It's very pretty but...

Oxford is very beautiful at the moment with the leaves changing colour, and the squirrels busy foraging, and the waterways full of newly returned Canada geese. The other morning, as I rode to the station in the pink dawn light, through the field of glittering silver grasses of the first frost, and the light fog rising off the river, I thought "isn't it pretty... but **** it's cold".

To help me cope with the cold I have been baking, and drinking. Now we have the bar all stocked up, Adam has started making cocktails and we have been enjoying the occasional glass of port after dinner. And will all my new cookbooks and new cookware I have been cooking up a storm - creme brulee, meringues, lasagne with pasta made from scratch, ginerbread biscuits (had to use the cookie cutters!), butternut squash salads, artichokes and lashings of peanut sauce. And we have been having raclette about once a week (the french market came to town with real raclette cheese - it was a sign).

So here are few photos from autumn in Oxford, taken during the middle of a dry, sunny, windless day when I am actually brave enough to venture out.





































































































While we were away they introduced a 20 mph speed limit on residential streets - I could see the no £ sign from a distance but couldn't read the small print below. I had much higher hopes for what it might say.




















The bar & cocktails...