Autumn starts today. I’ve felt like we’ve been waiting all week for it. My birthday traditionally collides with the equinox but this year the two were days apart, which has made time liminal, caught between celebration and change. I’ve been spoilt rotten, frankly, with party guests venturing from the countryside and cake for breakfast and pretty cards littering the mantelpiece. I feel very lucky and very loved and it’s important to acknowledge and name these things, because there are times when that doesn’t happen.

Now a new season is upon us. Many people find the end of summer sad, I know, but this one was weird for me and I’ve always loved autumn. I know the routines of it and increasingly I’m finding my life hewing to them. In autumn I put down the words and ideas I’ve been carrying in my head for the previous years. In autumn I order non-fiction and work through it as the nights draw in. In autumn I make soup for lunch, and eat crumpets. I don’t like the darkness and I have to fight the pall of it every year, it seems, but I do like the quiet. I find it easier to write in autumn.

Usual tasty morsels below. If you’re currently a free member to savour, thank you for reading, firstly, but also I’m running an equinox competition on my Instagram where you and a pal can win lifetime paid subscriptions, so you can read savourites every week in full and gain free access to the events and offers members benefit from. Or, you could just treat yourself and upgrade. I’m grateful either way.