I think I’m turning into a grumpy old woman, Peter says I’ve been both grumpy and old for years! Today I went to the dentist.

And today was the first time in over 50 years of dental ups and downs that I have ever been asked to wear protective safety goggles. What’s that about?

Over the years I’ve had fillings, extractions, braces, an abscess on an impacted wisdom tooth, extraction of the said wisdom tooth (with only a local anaesthetic) all without damage to life or limb. Don’t you think the world has gone mad?

Even the filling I had was high tech. No mixing of amalgam, pressing it into place, smoothing it off etc. Instead he just fiddled about and then zapped it with some kind of beeping ‘thing’. Very quick and completely painless. I’m having my ear syringed on Monday, I wonder what protective equipment that will entail?

Anyway, when I got home I went into the garden to pick a few apples and collect up some windfalls. It’s been very windy here over the last 24 hours.

The red geraniums, which I put in the conservatory some weeks ago, are still flowering their socks off. Their pure scarlet colour is quite stunning even from indoors, even better since I cleaned the windows!

The flowering cherry trees that have been a picture over the last few days, dressed in their finest Autumn colours, have shed most of their leaves now making a yellow and red carpet all across the field.

My favourite time of year is undoubtedly Spring, but even I have to admit, the Autumn colours do take some beating.