Is it winter already?

After a few days of persistent drizzle and a forecast that includes light snow overnight, I'm beginning to wonder what has happened to Autumn!

We've been hunkered down indoors, tiling kitchen walls,  keeping the wood burners stoked up  and taking the dogs for wet walks.  How far we go depends on how wet it is, steady drizzle I don't mind but when it blows inside your hood and trickles off your raincoat and inside your boots - well, then it's time to come home and dry off.

We'd just finished lunch today, made a cup of tea and I was thinking about another wet walk when the electric went off.  We expect brief power cuts when it's bad, especially when there's snow or high winds around, but at lunch time it wasn't any of those things so we thought it'd be a brief cut-off.  But no, it was much longer.  It went off at 2pm and by 6pm when it was getting gloomy indoors we lit candles in the lounge and found the 'bluey'.  I don't know the proper name for the bluey, John calls it that.  It's a blue portable gas bottle,  its  flame has a glass cover over it,  we inherited it with the house.  I think it's probably something campers might use?  Anyway, it only comes out once in a blue moon and we'd only had it and the candles alight for about half an hour, when the electricity came back on.

We've left everything out though, just in case!