first true autumn day we had since the beginning of the month. Almost an equinox.

Spider repellent

As an answer to the recent home invasion of arachnids, which I have blogged about here, I went to the nearest park this afternoon to get conkers. It has, among other virtues, the capacity to repel spiders. I was skeptical about it at first, but when I went a while ago to the DIY shop to buy spider repellent, I discovered that it was made of, and smelled of, conkers. So I thought this year, I'd go for the natural thing. It is cheaper, it does not smell nearly as strong and it is a good excuse as any to have a walk in a park on a day when it is finally starting to look and feel like autumn. There was a father and his daughter doing the same thing as me. I am not sure it was for the same reason, but anyway. There was this huge chestnut tree in the park and plenty of conkers to share. So I took a pocket full of them. Now I will have to scatter them around the flat.

La saison des araignées

Cette photo a été prise par mon père, c'est celle de l'une des épeires diadèmes qui avait élu résidence dans le jardin familial. On retrouve un autre portrait de la dame ici. J'ai également blogué sur nos résidentes tisseuses ici. Notez le nombre de métaphores pour dire "araignées" en un paragraphe, même court. Il risque d,y en avoir d'autres.

Enfin, j'ai téléchargé cette photo sur Vraie Fiction parce que c'est la saison des araignées, ou alors elle arrive à grands pas: vers la fin août et le début de septembre, alors que le temps se refroidit et que l'automne arrive. Ce qui veut dire qu'elles risquent de venir s'établir ici en locataires. Vous avez remarqué la même chose chez vous? J'utilise un repoussoir aux marrons pour les tenir éloignées (j'ai déjà blogué là dessus), mais comme il sent très fort je vais sans doute attendre de voir si les araignées se manifestent d'abord.

The season of arachnids

This is another anecdotal post. I am surprised to find myself creative, in spite of what I was fearing. Autumn is definitely here: it is cold and gloomy outside, or much colder than it has been, even after the (allegedly) coldest summer in twenty years. It also means that it is now the season of spiders, when they get home for winter. I find spiders beautiful, some of them anyway, but I like them less when they are black and hairy and take over the flat. And I have to take them out myself, which I don't like either (no, my wife wouldn't let me kill them).

Maybe favourite local shop is maybe a gardening/DIY shop, which looks like the most unexciting place you can find, but it is actually quite interesting. They have a miniature model of the old train station that doesn't exist anymore, which in itself makes it worth visiting. But they also have a spider repellent. It is conker based and it smells way too strong, but it does keep them away. I plan to spray some around for the next few days. So for now the smell of conkers, just like the look of a black hairy spider, are for me signs of autumn.